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In his book, Cyprus: Its Ancient Cities, Tombs, and Temples, first published in 1877, Cesnola recorded his excavations of sanctuaries and city sites and boasted of having opened 60,932 tombs, an astronomical and certainly grossly inflated number. For all its inaccuracies, exaggerations and pure fabrications, this remains an important work in that it was the first widely distributed account of the island's ancient material culture. It also contains engaging accounts of Cypriot life during the last years of Ottoman rule. Cesnola was justifiably criticized, already in the nineteenth century, for fabricating the existence of the so-called "Treasure of Curium," much as his rival Heinrich Schliemann is now known to have augmented "Priam's Treasure" with jewelry bought from the local bazaars or found elsewhere on the site that he believed was ancient Troy.

The objects illustrated in the plates of Cesnola's Cyprus: Its Ancient Cities, Tombs and Temples are for the most part accurately portrayed and identifiable, if some allowance is made for artistic license. One piece of the Semitic Museum's Cesnola Collection, a Byzantine bronze belt buckle from Dali (ancient Idalion) is illustrated in Plate IV, shown here (circled). The incised concentric circles and a break on the buckle's left side are clearly visible in Cesnola's published engraving. An additional four sets of concentric circles became evident when the belt was cleaned in 1997.

This type of buckle came to Cyprus with the Byzantine military forces during the seventh century AD. From the late sixth century AD Byzantine cavalry were obliged by the emperor to wear regulation belts of this Avarian shape. This object, Semitic Museum Number. 1995.10.1242, can be seen in the View Objects section of this site.