Cyprus at first glance
I am spending almost 2 months in Cyprus - August and September. The hottest months of the year here. An endless Summer vacation. An island. A place somewhere between Europe, Asia and Africa. Here are some highlights I would like to keep in handy for later.
_location
Somewhere between Europe, Asia and Africa. A hot island with a lot of dust and sand. But not a desert. An oasis?
_museums in Cyprus
The Cyprus Museum [Nicosia]
The Cyprus Museum is the island’s main and largest archaeological museum, and charts the development of Cyprus’ civilisation from the Neolithic Age to the Early Byzantine period (7th century).
▶▶ source: the museum's website
// practicalities:
_entrance and audio guide are free [as of August 2023]
_the audio guide is a necessity - at some point, there are no descriptions of the artefacts, so you basically are lost without it [in case you want to know what are you looking at]
// highlights:
_faces - as a person who is somewhat obsessed with faces [I often carry a marker in my bag to bomb some places & objects which need a little push to become cute faces], I absolutely loved looking at a great selection of ancient figures with cute faces
_octopus - a recurring illustration on pottery to absolutely love and get inspired by; mainly from around 13C. b.c.
_the 1/3 excavation rule - in 1929, The Swedish Cyprus Expedition investigated the archaeology of the early history of Cyprus. During this project, the Sanctuary of Ayia Irini was excavated where 2000 terracotta figures were found. The practice at the time was the following: 1/3 go to the owner of the land, 1/3 to the local Government and 1/3 to Sweden. A similar situation goes with other expeditions as we well know. However, seeing some photos of artefacts kept in Sweden, UK and Germany, not all the 1/3rds are equal, of course.
Archaeological Museum of the Larnaka District [Larnaka]
The Archaeological Museum of the Larnaka District was initially housed in a room of the Saint Lazarus Church. In 1948 the collection was moved to the city's Ottoman period castle and in 1969 the current Museum was established. In 2022 the museum's exhibition was upgraded. Wing I is dedicated to the Prehistory and Proto-history of the Larnaka town and District with the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, Pottery Neolithic, Early-Middle Bronze Age and Late Bronze Age represented.
▶▶ source: the museum's website
// practicalities:
_it's a very cute, small, recently renovated museum
_there is an even cuter cleaning robot that goes around the exhibition with you
_another museum with free entry
// highlights:
_tba