HISTORY ETHNOGRAPHY NATURE WINE-MAKING SITE MAP
Selected and rare materials, excerpts and observations from ancient, medieval and contemporary authors, travelers and researchers about Cyprus.
 
 
 
 
 
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SALAMIS

SALAMIS IN THE ISLAND OF CYPRUS.
BY ALEXANDER PALMA DI CESNOLÀ, F.S.A.,
page 42

being clearly defined, comes from another tomb. It is remarkable because, having been laid up with linen cerements, the patina on its surface retains unmistakeable traces of the threads of the fabric which accompanied it in the tomb. In the tomb which yielded this armlet I found two silver finger-rings (figs. 71, 72), the oval bezel of one of which formerly held three oval stones, or pieces of glass; the central one isnow remaining in its setting. Two large fibulae (figs. 73, 74, 75), a large pin (fig. 76) with an open eye and wire twisted about its head, a pair of tweezers (fig. 77) or small tongs, a bronze ring (fig. 78), and a buckle (fig. 79), were found with the above-named articles, as well as the serrala already described. I found also several portions of a large tripod at Kurium, the remaining fragments of which are now deposited in the Metropolitan Museum at New York. Three of these are beautifully-modelled heads of bulls, of a fine Greek type.1 The eyes of these sculptures are hollow, and have been filled with glass, like many other sculptures of Greek as well as Roman origin. Two pieces come from the feet of the tripod; one is the claw of a lion, the other the hoof of a bull.2 The miscellaneous bronze antiquities comprise torch-holders, candelabra on tripod bases, and weights of exactly the shape still employed in Cyprus. Among the latter, two weights adhere by the oxidising of their surfaces. The latter is a disk, perforated by three triangular holes. A group, or compacted mass, of iron and bronze objects was found at

1 Plate III, fig. 1, a, B, o. 8 Plate III, fig. 1, d, e.

Salamis, on the top of a sarcophagus. Most of the articles in the mass were of use for the hath. This group is a very remarkable one indeed; the articles are all massed by means of the oxidation of the surfaces of most of them. They comprise a large iron strigil, with a great ring of the same metal, and a pair of shears, a spur with a prick point in the middle of the heel, a large nail, or, perhaps, the staple of the large iron ring, and two smaller nails, a fragment of bone, possibly human, and three finger-rings, one of bronze and two of iron, one of the latter showing the socket for the stone which it originally carried. The large iron ring passes through the two iron finger-rings. It is, of course, not a complete ring. It retains portions of bronze, which look very much as if they had belonged to a casing of that alloy (fig. 80).

In addition to the above bronze relics, there are three bronze mirrors, one of which (fig. 81) has an engraving, representative of the Temple of Venus at Paphos,1 with a hatched foreground, and not fewer than forty coins of bronze, which have been oxidised out of all form. It is evident that these articles are of great antiquity, but, in default of the inscriptions on the coins, there is nothing in- the group to enable us to state positively to what period they are to be assigned. I found also two bucket-shaped vessels of bronze, the former of which bears a deeply-incised Egyptian scene and inscription.

1 This is a favourite subject of the art of the engraver. See fig. 52.

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