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The first acquisition is a lucky survival transferred from Dover Museum. As part of a wide-ranging and not uncontroversial reorganization in the 1930s, Dover Museum’s collections were refocused on local material, with the key objective of bringing historical documents back to the town. Wisbech and Fenland Museum owned two historical deeds relating to Dover – a lease dated 1387 and a probate of a will dated 1501 – and agreement was reached to exchange them for a small collection of Greek pottery, including a few Cypriot pieces, which had been donated to Dover Museum in 1921. Just a few years later, the Dover Museum and its collections suffered devastating damage from bombing in the Second World War, so the transfer of these antiquities is likely to have saved them from the same fate.

 

Juglet
White Painted Ware
Middle Cypriot II-III
1850 - 1650 BCE
Transfer: Dover Museum

 

 

 

 

 

The next collection came from a colonial official, one who travelled widely in the course of his career, accompanied by his wife and four daughters. Mr Cecil Lee was appointed as an accountant in the Public Works Department of Cyprus in 1921 and stayed there until 1935, after which he left to take up post in Kenya. He seems to have collected the objects himself, from tombs in the vicinity of Nicosia and Famagusta, rather than buying them from dealers. His collection is varied in material, style and periods, and includes glass, decorated and plain pottery, and a fantastic horse and rider figurine, likely to have been a dedicatory offering in ancient Cyprus. Lee’s family were from Cherry Hinton, Cambridgeshire, which may explain why he chose the Wisbech and Fenland Museum for this donation.

 

 

Horse and Rider Figurine
Terracotta
Cypro-Archaic I
Circa 750-600 BCE
Gift: Mr. C. F. Lee

 

The last collection of four ceramics – a spouted vessel, jug, dish and bowl - came via Mrs Edith George, wife of the Rev. M.B. George of Guyhirn Vicarage, Cambridge. Her brother William Mackay was Deputy Harbour Master at Limassol in Cyprus, and later the Collector of Customs and Excise. In 1878 Britain took over the administration of Cyprus from the Ottoman Empire, and Mackay’s long career on the island began at around the same time. He was one of many British people who found employment in Cyprus as part of the new administration. Collecting antiquities was a common pastime in this period, undertaken as a leisure pursuit and often without archaeological knowledge or recording. Mackay died in 1931, which may have prompted his family to decide that the proper place for the antiquities he had collected was in their local museum.

 

Jug
Bichrome Ware
7th 6th century BC
Gift: Mrs. M. B. George

 

These objects demonstrate how museum collections grew in the early 20th century, through strategic exchanges and chance gifts, and reflect the connections between Britain and Cyprus from 1878. They also tell us about changing attitudes to ancient objects – at that time seen as interesting ‘curios’, with little attention paid to their archaeological context, or the loss of information resulting from casual collecting. They add to the wonderful diversity of the Wisbech and Fenland Museum’s collections, and the stories they can tell.

 

 

 

Glass Bowl/Cup
Blue glass with iridescence
Roman 50-200 CE
Mr. C. F. Lee

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Accession Register entry from 1935.

 

Dr Anna Reeve is a material culture historian whose research interests focus on museum collections of Cypriot antiquities and their reception in the UK from the nineteenth century onwards. She completed a PhD in Classics at the University of Leeds, and she teaches Classics at the Open University.