Cahier du Centre d'Études Chypriotes 32, 2002

VARIÉTÉS

NOUVELLES ARCHÉOLOGIQUES Cypriote Antiquities in Foreign Museums

Vassos KARAGEORGHIS

On the 31st of May 2002 His Royal Highness Prince Henrik of Denmark inaugurated the A.G. Leventis Foundation Gallery of Cypriote Antiquities in the National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen. One year earlier the catalogue of the Cypriote collection curated in this museum was published (Karageorghis et al. 2001). This exhibit is the fourth in a series of galleries devoted to Cypriote antiquities in a foreign museum, others of which include the British Museum, London, the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The exhibits in the Copenhagen gallery encompass virtually all the periods of Cypriote Archaeology. The highlights of this gallery include a particularly rich collection of Early/ Middle Bronze Age and Cy pro-Archaic pottery, some of which has already been published in CVA (Blinkenberg, Johansen 1924). Other notable exhibits are the inscribed vases and sherds from Kafizin, which were found prior to British Excavations (Mitford 1980), and the terracotta figurines and limestone statuettes, found at Lindos by the Danish Expedition to Rhodes (1902-

1914) and published by S0rensen in Karageorghis et al. 2001.

As is well known, there is already a sizeable Cypriote collection of antiquities, mainly large-scale limestone sculpture, in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen, a catalogue of which has already been published (Nielsen 1992).

On the occasion of the Leventis Gallery inauguration the National Museum of Denmark consecrated the entire magazine NYT to the Cypriote collection. An English version, entitled Cyprus, the Island of Aphrodite , has since been published. In it one can find articles by members of the museum staff and other Danish colleagues, as well as the present writer.

Likewise, the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada, possesses a rich collection of Cypriote antiquities, acquired over the years mainly by donations. It includes an important collection of limestone and terracotta sculptures of varying sizes, which was excavated in 1885 by M. Ohnefalsch-Richter at the sanctuary of Apollo at Tamassos-Frangissa (for a general account and