Klavdia-Tremithos in the United Kingdom
Birmingham
In 1902, the authorities of the recently-chartered Birmingham University approached the British Museum requesting some duplicate antiquities for use as teaching material. The Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities gave a small number of items from the sites of Enkomi, Klavdia and ‘Paphos’ (possibly Koulkia) on Cyprus which had been excavated by the British Museum during the previous decade. In addition, some material from Kameiros on Rhodes was also donated. A report submitted by A.S. Murray, the Keeper of Greek and Roman Antiquities, to the Trustees explained that there was a ‘considerable number’ of unwanted duplicates which had not been registered in the collection and which could therefore be given away. This material has not yet been identified in the collections of the University of Birmingham. However, from the descriptions and minute sketches in Murray’s report, it seems that the Klavdia material included what looks like a Tell Yahudiyeh or Black Slip juglet and a perforated stone weight.[1]
Leeds, Leeds Museums and Art Gallery
In 1902, the Trustees of the British Museum also donated some duplicate material from the excavations at Klavdia to the Museum of the Leeds Literary and Philosophical Society. This was at the request of Nathan Boddington, principal of Yorkshire College, Leeds, whose students used the collections of the ‘Lit and Phil’ for study purposes. The Society had previously received objects from the Amathus excavations of 1893–4 for its museum. The 1902 donation also included items from Enkomi and Paphos.[2] The collections of the Literary and Philosophical Society were given to Leeds city council in 1921 where they became a major part of the newly-created Leeds City Museum.[3]
Not all the material from the original donation is now obviously identifiable but items definitely from Klavdia include a Black Slip juglet, a White Painted bottle, a Base Ring II lentoid flask and a body sherd from a Pastoral Style crater decorated with a bull. The latter is close in style to a Pastoral Style krater from Klavdia in the BM collections (GR 1899,1229.129).[4]
Oxford, Ashmolean Museum
Hector Catling collected some sherd material of Late Bronze at the site in 1952 during his work for the Cyprus Survey. This was exported under license to the United Kingdom and donated to the Antiquities Department of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. This is listed in Malmgren’s catalogue as nos 201–218.[5]
- ^ [1] - GR Reports April 1902–June 1903, 17–20 (4 July, 1902). This will be the subject of future research in the museum of the Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity at Birmingham University.
- ^ [2] - GR Reports April 1902–June 1903, 17–20 (4 July, 1902); GR Original Letters 15 July 1902 (from N. Boddington) and 25 July 1902 (from H. Crowther).
- ^ [3] - I am grateful to Katherine Baxter, Curator of Archaeology at the Leeds Museums and Galleries for this information (e-mail of 3 March 2011).
- ^ [4] - I am very grateful to Lauren Ryall-Stockton and Katherine Baxter of the Leeds Museums and Galleries for kindly providing information about the Cypriot collections in Leeds in 2010 and 2011.
- ^ [5] - Malmgren 2004, 61–2.