Cyprus:
Bronze Age
Iron Age
Copper
Trade
Transport
Non-frames pages
Giza & the Pyramids
Nuzi & the Hurrians
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Exhibit curated by Helena Wylde Swiny
Cyprus is a large, mountainous island in the eastern Mediterranean, 120 km west of Syria and 70 km south of Turkey. The heavily forested Troodos massif in the southwest and the Kyrenia range along the north coast flank the rolling central Mesaoria plain. Elsewhere, hills partition the island into winding river valleys and narrow coastal plains. The Troodos foothills are rich in copper, and in antiquity Cyprus gave its name to the metal. The abundance of copper, the diverse yet compact landscape, and the proximity of Syro-Anatolia directly affected patterns of human settlement on Cyprus and, thus, its archaeology.
In 1865, General Luigi de Palma Cesnola, a naturalized Italian American, became the United States' consul to Cyprus, and while there, he began to acquire antiquities. While Cesnola's excavations on the island in the 1860-70s were, frankly, treasure hunts, he did draw attention to the rich antiquity of the land. When he left Cyprus, he took with him thousands of objects, which formed part of the original collection of the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
In 1995, the Semitic Museum acquired, in a three-way exchange with the Stanford University Museums and the Harvard University Art Museums, a portion of the famous Cesnola collection which Stanford had purchased from the Met. The Semitic Museum's collection comprises over 1300 ceramic vessels, lamps, figurines, stone, glass, and metal objects from Cyprus, dating from ca. 2300 BCE to 700 CE. This exhibit at the Semitic Museum features selected pieces from the collection, along with other Cypriot artifacts from the Peabody Museum of Harvard University, the Museum of Fine Arts-Boston and the State University of New York in Albany.
The Semitic Museum would like to invite you to view a selection of the artifacts currently on display in the exhibit, Ancient Cyprus: The Cesnola Collection. Hopefully you will also visit us, if possible, and see the full exhibit. You may click on some items in the case photos for additional detail and information.