This paper examines how antiquities trafficking and state intervention shaped attitudes to collecting and archaeological practice in Greece between the 1860s and 1880s. Drawing on archival sources – especially the office diary of Panagiotis Eustratiadis, General Ephor of Antiquities – it reconstructs micro-histories that reveal the legal, political and social tensions surrounding the discovery, collection and export of antiquities. The study highlights conflicts between state officials, private collectors, foreign diplomats and emerging archaeologists, showing how efforts to regulate the trade catalysed the professionalization of archaeology. Through detailed case-studies, it explores how debates over ownership, publication rights and ethics redefined the boundaries between antiquarianism and archaeology. It argues that modern archaeology in Greece emerged not solely from scientific progress but from contested negotiations over cultural authority and ownership. By foregrounding human networks and institutional dynamics, the paper offers a more nuanced understanding of the development of archaeology in nineteenth-century Europe.
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In recent years, efforts have been made to reassess nineteenth-century Greek archaeology through archival research, offering a more nuanced understanding of the individuals and dynamics that shaped the field.1 Focusing on the period between the 1860s and 1880s, this paper examines the legal, institutional and personal tensions surrounding the discovery, preservation and collection of antiquities. Drawing on micro-histories from the personal office diary (Ημερολόγιον Υπηρεσίας) of Panagiotis Eustratiadis (1814/15–1888)2 – General Ephor (Superintendent) of Antiquities from 1864 to 1884 – it highlights how state responses to antiquities trafficking (in)formed emerging collecting ethics and archaeological practices. It argues that, during this formative period, both the regulatory framework and the ethical principles guiding archaeological work were under active negotiation and constitution.3
‘Of the monuments of ancient glory and pride, I found neither a catalogue nor a museum . . .’
These words are those of Epaminondas Deligeorgis (1829–1879), a young and aspiring politician who would serve as prime minister of Greece six times.4 Following the abdication of Otto – the first King of Greece – which was officially declared by Deligeorgis himself on 10 October 1862, he was appointed Minister of Public Education and Religious Affairs in the temporary government that took control of the country (from 11 October 1862 to 8 February 1863). The care of antiquities fell within the remit of his ministry, and on 21 January 1863 he delivered a scathing report to the National Assembly on the neglect of education and the care of antiquities under previous administrations.5 He criticized the ineffective enforcement of antiquities legislation and initiated a reform effort by establishing a committee to review legislation and propose measures for the protection, documentation and eventual housing of antiquities in a national museum.6 Although resources were limited and progress slow, this moment marked a shift in official attitudes toward cultural heritage.
Deligeorgis wanted the committee’s assistance. He urged them to study the existing legislation, with the aim of submitting specific and reasoned proposals regarding the total or partial retention, repeal, amendment or replacement of existing laws that dealt with the discovery, proper collection and safe preservation of all the ancient monuments of the country.7 He asked the committee to consider, further, how the financial resources for excavations and other archaeological works could be expanded, and how to deal with the storage of ancient objects until these could be transferred to the ‘great Museum of Antiquities’ (already conceived as an idea in 1858, but completed only in 1889).8
The extent of the problem was known to all. Minister Andreas Londos issued a circular on 4 February 1865 to all prefects and eparchs of the Greek state on the basis that, in the countryside, ‘many private owners over several years now have supported the opening and looting of ancient tombs without [state] permission . . . those who sell antiquities bring shame to the nation and to themselves because they engage in the trade of the relics of their ancestors’.9 While the patriotic national rhetoric was not new, but rather an extension of the 1834 antiquities legislation,10 the tone, approach and determination that things should change departed from past practice in the country.
Admittedly, real change was not to be introduced until many decades afterwards. Nevertheless, early in the 1860s we can observe a shift in how the safeguarding of antiquities was to be approached by the Greek authorities. Following Deligeorgis’s initiative, key appointments were made: Zisis Sotiriou (c.1800–1880), a veteran of the Greek War of Independence (1821–9), became the first Chief Guard of Antiquities,11 and Panagiotis Eustratiadis, a member of the committee set up by Deligeorgis, succeeded Kyriakos Pittakis as General Ephor.12 Eustratiadis, who was born on the island of Lesbos (then still part of the Ottoman Empire) and had studied in Greece and Germany, would become one of the key actors behind the professionalization of archaeology in the country.13 In his role as General Ephor and in his efforts to monitor the trafficking of antiquities he was supported by a growing network, ranging from the Athens Archaeological Society, the oldest archaeological learned society in Greece (and among its members, most prominently, by Stephanos Koumanoudis, 1818–1899) to regional officers, schoolteachers and guards, and by Panagiotis Stamatakis (c.1835–1885), who from August 1863, among his other clerical duties, was working as an aide to the General Ephor.14 On 12 January 1866 Eustratiadis asked Stamatakis to become his assistant, with the remit of helping to catalogue the antiquities in private houses – a role to which he was duly appointed on 15 July 1866.15 This initiative constitutes the first major step towards a different, more systematic, recording and care for antiquities in Greece and more broadly across Europe.
The next big move came in the summer of 1871, when at the request of the Athens Archaeological Society (hereafter intermittently referred to simply as ‘the Society’) and with the ministry’s approval, Stamatakis became a ‘temporary inspector of antiquities’ (a travelling ephor) outside Athens and Attica, in an effort to record ancient objects in the provinces of the kingdom – a role the development of which even the Society could not have predicted. Stamatakis proved exceptionally suited to the task: he was meticulous and a born excavator, and had an eye for detail – skills that ultimately brought Eustratiadis, the state and the Society face to face with new situations and challenges, which, while they partly encouraged them, were further shaped by the dynamics of the people involved.16
Through a series of archival case-studies, this paper examines how local officials navigated the legal and logistical challenges of protecting antiquities. Their actions reveal the evolving ethics and practices of archaeology, shaped by the pressures of the illicit trade, institutional reform, and the ambitions of individuals. These developments laid the groundwork for archaeology’s transformation from antiquarian pursuit to a regulated discipline.17
Thwarting the trafficking of antiquities
From the 1860s, the ethics of antiquities trading – especially among scholars – became a subject of growing concern in Greece. Central to this shift was the case of the Aineta aryballos (Fig. 1),18 a rare (for that time) Corinthian vessel from the early sixth century bc, in which Athanasios Rhousopoulos (1823–1898), a professor at the University of Athens and a prominent figure in the Athens Archaeological Society, was implicated.19 Rhousopoulos, who had previously edited the Αρχαιολογική Εφημερίς (the Archaeological Gazette) in 1862–3 and had made significant discoveries at the Kerameikos,20 was a prolific collector and dealer from the 1860s onwards.
Drawings of the Aineta aryballos, c. 600–575 bc, now in the British Museum, London, inv. no. 1865,1213.1. Drawings, by an unknown artist, reproduced from A. Rhousopoulos, ‘Sopra un vasetto corinzio con iscrizioni d'un carattere antichissimo’, Annalidell'Instituto di Corrispondenza Archeologica 34 (1862), pp. 46–56, pl. A.
Two drawings showing the side of the aryballos that is decorated with ornaments and the handle that bears the face of a woman along with her name and that of her suitors.
The legal context of the time was defined by the 1834 law on antiquities, which while it recognised shared ownership between state and individuals of antiquities discovered on private land (article 64), it prohibited the unauthorized export of ancient objects (notably under articles 76, 78 and 80).21 By the mid-1860s, enforcement of this law had become a priority for the newly appointed General Ephor of Antiquities. When the aryballos was featured in the Archäologischer Anzeiger in June 186622 among new acquisitions by the British Museum, Eustratiadis – alerted by Koumanoudis and Petros Pervanoglou – traced its provenance to Rhousopoulos, who had first published the object and was known to have possessed it.23
The Aineta aryballos was said by Rhousopoulos to have been found in Corinth in the early 1850s, and may have been, originally at least, loaned to him for study.24 In 1860 it was listed among the professor’s antiquities in Athens, where Adolf Michaelis (1835–1910) was able to examine and record it as a rare piece, ‘the oldest example of art’,25 comparable at the time only to the inscribed Corinthian pyxis found in 1805 by Edward A. Dodwell.26 Additionally, Koumanoudis, a university colleague of Rhousoupoulos and the Society’s secretary from 1859 to 1894, had seen and copied its inscription at Rhousopoulos’s home.27 Given the object’s rarity and epigraphic value, Eustratiadis concluded that no export permit would have been granted and initiated legal proceedings. In his diary, he noted that Rhousopoulos had been ‘trading in antiquities for years’,28 and formally reported the case to the ministry.29 Next to his diary entry of 22 December 1866 about the inquest that followed, Eustratiadis added a side note about Rhousopoulos, describing him as ‘university professor – antiquities dealer’.30 A fine was issued in January 1867, though Rhousopoulos refused to pay, accusing Eustratiadis of professional envy and ignorance of international collecting norms.31 By that time, and by Rhousopoulos’s own admission, the Greek professor had already amassed in his house on Lycabettus Street in Athens a collection of 4,000 ancient pieces – that is, more than the number of entries in the Society’s catalogue of its archaeological museum.32
This case unfolded amid broader scrutiny of private collections. In January 1866 Spyridon Logiotatidis (1832–1876),33 an archaeologist for the ministry who had a rivalry with Eustratiadis, accused the ephor of inaction and noted that several university professors and officials had failed to submit inventories of their collections. In a letter dated 15 January 1866, Logiotatidis informed the ministry that ‘among those [with antiquities] are some university professors and other high officials’ (Fig. 2).34 One such prominent figure, who caught the attention of the authorities around the same time as Rhousopoulos, was Spyridon Komnos, then professor of philosophy in the Cadet School, whose involvement in the antiquities trade was first exposed in the summer of 1866.35 There are numerous fascinating aspects to the Komnos case, but they require a study of their own. It suffices to say here that these revelations sparked a heated public debate, with critics labelling dealers as smugglers and looters, while defenders like Rhousopoulos and Komnos portrayed themselves as protectors of heritage, ‘the true saviours of antiquities’.36 The cases of Rhousopoulos and Komnos reflect a pivotal moment in the redefinition of archaeological ethics in Greece, the position and standing of these men being portrayed by Eustratiadis and Koumanoudis, among others, as entirely irreconcilable with their activities.37
In the weeks after being fined for the Aineta aryballos, Rhousopoulos submitted a list of antiquities for sale to Eustratiadis via Koumanoudis – an act that blended defiance and resoluteness with a possible attempt at reconciliation. The ministry, however, unanimously rejected the request, with Minister Charalambos Christopoulos asserting that ‘a member of the Archaeological Society cannot sell antiquities like dealers do’.38
Rhousopoulos ultimately avoided payment of the fine, and the case against him, despite Eustratiadis’s efforts to pursue civil action, seems to have been dropped in 1870 owing to statutory limitations.39 As a result, Rhousopoulos’s dealings, though widely known and condemned at the time,40 became less easy for the authorities to monitor from the late 1860s or early 1870s onwards. At that time – and more actively than ever before – his business took a covert form. One example of his secretive dealings involved another inscribed Corinthian vase, long known in Athens and once owned by the publisher Andreas Koromilas (1818–1858). This piece attracted Eustratiadis’s attention only in 1868, after it was published by Rhousopoulos and when it was in the possession of Dimitrios, the eldest son of Andreas Koromilas. Despite the interest shown by the ephor as to the object’s whereabouts, it is unclear whether a purchase offer by the state was ever made for it. The vase did, though, end up in the Rhousopoulos collection.41 Around 1886 it was bought from Rhousopoulos by Lucien de Hirsch42 and it is today in the Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique in Brussels (Fig. 3).
Two photographs showing different sides of the same drinking cup, the Koromilas kylix. On each side there are depictions of riders and warriors wearing helmets and brandishing shields and spears. They are accompanied by inscriptions which allow to identify them with known heroes.
A key figure in the Aineta aryballos affair. but publicly unacknowledged until the present author’s research, was Charles Merlin (1821–1896), British vice-consul in Athens, manager of the Ionian Bank’s branch in Athens and a subscribing member of the Athens Archaeological Society.43 In 1864 Merlin donated an archaic kylix that he had purchased to the Society’s museum,44 because it had become known that this object – first found in a tomb near Tenea in the Peloponnese in 1834 – had been stolen from the archaeological collection on the Acropolis where it was stored. Merlin’s act was possibly a gesture of goodwill but also, almost certainly, of strategic positioning (Fig. 4).45
Drawings of the Heracles and Nessos kylix from Tenea, c. 575–525 bc, now in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens, inv. no. 529 (cc640). Drawings reproduced from L. Ross, Hercule et Nessus: peinture d’un vase de Ténée (Athens, 1835), frontispiece and endplate.
Two drawings showing the side of a drinking cup (the Tenea kylix) and the bowl inside.The drawing showing the side is decorated with floral ornaments and a man riding a two-horse chariot. The bowl shows Heracles, Nessos and Deianira.
By 1865 Merlin had purchased the aryballos from Rhousopoulos for the British Museum in London.46 Charles Newton (1816–1894), keeper of the Greek and Roman antiquities at the museum, in his letter to the trustees recommending the purchase of this object, praised its rarity and its academic credentials. Being ‘of the highest interest as a specimen of palaeography’, Newton felt that ‘so interesting a specimen of early Corinthian fictile art should certainly be received for the National Collection’.47 When Merlin’s name was mentioned in Newton’s official reports,48 and again in the museum’s ‘Accounts’ of 1867 in relation to ‘a collection of antiquities from Greece’,49 Merlin became anxious and told Newton that ‘in future transactions it must be distinctly & clearly understood that my name is not to appear publicly’ (Fig. 5).50 Edward Erskine (1817–1883), the British minister plenipotentiary to the King of Greece, intervened: ‘in enumerating the purchases made recently, he [Newton] speaks of some valuable acquisitions made from you – which appears to me a somewhat imprudent statement to have made & one which may give you some annoyance at Athens in case it should attract the attention of anyone in Greece. I pointed this out to Mr. Newton & he expressed much regret at the imprudence he had committed & promised it should not occur again’.51 The Greek authorities, on grounds of political and economic expediency, also tried to avoid openly accusing members of the foreign legations of participating in antiquities trafficking. Such accusations were made only infrequently and often in inverse proportion to the actual extent of the diplomats’ involvement. Merlin’s transactions with the British Museum followed a similar, undercover, route to those of Rhousopoulos which – as far can be deduced from the evidence currently available – went largely unnoticed by the Greek authorities, despite their knowledge of his local collecting.52
Three hand-written pages of a letter shown in succession.
Even after the exposure of their activities, however, Rhousopoulos and others such as Komnos retained their academic and institutional positions. In 1868 Rhousopoulos succeeded Alexandros Rizos-Rangabes as professor of archaeology at the University of Athens. Similarly, Komnos, who had also been named in the press as a despoiler of antiquities, was appointed director of the National Library in 1870. Yet these seemingly early ‘gains’ were short-lived. Surveillance by state officials of these individuals and their involvement in illegal exports of antiquities persisted.53 For example, in 1872 the judge in a court case brought against Komnos by Athenian art dealer Konstantinos Polychronopoulos over a dispute between them dating back to 1867, remarked on the incompatibility with Komnos’ profession of buying and selling antiquities for profit like a common dealer.54 Komnos’s efforts to present himself as a ‘collector’ rather than a dealer in antiquities, and to align himself with respected names of those collecting antiquities locally such as G. Finlay, P. Kalligas and Merlin failed, as did his attempt to internationalize the case by publishing letters written by Count André Bloudov (1817–1886), Russian minister plenipotentiary at the Greek court (1861–5), and Photiades Bey, the Ottoman minister – known collectors but also exporters of antiquities. Scrutiny persisted and the judge required that Komnos pay what was owed to Polychronopoulos.55
It was not until the 1880s that formal consequences followed. Both Rhousopoulos and Komnos were expelled from the Athens Archaeological Society in 1882,56 and Rhousopoulos was dismissed from his university post in September 1884 owing to his extensive antiquities dealings.57 These cases underscore the slow but growing institutional resolve to confront the blurred boundaries between scholarship, collecting and commerce in nineteenth-century Greek archaeology, and the veritable transformation of what the discipline and its practitioners should engage with.
Of tensions and conflicts
By late 1866 Rhousopoulos and Komnos were certainly not the only figures under scrutiny for involvement in the illicit antiquities trade. Eustratiadis was also monitoring other prominent individuals, including Count Bloudov and François Lenormant (1837–1883), a rising French archaeologist. Both were implicated in unauthorized excavations and exports.
While in Greece, Bloudov had conducted excavations, to which Rhousopoulos had access, and collected antiquities, a number of which eventually ended up in the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg in 1888.58 His most visible blunder came on 11 November 1865, almost two weeks before his departure from the country, when a crate dispatched by him, containing two fragments of a sculpted Roman sarcophagus, was accidentally intercepted at the port of Piraeus at Pasalimani. Instead of consulting the ephorate, the police lieutenant involved, Theodoros Anagnostopoulos, sought advice from the prime minister himself, Alexandros Koumoundouros (who would serve in this role again multiple times throughout the 1870s and the early 1880s).59 It was Koumoundouros who forwarded the matter to the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Public Education, through whom it reached Eustratiadis.60 The fragments in question ended up in the national collection and are now in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens where, following Eustratiadis’s persistent quest to find the original source of the sale to the Russian minister, they were later united with a third fragment.61 No charges were brought against Bloudov, who was probably protected by diplomatic immunity.
Although these fragments stayed in Greece, other antiquities that Bloudov had collected while in the country were later sold by his widow to the Hermitage. The director of the Hermitage Museum, Alexander Alexeevich Vasilchikov (1832–1890) noted, at the time of the purchase, that Bloudov ‘lacked the skill of his more fortunate successor P. A. Saburov’ and
had to loan [sic]62 to the Athens museum the greater part of the collection of Greek antiquities which he had collected with great difficulty and expense at a time when Greek laws strictly prohibited the export of even the smallest valuable antiquities from Greece. The late Count Bloudov did not hide his acquisitions in Athens, but he did not know how to secretly send them abroad on Russian and foreign ships. What he managed to take with him, however, turned out to be very remarkable.63
Among the objects that found their way to the Hermitage was a marble head of Dionysus / Bacchus (now identified as a marble head of Hermes from the late fifth century bc).64
Meanwhile, François Lenormant65 was known for removing antiquities from Thera without authorization,66 a story that drew press attention.67 The seismic activity on the island in 1866 had attracted both scientific and antiquarian interest,68 fuelling a local market in Theran antiquities. There was an established bourgeois antiquarian community on the island and explorations by both locals and foreigners, who, soon after, visited the island, providing the market with antiquities with a Theran provenance.69
Merlin criticized both Lenormant and Bloudov for drawing unwanted attention to the trade, thereby endangering its continuation. In a letter to Newton dated 5 October 1866, he noted: ‘By-the-by, Mr. LeNorman & Mr. Bloudoff have nearly rendered the exportation of antiquities impossible from this. The former by publishing an account of what he carried off in the French papers70 & the latter by his blunder about the marble bas-reliefs.’71
In response to these incidents, Eustratiadis, assisted by Panagiotis Stamatakis and a growing network of informants, intensified efforts to monitor and prevent illegal exports. A notable case occurred in 1870, during the French School’s excavation at Akrotiri on Thera, led by Claude-Henri Gorceix and Henri Mamet.72 This was the first prehistoric dig undertaken by the French School at Athens, and their third major project at the time (following their work on Delos and the Acropolis). Yet this excavation, as Eustratiadis noted, was only quasi-legal (‘ἡμιἐπίσημος’); it was the prime minister who granted the permit (‘ἄδεια παρὰ τοῦ Πρωθυπουργοῦ’), not the General Ephorate of Antiquities, the official body responsible – an anomalous procedure that reveals tensions in the line of command and the decision-making process.73
When six crates of antiquities arrived at Piraeus from Thera,74 Eustratiadis ordered their confiscation, citing the government’s lack of awareness (‘με ἄγνοια τῆς κυβερνήσεως’) of their shipping and its suspicion that they might be smuggled.75 Although Eustratiadis wanted the crates to be inspected at Piraeus, the request of the French side to transfer them to the French School prevailed.76 The episode sparked public debate. While most press reports condemned the French actions,77 Spyridon Logiotatidis – an outspoken critic of Eustratiadis – used the incident to renew accusations against him of negligence.78 These tensions expose the fragile balance between national sovereignty, foreign influence and the evolving – but clearly not yet uniformly agreed – authority of the Greek state in the regulation of archaeological activity.
In response to accusations of arbitrariness by Émile-Louis Burnouf (1821–1907), director of the French School at Athens,79 the French ambassador Baron Georges-Napoléon Baude (1830–1887) intervened at the end of June 1870 to resolve the dispute over the Theran crates. A compromise was reached: the antiquities would remain in Greece but be housed in the French School’s collection.80 Yet in 1876 some of these Theran objects - deemed by the French ‘duplicates’ (doublons)81 – were offered by the School to Emperor Pedro II of Brazil, who was visiting Greece informally and had a known interest in archaeology.82
The Gorceix affair, unfolding as it did during a politically volatile period for both Greece and France,83 highlights internal divisions within the Greek government regarding the regulation of excavations and the export of antiquities. While some officials permitted such activities under diplomatic or scholarly pretexts, growing public scrutiny – especially through publications in the Greek press – began to shift the discourse.84 Increasingly, antiquities collecting was framed not as an elite or educational pursuit, but as a lucrative and problematic trade, prompting calls for stricter oversight and reform.85
Collecting for profit, for glory, for knowledge
The intensifying competition over antiquities in the nineteenth century had three major consequences. First, the Greek state – supported by the Athens Archaeological Society – entered the antiquities market, purchasing objects for national collections. While it was in line with the 1834 law, this development heightened financial competition among collectors. Second, it contributed to the normalization and only partial regulation of the antiquities trade. Third, it fostered a gradual shift in archaeological ethics, emphasizing excavation, documentation and scholarly interpretation over private collecting and profit.86
The case of Heinrich Schliemann (1822–1890) illustrates this transformation.87 His repeated attempts to secure excavation rights at Mycenae from 1870 onwards reveal the growing tension between private initiative and state control. Initially seeking to retain a share of the finds, Schliemann was informed by Eustratiadis that Mycenae, as public land, did not permit such arrangements. The ephor’s position led Schliemann to record in his diary on 24 April 1870: ‘j’ai en fin consenti à faire les fouilles seulement pour le gloire et à me contenter du plaisir que j’éprouve à les faire’.88 Despite these claims, however, Schliemann continued to press for ownership rights.89
With his Trojan explorations in full flow, Schliemann was unable to commit to a project in Greece. In January 1873 he returned with a new request, this time asking to excavate at Mycenae and Olympia and to keep the discovered antiquities as his property until his death, when they – along with the Trojan finds (at a time when the ‘Treasure of Priam’ had not yet been discovered) – would be bequeathed to the Greek state and housed in a museum bearing his name.90 His request was again turned down. The rejection infuriated Schliemann who, upon the discovery of the Trojan treasures, decided to deploy them (‘weaponize’ is the term he uses)91 as a bargaining chip with the Greek government to negotiate for a permit for both Mycenae and Olympia (the latter was eventually conceded to Germany and the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut).
On 9 February 1874 Koumanoudis stressed to Schliemann that the government would be inclined to give him permission to excavate at Mycenae provided he abided by the law, repeating that Mycenae was public land and sending him a copy of the archaeological legislation.92 Schliemann seems to have ignored this advice, asking Eustratiadis on 11 February about an excavation permit, suggesting that he be entitled to keep half of the discovered finds in return for all the expenses he would be charged with for a project on such a scale. Without waiting for the ephor’s reply, he went to Mycenae and conducted unauthorized excavations, aided by Émile Burnouf and his daughter, who acted as an illustrator.93 The local authorities informed Eustratiadis, who demanded an end to Schliemann’s activities.
By March 1874 Schliemann was again ready to request a permit – ‘in the name of science and in the name of the glory of Greece’ – that would be in accordance with the stipulations of the 1834 law.94 ‘Whatever antiquity I find I am obliged to give to the representative of the government whoever might be appointed to accompany me. I only reserve the privilege of publishing them. In case I discover a treasure, I leave it to the government to act according to the law.’95 The much desired permit was finally issued on 29 March 1874 under strict conditions: state ownership of all finds, limited excavation scope, and oversight by Panagiotis Stamatakis, who would be responsible for dictating the detailed terms of conduct.96 The main concession made was to accept Schliemann’s condition that he had primacy in publication of any discovered finds. Despite this advance, Schliemann did not accept the terms, which further included the employment of a limited number of workers, the restriction of activity within the citadel, specifications regarding where to deposit the excavated soil (so that it could be inspected and sifted), the workers' wages and a prohibition on starting the excavation until Stamatakis was present.97 Eventually, a lawsuit brought by the Ottoman Empire against Schliemann for the exportation of the Trojan treasures resulted in the Greek government’s annulling the Mycenae permit of 1874.98
The settlement of the Trojan issue on 15 April 1875 (which resulted in the payment of 46,000 francs to the Ottoman Empire as compensation for half the Trojan antiquities that were originally state owned), Schliemann’s financing the controversial demolition of the Frankish tower on the Acropolis (to the tune of 13,000 drachmas), and changes in the political scene in Greece created more favourable conditions for Schliemann. On 4 July 1876 he submitted a new application for excavations at Mycenae, Tiryns, the Boeotian Orchomenos and ‘other ancient cities of Greece’.99 His terms were similar to those in his 1874 request: he undertook to cover all expenses personally and to conduct the excavations in conjunction with the Athens Archaeological Society, and agreed to relinquish all rights in the finds other than to publish and illustrate them first. All antiquities were to be the property of Greece and should be deposited where the Society deemed appropriate, ‘accompanied by an inscription that they were discovered thanks to my expenses’.100 The permit was granted and, along with the detailed Olympia convention agreed between the Greek and German governments in 1874–5, the Mycenae excavations marked a turning point in the professionalization of archaeology in Greece: at this juncture, state oversight, legal compliance and publication primacy began to define the discipline.101
Contradictory as it may seem for the Greek state to have abandoned its right to knowledge production by publishing the results of specific excavations, it was a concession (if it can be described as such) that not only followed the pressures of the time but was probably also considered a potential antidote to the trafficking of antiquities. An early step in this direction – in truth, pioneering for the standards of the time – was article 13 in the 1862 organization of the Athens Archaeological Society, the main sponsoring body of excavations in the Greek state. This article declared that antiquities should be accessible to all scholars, ‘who can freely copy and illustrate and publish them . . . the Society retains no priority right’, at a time when major discoveries of great artistic and scientific value were taking place.102 Fitting here is also the comment made by Koumanoudis in 1877 that ‘we [the Greek scholars of the time] have decided to be diggers of science. Others may be its builders and architects’.103 As secretary of the Society for several decades, Koumanoudis, along with Eustratiadis, shaped the direction of travel of Greek archaeology in the period under study. Through his actions, he systematically tried to create and (in)form public opinion in favour of preserving antiquities for the Greek national collections.104
The shift from physical collecting to scholarly publication as a form of archaeological prestige gained traction in the 1870s, marking a gradual transformation in the ethos of the discipline. While the ownership of antiquities remained contentious, the right to publish and receive recognition for discoveries increasingly became a preferred alternative among emerging professionals. Yet this transition was slow and uneven, with older and newer practices often coexisting.105
A case in point is the relief of Hygeia and Asclepius, discovered in 1875 by Christos Plagakis, a villager of Chrysapha (the capital of Therapne) in Laconia while cultivating his land at Pikramygdalia. On 8 October 1875 Eustratiadis recorded in his office diary the existence of a relief slab representing ‘Hygeia and Asclepius’ in private possession (Fig. 6):
Two images showing the Chrysapha relief, a sculpted block - a drawing and a photograph. Two large-sized figures seated on a throne with a snake appearing on the back of it, while in front of fheir legs two smaller-sized human figures appear.
a slab plate bearing two complete bodies of a man and of a woman sitting side by side on an armchair and looking in the same direction (forward), the woman holds in her hand a kind of krater (bowl?) behind them a snake can be seen, from the feet of the chair to the top, where it turns its head backwards. At their feet, towards the front, are two small complete bodies one holding a bird and the other a flower in their hands.106
Despite the interest from Eustratiadis and local officials (the mayor of Therapne and the prefect of Laconia),107 the state failed to secure the object for the museum that was being formed in Sparta.108 In the meantime, Eustratiadis received a report on 24 October 1875 from the high school headteacher of Sparta, who confirmed that the relief was ‘undamaged and identical with no. 3 that exists in the museum’.109 Yet bureaucratic delays, limited resources and political caution110 hindered acquisition efforts. On 25 October 1877 the prefect of Laconia was instructed to inquire again of Christos Plagakis what price he was asking from the government for purchase of the relief, as they had been ‘told that he is willing to sell it’.111
By late February or early March 1878, a final inconclusive effort was made to purchase the relief: Eustratiadis recorded that Napoleone Felice Martinelli, a cast-maker also working as a formatore (conservator) for the Archaeological Ephorate,112 on his return from Olympia, stated that the mayor (of Therapne?) was now in possession of the relief – information that prompted Eustratiadis to order the school headteacher ‘to take care of the purchase and to move [the sculpture] to the museum’.113
Such episodes were common. Although the 1834 law required landowners to report finds, and allowed the state first right of purchase, enforcement was weak.114 Many antiquities remained in private hands, with local officials often acting as intermediaries. The state relied heavily on donations and goodwill, while private owners retained the right to sell to whomever they wished if state offers were unsatisfactory, though export remained illegal.115
The Chrysapha relief was eventually published in 1877 by Heinrich Dressel (1845–1920) and Arthur Milchhöfer (1852–1903). For their drawing (see Fig. 6), produced by L. Otto and F. Hübner, they used a cast made by Martinelli, in effect the only cast-maker in Greece at the time.116 It was upon the instigation of Dressel and Milchhöfer that Martinelli produced the copy.117 While his presence was the luckiest chance (‘glücklichste Umfang’), the two scholars noted that they saw several important objects too late, when Martinelli had run out of plaster (‘als Martinelli der Gips bereits ausgegangen war’). As a result, these could not be copied.118 Martinelli’s dual role – serving both state and foreign scholars – illustrates the blurred lines between official and unofficial channels. Could this shortage of plaster explain why casts were made for some sculptures, but not for other pieces? While that remains a possibility, the absence of casts also presented an opportunity, since it made detection of certain pieces almost impossible for the authorities at a time when the use of photography for the archaeological documentation of objects was still very limited.
The stele of Thiokles (Fig. 7), also published by Dressel and Milchhöfer and in the same volume of Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts as the Chrysapha relief, exemplifies this dynamic. Discovered in an area north-east of the village of Magoula close to Sparta,119 in 1877 it was in the possession of a private collector (‘Privatbesitz’).120 The two scholars came across it in June 1877,121 while researching material for their study of Spartan artworks.122 Some of this material, in private possession, was unregistered and had not yet come to the attention of Stamatakis, who was tirelessly trying to record as much as possible. The stele of Thiokles was one such sculpture that had gone unnoticed by the authorities. Its small size (26.2 × 30 × 5.2 cm) made it highly transportable and easy to conceal. By the time of publication in November 1877, it had already been exported – without a permit123 – to Rome through Dressel, who in 1878 sold it to the Antikensammlung, Berlin.124 Milchhöfer later confirmed the acquisition in correspondence with his former teacher and mentor Heinrich Brunn,125 noting the relief that was acquired by them at Magoula (‘von uns erworbene’), they had shown ('aufgewiesen') to Martinelli in a garden.126 There is no evidence that Martinelli ever reported this relief to Eustratiades or Stamatakis. In this respect, Martinelli was behaving normally for the time (as was the mayor of the Therapne, mentioned above): playing off all sides against one another and trying to gain favour, in legal, semi-legal and occasionally illegal ways.127
L. Otto and F. Hübner, drawing of the Thiokles stele, c. 500 bc, now in the Antikensammlung, Berlin, inv. no. Sk 732. Reproduced from H. Dressel and A. Milchhöfer, ‘Die antiken Kunstwerke aus Sparta und Umgebung’ Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Athenische Abteilung 2 (1877), pp. 293–474, pl. xxvb.
A drawing of the fragmentary sculpted block known as the Thiokles stele that includes part of a standing man and an inscription.
These cases reveal how publication primacy and free exportation of casts, while contributing to scholarly knowledge, did not necessarily prevent the illicit trade. Instead, they often coexisted with it. Figures like Martinelli navigated multiple allegiances, reflecting the complex and often contradictory realities of archaeological practice in nineteenth-century Greece. Here, evolving ideals of preservation and scholarship in the minds of the few were entangled with older habits of collecting and commerce that still formed the dominant collective thinking on this topic.
To return to Dressel and Milchhöfer: they noted in their publication that the Chrysapha relief (at the time of writing at least) was still in the possession of Christos Plagakis.128 Very soon afterwards, however, it was acquired by Peter Alexandrovich Sabourov (1835–1918), the Russian ambassador in Greece (that is, around the time that Eustratiadis made the final effort to secure it for the Sparta Museum).129 The last we hear of the Chrysapha relief from the Greek officials’ side is in an entry by Stamatakis in the register book of the Sparta Museum; this relates to a similar relief discovered in March 1881 by Diamantis Theodoropoulos at Goniais, south of Chrysapha. Stamatakis added the information that Goniais was to the south of the find-spot where ‘the relief smuggled to Russia’ had been found, on the west slope of a hill known as Pikramygdalia.130
Sabourov’s collecting activities were well known to many,131 including the press132 and Eustratiadis, who as early as 1875 remarked on the need to have them closely monitored so that the antiquities acquired ‘are not exported illegally’.133 Despite this, Sabourov successfully exported a substantial collection upon his departure from Greece in 1879, including Tanagra figurines, vases, bronzes, sculpture and gems. The collection was packed by none other than Martinelli himself,134 who had in 1875 informed Eustratiadis that the Russian minister was placing his antiquities in crates for export! I have not been able to locate an export licence, nor is there a relevant entry in Eustratiadis’s diary.
In the summer of 1880, upon his arrival in Berlin, Sabourov tasked the 27-year-old Adolf Furtwängler (1853–1907) – who was to become one of the leading German archaeologists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries – with the study and publication of his collection. Furtwängler accepted with no hesitation, praising the Russian ambassador for his achievement:
Favorisé par des circonstances, en particulier par les fouilles si activement poursuivies à Tanagre, ce collectionneur, grâce à son zèle, à son amour de l’art et à son goût éprouvé a réussi à réunir, en nombre plus considérable que cela n’est généralement possible à un simple particulier, de fort belles œuvres . . . proviennent toutes de la Grèce proprement dite.135
Following the norms of the time, Furtwängler himself engaged in unauthorized acquisitions. In 1882 he found a Laconian relief (37 × 27 × 10 cm; Fig. 8) on the coast of Maïna (the medieval name of the Mani peninsula) near Areopolis, which, in the spring of that year, he smuggled (‘herausgeschmuggelt’, his own word) out of Greece hidden in a shawl.136 He published it a year later in the Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, and sold it to Count Tyszkiewicz in Rome, who in turn sold it to Carl Jacobsen for the Glyptotek in Copenhagen.137 Count Tyszkiewicz’s original asking price for the piece was 10,000 francs.138
A photograph of a fragmentary sculpture block showing a woman pouring something from a small jug into a larger cup held by an individual, only the hand of whom is preserved.
In March 1884 Sabourov sold the entirety of his collection139 for financial reasons:140 the bulk (including sculpture and vases) was sold to the Antikensammlung in Berlin, while some 170 terracottas – valued originally by Sabourov at 260,000 Marks – were soon afterwards sold to the Hermitage Museum for 200,000 Marks.141 In this way, he could ‘see the unique collection, which no other museum possesses, often again’.142 The Berlin acquisition, valued at 340,000 Marks,143 included the Chrysapha relief. Furtwängler, familiar with the collection, advised on the selection.144
By the 1880s, such practices – commonplace in earlier decades – were increasingly scrutinized.145 While figures like Sabourov were still celebrated abroad, in Greece they came to symbolize the tensions between national heritage protection efforts and the privileges of foreign elites. As a result, this high-profile sale146 drew sharp criticism in the Greek press,147 which condemned Sabourov for exploiting his position, privileges and diplomatic immunity to smuggle antiquities out of the country, ‘defrauding the Greek laws which he should be the first to respect’. Press reports accused him of collecting for personal profit as opposed to advancing knowledge, which ought to be ‘the basis of collections’.148 His collecting was portrayed not as scholarly but as self-serving – Sabourov was said to be ‘fond of antiquity to excess’149 – and as undermining the legal and ethical standards the country was striving to enforce.
(In)forming collecting attitudes and archaeological practice through the pressures of the antiquities trade
In March 1874 Heinrich Schliemann published a letter in two Athenian newspapers – one version in Greek150 and the other in German151 – defending his archaeological work and attacking Athanasios Rhousopoulos:
Mr. Rousopoulos’s ill will against me . . . undoubtedly stems from the difference in our professions, because he is an antiquities dealer and all the antiquities that he buys and sells are exported from Greece.
Instead, I conduct large-scale excavations out of love and sheer enthusiasm for science, and I collect only those antiquities that I excavate and import them to Athens from abroad.
The two men’s disagreement was purportedly academic: it concerned the meaning and use of certain Homeric words, and their association with some of the Trojan antiquities and their dating, which the Greek professor considered ‘barbaric . . . hundreds of years later than [the treasure] of Croesus’.152 Yet Schliemann framed their conflict as ultimately a matter of professional distinction on what archaeology is or should be – somewhat ironically, of course, given his own legal infractions.153 After all, the letter was written and published a few weeks after his first, unauthorized, excavation at Mycenae and days before he was granted the first, long-sought permit, which, as noted above, was annulled because of his row with the Ottoman Empire over its share of the Trojan antiquities.154
For Schliemann, Rhousopoulos was not an archaeologist, but an antiquities dealer, profiting from exports, while he himself was a scientific excavator, an altruistic and benevolent promoter of science and knowledge. This was a view shared by some of his supporters, though not espoused by Eustratiadis, who considered him ‘a cunning man, [who] through trickery lulls and seeks to deceive the authorities’.155 Schliemann’s defence, therefore, well reflects the shifting discourse around archaeology, ethics and legitimacy, and helps to illustrate the emerging divide between collecting for knowledge and collecting for profit.156 The difference in the professions (‘τῆς διαφορᾶς τῶν ἡμετέρων ἐπαγγελμάτων / in der Verschiedenheit unserer Beschäftigung’) of Rhousopoulos and Schliemann was increasingly echoed by state officials and reports in the Greek press,157 and it was around the same time that it began to shape the boundaries of acceptable archaeological practice.158 Yet, as the archival records show, these boundaries between ‘collectors’, ‘dealers’ and ‘archaeologists’ remained fluid.159
The establishment of foreign archaeological schools in Greece further complicated the landscape.160 While these institutions publicly condemned illicit digging, their members often engaged with private diggers and dealers to gain access to newly unearthed material. Olivier Rayet (1848–1887), a member of the French School, criticized Greek legislation for obstructing research – a rather misinformed position at best.161 Even to transport antiquities from one place to another within the kingdom, Rayet noted, ‘is not done without a host of vexations, under the pretext of surveillance’, perhaps also indirectly referring here to the Thera case of 1870.162 While he lamented the clandestine nature of most excavations, Rayet himself was deeply involved in the antiquities trade, particularly of Tanagra figurines, and acted as a source for antiquities for the Musée du Louvre in Paris.163 His writings reveal a tension between scholarly ideals and the practical realities of sourcing material for study:
the Greeks who carry out the excavations, peasants or speculators, care little about sharing the profit after having borne alone the risks and all the expenses . . . their compatriots [are] people . . . with generally rather poorly stocked purses and not very generous appraisers of objects of art. It follows that all excavations are clandestine . . . so it is impossible for archaeologists to see ancient pieces in situ . . . the Archaeological Society of Athens thus ignores the origin of half of the objects preserved in its museum.164
Rayet’s drive, as it appears in his publication on Tanagra figurines, is about protecting and advancing academic knowledge; he attributed the depletion of any contextual knowledge behind the Tanagra figurines that flooded European markets in the 1870s to the strictness of Greek legislation. While, therefore, those involved in unearthing the past may have given the impression that they worked for the cause of archaeology (a nascent discipline in its own right in modern professional terms) and the advancement of knowledge, clearly their attitudes, approaches and ideas were often very different from those of scholarship – conflicting and contradictory.165 Through the efforts to control antiquities, therefore, the very framework and meaning of ‘archaeology’ came under negotiation.166
Figures like Eustratiadis, Koumanoudis and Stamatakis played central roles in shaping the discipline’s institutional framework in Greece. While Eustratiadis sought to balance legal enforcement with pragmatic accommodation of private digging, Koumanoudis and Stamatakis advocated for stricter state control and professional standards. Stamatakis’s meticulous documentation, in particular, his collecting efforts and his whole-hearted commitment to recording all discovered finds positioned him as a pioneer of modern archaeological practice in Greece.167 Yet – and despite his contributions – Stamatakis’s work remained under-recognized for decades, overshadowed by institutional neglect and the dominance of foreign scholars. His disagreements with Eustratiadis over excavation permits led to temporary resignations, but he consistently returned to his post, driven by a sense of duty.168 Ultimately, it was Stamatakis’s vision of archaeology as a state-regulated, methodologically rigorous discipline that would prevail through his successors in the country.
‘Il est plus facile de changer la loi que de changer la nature humaine’, remarked an anonymous French author in 1875 in relation to the 1834 law and the antiquities trade in Greece.169 Although the inadequacies of the law were apparent as early as the 1860s to those charged with its implementation,170 no change was made until significantly later. When it came about, with the passing of the second antiquities law of Greece in 1899, that change was not accompanied by a more liberal trade in antiquities, as some people in Greece and the majority of foreign scholars had hoped it would be, but by the introduction of stricter penalties and a total ban on shared ownership and on private digs outside the remit of the ministry or of scholarly institutions.171
Conclusion
This paper has sought to bring the struggles over antiquities in nineteenth-century Greece down to the level of individual actors and everyday practices, primarily through the lens of the notes of the state official in charge of archaeology, Panagiotis Eustratiadis, in a period of increased demands and pressures that the country’s archaeological establishment was barely able to sustain.172 By treating ‘framework’ and ‘practice’ as interdependent, and through a series of micro-historical case-studies, this paper has shown how the trafficking of antiquities – and the efforts to curb it – shaped both collecting attitudes and the emerging discipline of archaeology.
Attitudes toward the trade were far from uniform. Competing views on ownership, excavation rights and publication reflected broader tensions over the meaning and purpose of archaeology itself. The rise of modern archaeology in Greece coincided not only with an expansion of knowledge, particularly of pre-Classical periods, but also with growing debates over who had the right to excavate, publish and possess antiquities.173
The trade in antiquities was not the domain of a few shadowy figures, as is often maintained, but a widespread, socially embedded practice involving diplomats, scholars, collectors, local officials and a good proportion of the country’s population.174 Archival sources allow us to reconstruct these networks and their actions, and the asymmetrical power relations that framed them. Over time, public opinion – shaped by an ever-increasing press coverage and state discourse – began to shift, systematically condemning profiteering and valorizing scientific excavation. Yet the boundaries between ‘archaeologist’, ‘collector’ and ‘dealer’ remained blurred.175 Foreign archaeological schools, while publicly opposing illicit trade, often relied on it for access to material. Figures like Rhousopoulos, Komnos, Dressel, Milchhöfer, Furtwängler, Rayet and Schliemann illustrate the contradictions of the period, professing, as they did, scientific ideals, while engaging in or benefiting from the very practices they criticized.
Ultimately, this paper argues that the emergence of archaeology in Greece cannot be understood through binaries – legal/illegal, professional/amateur, national/foreign – but only through the social, political and economic entanglements that defined the period.176 Only then can we better understand what collections of antiquities meant for all those involved in the study of Greek art and archaeology.177 These stories, once familiar but later forgotten, challenge the triumphalist narratives of disciplinary progress,178 and call for a more nuanced, multivocal history of archaeology179 – one attentive to conflict, negotiation and the everyday realities from which the field ultimately emerged.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to a number of individuals and institutions for facilitating my research on this topic and for permissions granted: Vassileios Petrakos (Athens Archaeological Society), Annemarie Kaindl (Bavarian State Library, Manuscripts and Rare Books), Thomas Kiely (British Museum), Polina Kapsali and Anna Vangelatou (University of Cambridge), Athina Chatzidimitriou (Directorate of National Archive of Monuments, Hellenic Ministry of Culture & Sports), Efi Chantzi (General State Archives of Greece), Katharina Brandt and Dimitris Grigoropoulos (German Archaeological Institute, Athens), Marie Stahl (French School at Athens), Néguine Mathieux (Musée Carnavalet, formerly of the Musée du Louvre), Anaïs Boucher (Sèvres, Manufacture et Musée Nationaux), Angelika Hudler (University of Vienna), François De Callataÿ and Nick Vaneerdewegh (Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique), Athena Tsingarida (Université Libre de Bruxelles), Cecilie Brøns and Thomas G. Lassen (Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen). Feedback from two external referees has helped to improve the final outcome significantly. To them and to the editorial team of the journal, I am most grateful. My research has been supported financially by the Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge. Any errors remain the responsibility of the author.
Sources and abbreviations
Newspapers are referred to in the text by their Greek names. They are available online via the Hellenic Parliament website at https://library.parliament.gr/Ψηφιακή-Βιβλιοθήκη/Εφημερίδες-και-Περιοδικά (accessed 10 June 2025).
bm Accounts 1866 – Accounts of the income and expenditure of the British Museum for the Financial Year ending the 31st day of March 1866
bm Accounts 1867 – Accounts of the income and expenditure of the British Museum for the Financial Year ending the 31st day of March 1867
cva – Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum
ddeam – Directorate of National Archive of Monuments, Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports, Athens
Eustratiadis, Ημερολόγιον – Personal office diary of Panagiotis Eustratiadis, the General Ephor (Superintendent) of Antiquities of Greece, Ημερολόγιον Υπηρεσίας, 1863–84, Archives of the Archaeological Society of Athens
Eustratiadis, Παράρτημα – Supplementary documents of Panagiotis Eustratiadis, Archives of the Archaeological Society of Athens
gra, bm – Archives of the Department of Greece and Rome, British Museum, London
Praktika – Proceedings of the Athens Archaeological Society
prot. no. – protocol number
Footnotes
‘Archaeology’ has its own historicity and means different things to different people. Here, I take it to represent a variegated engagement with the material vestiges of the past, which includes all groups involved and discussed in this paper.
I wish to extend my thanks to Dr Vassileios Petrakos and to the Council of the Athens Archaeological Society for granting permission to study Eustratiadis’s office diary for publication. On the structure of the Eustratiadis Archive in the Society, see V. C. Petrakos, ‘Στοιχεία για τη γνώση του έργου του παλιού Γενικού Εφόρου των Αρχαιοτήτων Παναγιώτη Ευστρατιάδη’, Mentor 134 (2024), pp. 1–263; S. Masouridi, ‘Ο Παναγιώτης Ευστρατιάδης και το έργο της Γενικής Εφορείας Αρχαιοτήτων κατά τα έτη 1863–1884: Συνοπτική παρουσίαση του αρχειακού υλικού στο Ιστορικό Αρχείο Αρχαιοτήτων και Αναστηλώσεων’, in Πρακτικά Συμποσίου εις Μνήμην Παναγιώτου Ευστρατιάδου (1815–1888), eds. A. Matthaiou and A. Chatzidimitriou (Athens, 2021), pp. 17–50.
Following C. Witmore and M. Shanks, ‘Archaeology: an ecology of practices’, in Archaeology in the Making: Conversations through a Discipline, eds. W. L. Rathje, M. Shanks and C. Witmore (London, 2012), pp. 380–98.
Despite Deligeorgis’s claim, Kyriakos Pittakis had compiled several catalogues, some of which appeared following his death in 1864, though admittedly there was no centralized register; A. Gazi, ‘Το Θησείο ως “Κεντρικόν Αρχαιολογικόν Μουσείον” (1834–1874)’, in Περί των Αρχαιοτήτων Ιδίως: Η Αρχαιολογία στην Ελλάδα του 19ου αιώνα μέσα από τις πηγές του Αρχείου των Υπηρεσιών των Αρχαιοτήτων, eds. E. Kountouri et al. (Athens, 2021), pp. 307–19.
E. Deligeorgis, ‘Έκθεσις του Υπουργού της Δημόσιας Εκπαιδεύσεως προς την Εθνοσυνέλευσιν’, Η Εφημερίς των Φιλομαθών 476–7, year 11 (January 1863), pp. 1–5; E. Deligeorgis, ‘Έκθεσις του Υπουργού των Εκκλησιαστικών προς την Εθνικήν συνέλευσιν’, Η Ελπίς 15 February 1863, pp. 3–4.
The committee comprised K. Pittakis, S. Koumanoudis, A. R. Rangavis, E. Kastorchis, P. Eustratiadis, S. Phintiklis, G. G. Papadopoulos and T. Kaftantzoglou; E. Deligeorgis, ‘Aριθ. Πρωτ. 2374. Βασίλειον της Ελλάδος’, op. cit. [Η Εφημερίς των Φιλομαθών] (note 5), p. 12.
Ibid.
Ibid. Of the state of antiquities in Athens, Rhousopoulos noted: ‘we have no need of new antiquities, Sirs, but of a place to guard and dispose them, as they are [now] scattered in every corner of the city’; A. Rhousopoulos, ‘Αρχαιολογικά’, Η Ελπίς 12 December 1861, p. 4.
S. Koumanoudis, Ὁ περὶ ἀρχαιοτήτων νόμος καὶ αἱ σχετικαὶ πρὸς αὐτὸν ἐγκύκλιοι ὑπουργικαί, καὶ ἄλλα τινὰ ἐκδιδόμενα ὑπὸ τῆς Ἀρχαιολογικῆς Ἑταιρείας πρὸς χρῆσιν τῶν κατὰ τὸ βασίλειον ἀρχῶν καὶ αὐτῶν τῶν πολιτῶν (Athens, 1874), pp. 29–30, prot. no. 874; see also the address of Minister Dimitrios Drosos to the same group of officials, 20 June 1866, in ibid., pp. 31–3, prot. no. 4241.
Y. Galanakis, ‘How (not) to protect the past? Heritage protection efforts and power struggles in early modern Greece’, in Art – Law – Restoration: Europe and the Early Practices for Heritage Protection / Arte – legge – restauro:l’Europa e le prime prassi per la protezione dal patrimonio, Sapere l’Europa, Sapere d’Europa 7 (Venice, 2022), pp. 160–84.
Appointed on 27 November 1863; A. Kokkou, Μέριμνα για τις αρχαιότητες στην Ελλάδα και τα πρώτα μουσεία (1977) (Athens, 2009), pp. 119–20, 233, n. 1.
Appointed on 14 February 1864 (by Royal Decree, 2 February 1864), though already serving as General Ephor of Antiquities from August 1863; Eustratiadis, Ημερολόγιον, p. 7.
On Eustratiadis’s life and training before he became General Ephor of Antiquities, see A. Matthaiou, ‘Παναγιώτης Ευστρατίου Μυτιληναίος: Εύτακτος, επιμελής, επιδίδει’, in Matthaiou and Chatzidimitriou, op. cit. (note 2), pp. 311–19.
V.C. Petrakos, Παναγιώτης Α. Σταματάκης: Βίος και Έργο, Library of the Archaeological Society of Athens 343 (Athens, 2022), pp. 31–50.
Eustratiadis, Ημερολόγιον, p. 40, no. 269; p. 52, no. 363.
On 3 March1875, Stamatakis was appointed Ephor of Antiquities for Central Greece; following the removal of Eustratiadis, Stamatakis succeed him on 7 September 1884, a role he held until his (untimely) death on 19 March 1885; Petrakos, op. cit. (note 14), pp. 52–3; see also, Kokkou, op. cit. (note 11), pp. 118–19.
For studies on the history of archaeology, see Kokkou, op. cit. (note 11); for parallel developments in England, see P. Levine, The Amateur and the Professional: Antiquarians, Historians and Archaeologists in Victorian England, 1838–1886 (Cambridge, 1986); A. Schnapp. The Discovery of the Past: The Origins of Archaeology (London, 1996); A. Schnapp, ‘The antiquarian, the collector, and the cultural history of the material world’, in Cultural Histories of the Material World, ed. P. N. Miller (New York, 2019), pp. 144–64; M. Díaz-Andreu and L. Coltofean (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the History of Archaeology (Oxford, 2024).
Y. Galanakis, ‘“University professor – antiquities looter”: a nineteenth-century Athens art dealer and the trafficking of antiquities in Greece under the first archaeological law’, pts. i–ii, Anglo-Hellenic Review no. 45 (spring 2012), pp. 7–10; no. 46 (autumn 2012), pp. 3–5. On the pot and its inscription, see R. Wachter, Non-Attic Greek Vase Inscriptions (Oxford, 2001), pp. 47–8.
On Eustratiadis’s growing suspicions of Rhousopoulos’s ever expanding archaeological collection see Ημερολόγιον, p. 29, no. 172 (19 April 1865); p. 53, no. 366 (19–20 July 1866). He even tasked Stamatakis on 25 July 1866 to record Rhousopoulos’s collection – an assignment, however, which does not seem to have materialized, for reasons unknown; Eustratiadis, Ημερολόγιον, p. 54, no. 370 (25 July 1866). On Rhousopoulos, see Y. Galanakis, ‘Doing business: two unpublished letters from Athanasios Rhousopoulos to Arthur Evans in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford’, in Essays in Classical Archaeology for Eleni Hatzivassiliou, 1977–2007, eds. D. Kurtz et al., The Beazley Archives Series 4 (Oxford, 2008), pp. 297–309; Galanakis, op. cit. (note 18); A. Hudler, ‘Biographies of Archaeological Artifacts: The Professor and Collector Athanasios Rousopoulos (1823–1898)’, PhD dissertation, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, University of Vienna (2024), available online at https://utheses.univie.ac.at/detail/71885/ (accessed 10 June 2025).
A. Rhousopoulos, ‘Ἀνασκαφὴ ἐν τῇ Ἁγίᾳ Τριάδι, Archaiologike Ephemeris 17 (1863), pp. 279–84.
For example, C. Merkouri, ‘Εξαγωγές αρχαιοτήτων κατά τον 19ο αιώνα και τις αρχές του 20ου αιώνα: Το πρώτο νομοθετικό πλαίσιο για τη προστασία τους’, in ‘Ξενιτεμένες Αρχαιότητες’. Αφετηρίες και Διαδρομές, eds. A. Matthaiou and A. Chatzidimitriou (Athens, 2012), pp. 141–55; E. Solomou, ‘Νομοθετικά και διοικητικά μέτρα για την προστασία των αρχαιοτήτων επί Π. Ευστρατιάδη’, in Matthaiou and Chatzidimitriou, op. cit., pp. 51–75.
Archäologischer Anzeiger 210 (June 1866).
A. Rhousopoulos, ‘Sopra un vasetto Corinzio con iscrizioni d’un carattere antichissimo’, Annali dell'Instituto di corrispondenza archeologica 34 (1862), pp. 46–56.
The information that Rhousopoulos himself had not purchased this object, comes from Eustratiadis, Ημερολόγιον, p. 84 (January 1868), where it is recorded that he had received, for study, from the wife of Spyridon Valtinos (née Maggina) ‘some 15 years ago’, a vase with an archaic inscription ‘identical with the one sold by him to the British Museum’ (original in Greek). When she enquired about its whereabouts, Rhousopoulos asserted that it had been gifted to him.
A. Michaelis, ‘III. Museographisches. Athenische Vasen’, Archäologischer Anzeiger 149–50 (May–June 1861), pp. 198–205, at p. 202, no. 26. Michaelis probably saw the aryballos in the spring of 1860, when he became acquainted with Rhousopoulos and his family, whom he visited several times; he did not visit Athens in 1861 – the year his article appeared; L. Errington, Otto Jahn und Adolf Michaelis: Briefwechsel, 1848 bis 1869. Kommentierte Textausgabe (Berlin and Boston, 2017), nos. 277, 278, 283 (March–April 1860). Upon Michaelis’s recommendation, around the time of his visit, Rhousopoulos became a corresponding member of the German Archaeological Institute in Rome; Hudler, op. cit. (note 19), p. 136.
M. A. Horta, ‘The Dodwell Vase: Agamemnon and Thersander in between epic cycles’, Euphrosyne: Journal for Classical Philology 49 (2021), pp. 7–46.
Eustratiadis, Ημερολόγιον, p. 58, no. 394 (28 September 1866), and p. 59, with drawings and transcription of the text.
‘. . . καπηλεύεται τὰ ἀρχαῖα’; Eustratiadis, Ημερολόγιον, p. 58, no. 394, side note (28 September 1866).
Ibid., p. 59 (25 October 1866).
Ibid., p. 61 no. 418 (22 December 1866). Literally the term 'ἀρχαιοκάπηλος' means 'the one who deals in ancient things'. See e.g., Schliemann's explanation in a letter to Burnouf: 'le marchand d'antiquités (ἀρχαιοκάπηλος) Rhousopoulos' (H. Schliemann to E. Burnouf, 27/4/1874, Fonds Burnouf, Université de Lorraine). It already had a derogatory meaning in the 1860s, but it was only in the 1880s that the term came uncontestably to denote an 'antiquities looter'.
A. Rhousopoulos, ‘Κύριε συντάκτα τῆς 'Ελπίδος’, Eλπίς, 21 February 1867, p. 3. The fine is mentioned by Merlin to Newton: ‘these are the thanks he gets for having published it!’; letter, 11 February 1867, gra, bm.
This information, signed by Rhousopoulos himself, appeared in the newspaper Αυγή, 11 March 1867, p. 4, along with a sketch of the Aineta aryballos. The catalogue of the Society’s museum had 3,903 entries on 30 August 1867, though this number excludes the almost 8,500 coins and 5,000 stamped amphora handles the collection had at the time; Praktika (1867), p. 19 and n.
On Logiotatidis, who came from a prominent family from Aegina with political connections, see V. C. Petrakos, Πρόχειρον Αρχαιολογικόν, 2 vols., Library of the Archaeological Society of Athens (Athens, 2013), vol. i, pp. 283–4; vol. ii, pp. 17–18; E.
Stambogli, ‘Αρχαιολογία και αρχαιοκαπηλία στο δεύτερο μισό του 19ου αιώνα: μία σχέση σε εξέλιξη’, unpublished manuscript, 2020 (shared by permission of the author https://www.academia.edu/43986006); Masouridi, op. cit. (note 2), p. 19 and n. 17; Hudler, op. cit. (note 19), pp. 34, 41, 46; Petrakos, op. cit. (note 2), p. 138. Further accusations by Logiotatidis brought about his dismissal on 28 February 1866.
S. Logiotatidis, letter to the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Public Education, 15 January 1866, prot. no. 369 (received 17 January 1866), General State Archives of Greece, Central Service, Archive of the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Public Education, third period (1855–86), φ. 507 (antiquities correspondence).
Παλιγγενεσία, 10 September 1866, p. 4 (author unknown, accusation in which Komnos is not mentioned by name); Αιών, 29 July 1866, p. 4 (response by Komnos). Komnos was from Corfu and had studied in Naples and Paris. Little information exists about his life. He was born early in the nineteenth century and died probably around the turn of the century; D. Vasilikou, Το Χρονικό της Ανασκαφής των Μυκηνών, Library of the Archaeological Society of Athens 274 (Athens, 2011), pp. 67–8 (on his spat with Schliemann).
Αιών, 29 July 1866, p. 4.
Rhousopoulos was first appointed Extraordinary Professor of Greek at the University of Athens in 1855. From 1860 he was full-time professor of Greek, and became professor of archaeology in 1868, a position he held until 1884. In a letter from Rhousopoulos to Pastor Hansen, former chaplain to Queen Amalia (5 October 1869, Royal Library of Denmark, Copenhagen), we learn that: ‘as it is not appropriate for a family member to invest so much money in antiquities, what the National Museum of my fatherland needs from mine [that is, my collection] will stay here and the rest will be sold as cheaply as possible, I just want my money plus interest’ (original in German).
Eustratiadis, Ημερολόγιον, p. 70, no. 473 (10 March 1867).
For example, in 1876 the Athens Archaeological Society asked its president, Philippos Ioannou, who was one of Rhousopoulos’s close acquaintances, to persuade him that it was inappropriate for a university professor to be selling antiquities. Rhousopoulos denied that he was doing such a thing, claiming instead that he was waiting to buy antiquities so that ‘they can stay in the land’: V. C. Petrakos, Η εν Αθήναις Αρχαιολογική Εταιρεία. Οι πρώτες δεκαετίες 1837–1909, Library of the Archaeological Society of Athens 321 (Athens, 2019), p. 121.
A. Michaelis, ‘Antichità di Atene’, Bullettino dell'Instituto di Corrispondenza Archeologica per l'anno 1860, 113-118, esp. pp. 117-118, where it was recorded that already by April 1860 the ‘possessor’ (‘possessore’ in the original Italian) was Rhousopoulos. Also, A. Schneider, Der Troische Sagenkreis in der altesten griechischen Kunst (Leipzig, 1886), p. 49, n. 3. As his personal papers suggest, Eustratiadis continued to show an interest in this particular vessel until at least 1875: P. Eustratiadis archive, envelope 22 ιθ, 'Κορομηλάς φιάλη (tazza) 26/6/1875', Athens Archaeological Society.
D. Feytmans, Les vases grecs de la Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique (Brussels, 1948), p. 20, n. 2; on Lucien de Hirsch, see F. De Callataÿ, ‘Lucien de Hirsch numismate, et le fonds séquestre Edouard Balser (Archives Générales du Royaume)’, Monte Artium: Journal of the Royal Library of Belgium 6 (2013), pp. 7–40.
Galanakis, op. cit. (note 18). Merlin was a subscribing member throughout the 1860s and 1870s, like Rhousopoulos and numerous other dealers in antiquities. His last subscription was paid in 1880 – that is, seven years before he left Greece to relocate to London.
The donation is recorded in a Greek newspaper (Αθηνά, 14 February 1864, p. 3) and in the Society’s proceedings (Praktika (1865), p. 16).
Published by L. Ross, Hercule et Nessus: peinture d’un vase de Ténée (Athens, 1835). This object is now in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, inv. no. 529/cc640, online at https://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/record/82DE917C-24E0-4BC8-9336-5F5C15A995A3 (accessed 10 June 2025). Merlin did not donate any other objects to the Society’s museum.
Probably Newton was alerted by Merlin to the existence of this object in 1864, when he sent him numerous antiquities, one of which was accompanied by a note that read: ‘vase in the possession of Mr. Roussopoulos of Athens with an inscription in archaïc characters of the earliest period’. The list of the 1864 antiquities is kept with his letter to Newton of 21 July 1865. It is titled 'Corrected list of sundry antiquities offered to the British Museum & selected by Mr. Newton when in Athens', GRA, BM. On Merlin, see Y. Galanakis, ‘On Her Majesty’s Service: C.L.W. Merlin and the sourcing of Greek antiquities for the British Museum’, CHS Research Bulletin 1 no. 1 (2012), available online at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:GalanakisY.On_Her_Majestys_Service.2012 (accessed 10 June 2025).
bm Accounts 1867. Newton, recommendation for purchase (C. Merlin, Corinthian Vase), 7 December 1865, gra, bm.
bm Accounts 1866, 19. Rhousopoulos noted, in the book he kept of his finances (κατάστιχον), that the small inscribed Corinthian pot was ‘agreed’ (‘συμφωνήθη’) for the British Museum for 1,000 francs on ‘26 April 1865’ (original in Greek; the date probably refers to the Julian calendar); Hudler, op. cit. (note 19), p. 124. When did Rhousopoulos add this information to his κατάστιχον? Merlin confirmed to Newton that he had made the purchase in his letter of 31 August 1865 (Gregorian calendar). If Rhousopoulos’s note is accurate, it would suggest that Merlin proactively, and rather pre-emptively perhaps, made the purchase before Newton gave him permission to do so and with the expectation that the aryballos would be sold to the British Museum. Equally, the object might have been reserved for Merlin in April 1865 (‘agreed’) but was sold only in August that year. By autumn the aryballos was in London; C. Newton to C. Merlin, 3 November 1865, gra, bm.
bm Accounts 1867, 18.
C. Merlin to C. Newton, 28 July 1867, gra, bm.
C. Merlin to C. Newton, 28 July 1867, gra, bm. Eustratiadis occasionally referred to the need for the Greek Embassy in London to notify him of certain sales and to provide information on the whereabouts of objects, so that the Greek authorities were kept abreast of the collections in which antiquities from Greece ended up; Eustratiadis, Ημερολόγιον, p. 145, no. 1069 (1 March 1871); p. 147 (3 April 1871), prot. no. 2365.
As reported by Komnos in his defence, along with other prominent local collectors of the time, such as George Finlay and Pavlos Kalligas; Εφημερίς των Συζητήσεων, 8 March 1872, p. 4.
See the implication of Komnos in the trafficking of antiquities in the article of an Athenian newspaper Λαός, 29 January 1871, p. 4. In relation to the sale of Komnos’s numismatic collection abroad, without notification to, or permission of, the authorities, see E. Pipelia, ‘Κατασχέσεις αρχαιοτήτων κατά τον 19ο αιώνα: απαρχές της έννομης προστασίας’, in Kountouri et al., op. cit. (note 4), pp. 81–90, esp. pp. 86–7.
Εφημερίς των Συζητήσεων, 8 March 1872, pp. 3–4; his involvement in legal cases regarding the trafficking of antiquities can be monitored to the 1890s (e.g., Εφημερίς, 12 January 1890, p. 2). On Polychronopoulos, see C. Avronidaki, Greece – Athens, National Archaeological Museum: Boeotian Red-Figured Vases, cva, Greece, fasc. 16 (Athens, 2023), pp. 25–6.
Εφημερίς των Συζητήσεων, 8 March 1872, p. 4.
The Society had in the 1870s already dismissed Rhousopoulos ‘honourably’ (‘εὐφήμως’): V.C. Petrakos, ‘Το αρχείο της Αρχαιολογικής Εταιρείας’, Mnemon 13 (1991), pp. 352–3; Petrakos, op. cit. (note 40), pp. 174–5. Ironically, and clearly inconveniently for Eustratiadis, Rhousopoulos’s position as professor of archaeology in the university continued in the 1870s to entitle him to serve on the ministry’s committee of specialists (along with the General Ephor and Koumanoudis, among others), who evaluated antiquities for purchase and/or export.
Hudler, op. cit. (note 19); A. Hudler, ‘Βιογραφικές αφηγήσεις μέσα από τις αρχαιότητες του Αθανάσιου Ρουσόπουλου (1823–1898)’, in Νέες προσεγγίσεις σε θέματα νεοελληνικών σπουδών. Πρακτικά του Α΄ Διεθνούς Συμποσίου Νέων Ερευνητών Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών, 9–10 September 2022, eds. A. M. Martín Vico, R. Rodríguez Parejo and S. Esteban Cabrera (Granada, 2024), pp. 145–6. In 1882–4, and when many of his allies in key places left their posts, Rhousopoulos’s illicit actions in the exportation of antiquities were officially condemned; letter from the Athens Archaeological Society to the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Public Education, ddeam, box. 455, folder H. Κλοπὴ ἀρχαιοτήτων Ρουσοπούλου, 20 April 1883, prot. no. 133. On Rhousopoulos’s dismissal from his university position in 1884, see Proceedings of the Faculty meeting, 10 October 1884, Proceedings of meetings of the School of Philosophy, 1881–5, 6 (81), Historical Archive of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.
M. Piotrovsky (ed.), The Hermitage Museum of St. Petersburg: The Greek Treasures (St Petersburg, 2004), p. 87; E. N. Khodza, ‘Терракоты, изображающие танцовщиц и ‘кукол’, из коллекции А. Д. Блудова’, Сообщения Государственного Эрмитажа / Reports of the State Hermitage Museum 78 (2020), pp. 5–23.
Letter, 11 November 1865, ddeam, box 6004, folder 8, Ἔγγραφα ἀφορῶντα εἰς τὴν εἰσαγωγὴν ἀρχαίων εἰς τὰς ἐν Ἀθήναις συλλογάς μετὰ τὸν θάνατον τοῦ ἐφόρου Πιττάκη. Also, Historical Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Greece, folder 1-6 ‘Κλοπές Αρχαιοτήτων/Αρχαιοκαπηλεία’ (1949), pp. 12-14 (that includes the report of Anagnostopoulos). The Russian consul in the Piraeus, H. Henrichen, was invited to the scene but declared ignorance and refused to sign Anagnostopoulos’ report. The Greek press was quick to report the incident: e.g., Εθνοφύλαξ 12 November 1865, p.2; Παλιγγενεσία 22 November 1865, p. 3 which mentioned Anagnostopoulos’ dismissal from the force, an episode that another newspaper related to the confiscation of the said antiquities: Ευαγγελισμός 23 November 1865, p.3. It is interesting that, a year later, there was still a memory of these events within the police force and among custom officials, with officers not wanting ‘to suffer the same fate as the policeman who once confiscated the antiquities of the Russian’; Eustratiadis, Ημερολόγιον, p. 51 (June 1866).
See Eustratiadis, Ημερολόγιον, p. 35 (November 1865), where he identifies the sale source as Panagiotis Theophilopoulos, elsewhere known as Kalavrezos, from Patras; Ημερολόγιον, p. 38 (April 1866), where Kalavrezos is asking money for the third fragment (10,000 drachmas), which he had originally promised to donate to the national collections free of charge. The third fragment was finally given to the national collections without payment by his son Polybios Kalavrezos on 11 June 1868; Eustratiadis, Ημερολόγιον, p. 92.
Athens Archaeological Museum, inv. nos. Γ1150–1152 (not on display); known since at least 1854 (E. Bursian, ‘Sculpturen in Griechenland’, Archäologische Zeitung 12, pp. 475-480, esp. p. 479, where the three fragments are recorded as ‘in einem…Privathaus’ in Patras without providing the details of the owner), it was published by R. Kekulé von Stradonitz, Die antiken Bildwerkeim Theseion zu Athen (Leipzig, 1869), pp. 58–60, nos. 144–5; also, L. Sybel, Katalog der Sculpturen zu Athen: Kentrikon Mouseion, Barbakeion Lykeion, Hagia Trias, Theseion, Stoa d. Hadrian, Ephoria. Suedabh. d. Akropolis, Akropolis (Marburg, 1881), pp. 106–7, no. 579. Casts of the three fragments were made by Napoleone Felice Martinelli; N. F. Martinelli, Catalogo dei getti in gesso di diversi oggetti di scultura greca antica (Athens, 1875), p. 24, no. 89 (on sale in 1875 for 140 francs). Casts of these fragments seem to have been made upon the request of Johann Emil von Wagner, the Prussian minister to the Greek court in 1867: Eustratiadis, Ημερολόγιον, p. 72 (14 June 1867).
‘Ссужа́ть’ is the verb used in the original.
The draft report is published in Khodza, op. cit. (note 58). Vasilchikov was addressing it to Count Illarion Ivanovich Vorontsov-Dashkov, the Russian minister for imperial properties, responsible for funding the purchase.
State Hermitage Museum, inv. no. ГР-5874. Eustratiadis was aware of the sale: it eventually transpired that the marble head was in the possession of Rear-Admiral Ioannis Soteriadis, who sold it to Komnos. Komnos, in turn, sold it to the Russian minister; Eustratiadis, Ημερολόγιον, p. 23 (February 1865); p. 29, no. 180; p. 69 (25 April 1867); p. 75 (26 July 1867), side note; p. 136 (6 October 1870).
François Lenormant was the son of Charles Lenormant (1802–1859), a specialist in antiquities, member of the Morea scientific expedition, who is favourably remembered in Greece to this day.
‘. . . from Thera many antiquities are removed by Lenormant’; Eustratiadis, Ημερολόγιον, p. 47 (April 1866). On the source, A. Christomanos, see Eustratiadis, Ημερολόγιον, p. 49, no. 343 (20 May 1866); see also, Ημερολόγιον, p. 58 (October–November 1866).
For example, Η Ελπίς, 19 May 1866, p. 3; this attack on Lenormant used a publication by Baron J.J.A.M. de Witte, ‘De quelques antiquités rapportées de Grèce par M. François Lenormant’, Gazette des Beaux-Arts 2 (August 1866), pp. 105–22. The anonymous author in the Greek newspaper recorded that: ‘we are saddened to see that Mr. François Lenormant, each time he visited Greece smuggled with him antiquities, when he knows well that the exportation of antiquities from Greece is prohibited by law . . . the behaviour of Mr. Lenormant is . . . akin to that of a thief (original in Greek).
I. Tzachili, ‘Excavations on Thera and Therasia in the nineteenth century: a chronicle’, Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 18 (2005), pp. 231–57; I. Tzachili, Οι αρχές της Αιγαιακής Προϊστορίας: Οι ανασκαφές στη Θήρα και τη Θηρασία τον 19οαιώνα (Athens, 2006).
For example, Schliemann wrote to his son on 9/21 March 1870 that he had transferred to Athens a lot of antiquities that he had bought on Thera, ‘which are older than 4,000 years’ (original in German); E. Meyer, Heinrich Schliemann:. Briefwechsel, aus dem Nachlass in Auswahl, vol. i: 1842–1875 (Berlin, 1873), pp. 162–3, no. 130, p. 164, no. 131, p. 325, no. 220; G. S. Korres, ‘Η Συλλογή Νομισμάτων του Ερρίκου Σλήμαν και ο Κατάλογος αυτών ο συνταχθείς υπό του Αχιλλέως Ποστολάκκα’, ADelt 29, vol. a (Meletes) (1977), pp. 245–53, esp. p. 248; D. Douskos and I. Tzachili, ‘Heinrich Schliemann’s Epistemic Premonitions at Therasia and Beyond’, in ΙΧΝΗ: Walking in the Footsteps of the Pioneer of Aegean Archaeology in Celebration of the 200th Anniversary of the Birth of Heinrich Schliemann. Proceedings of the 19th International Aegean Conference / 19e rencontre égéenne internationale, eds. R. Laffineur and M. Perna (Leuven–Liège, 2024) [special issue Aegaeum 49], pp. 53–61.
F. Lenormant, ‘Report on a mission on the island of Santorin’, CRAI 2 (1866), pp. 269–83.
Letter from C. Merlin to C. Newton, 5 October 1866, gra, bm.
Eustratiadis, Ημερολόγιον, pp. 125–7. In May 1873, when Gorceix’s boxes were inspected by the ephorate in the Piraeus, no antiquities were found; Eustratiadis, Ημερολόγιον, p. 195, no. 1155 (16 May 1873).
H. Gorceix and H. Mamet, ‘Recherches et fouilles faites à Théra (Santorin)’, Bulletin de l’École Française d’Athènes no. 9 (May 1870), pp. 183–91. Gorceix presented the Eparch of Thera with ‘a quasi-legal order of the prime minister’, Thrasyvoulos Zaïmis, which granted him permission to excavate according to Eustratiadis, Ημερολόγιον, p. 127, no. 4064 (30 June 1870).
Eustratiadis first noticed this work through the announcement of the discoveries in the press, Το Μέλλον, 5 June 1870; Eustratiadis, Ημερολόγιον, p. 125, no. 874.
Eustratiadis, Ημερολόγιον, pp. 126–7, numerous entries.
Ibid., p. 126, no. 880 (18 June 1870). The six crates were finally opened, and the objects inspected, on 19 June 1870; Eustratiadis, Ημερολόγιον, p. 126, nos. 884–5. The contents were inspected by Burnouf, Eustratiadis and Stamatakis. Two copies of the contents list exist today in ddeam, box 429, folder Διάφορα (1870–84).
M. Sophronidou, ‘Η αρχαιολογική είδηση στις εφημερίδες’, PhD dissertation, Department of History and Archaeology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (2002); see also, Masouridi, op. cit. (note 2).
Λαός, 9 June 1870, pp. 3–4; 23 June 1870, pp. 2–3; 27 June 1870, pp. 3–4.
Letter of 30 June 1870, as quoted in Tzachili, op. cit. [Οι αρχές της Αιγαιακής Προϊστορίας] (note 68), p. 79.
For the political background, see ibid., pp. 73–81, esp. pp. 79–80; for the objects in question, see A. Karnava, ‘Les objets des fouilles de Gorceix et Mamet conservés a l’École Française d’Athènes’, in La Grèce des Origines: Entre rêve et archéologie, ed. A. Boucher (Paris, 2014), pp. 42–7. Along with the ambassador’s efforts, the director of the French School sent two letters to the Minister of Public Education and Religious Affairs asking for the release of the antiquities, stressing that the French School would not ‘éviter ou éluder les loys du Pays’; Eustratiadis, Ημερολόγιον, p. 126 (23 June 1870).
The term ‘duplicates’ was probably used to justify the action, since it is mentioned in the Greek law of 1834 and in the Olympia convention, which the Greek government had agreed with Germany (officially ratified in 1875). Yet any export of ancient objects, duplicates included, still required the permission of the General Ephorate.
A letter of recommendation for this offer, dated 18 July 1876, is preserved in the archives of the French School at Athens (5 adm 86); W.-H. Waddington, Minister of Public Education and Fine Arts, to Albert Dumont, the director of the French School, concerning the offer of the ‘doublons’ from the Santorini vases in the school’s collection to the Emperor of Brazil in exchange for a ‘beautiful series of stone weapons and prehistoric objects’, which Waddington approved. See also, Karnava op. cit. (note 80), p. 42, n. 8, remarking on the connection between Gorceix and the emperor: that same year, Gorceix had founded a School of Mines at Outro Preto in Brazil. Eustratiadis recorded the Emperor’s visit; Ημερολόγιον, p. 126, no. 1994, side note.
The Gorceix affair occurred shortly after the Dilessi murders in April 1870 and on the eve of the Franco-Prussian War of July 1870.
See also A. Matthaiou, ‘Ο Στέφανος Α. Κουμανούδης (1818–1899) και οι αρχαιολογικές δραστηριότητες των Ευρωπαίων στην Ελλάδα’, in Matthaiou and Chatzidimitriou, op. cit. (note 21), pp. 125–39.
P. Bougia, ‘Από τα αριστουργήματα της ελληνικής τέχνης στα τεκμήρια ελληνικότητος. Η συλλογή αρχαιοτήτων από αρχαιοθήρες, αρχαιολάτρες και Έλληνες στην Ελλάδα του 19ου αιώνα’, in ΚΥΔΑΛΙΜΟΣ. Τιμητικός τόμος για τον Καθηγητή Γεώργιο Στυλ. Κορρέ, eds. P. Kalogerakou et al., vol. iv (Athens, 2020), pp. 165–79.
On collecting and archaeology in Greece at the time, see Kokkou, op. cit. (note 11); Petrakos, op. cit. (note 40); Kountouri et al., op. cit. (note 4); Matthaiou and Chatzidimitriou, op. cit. (note 2).
For Schliemann’s efforts, see D. Traill, Treasure and Deceit: Schliemann of Troy (London, 1995); Vasilikou, op. cit. (note 35).
‘I finally agreed to do the excavations only for the glory and to be content with the pleasure I feel in doing them’; Heinrich Schliemann Papers, American School of Classical Studies at Athens, gr ascsa gl hs 003, a13, p. 60 (ascsa); Vasilikou, op. cit. (note 35), p. 21.
Vasilikou, op. cit. (note 35), pp. 20–21, 24–5.
Eustratiadis, Ημερολόγιον, p. 185 (12 January 1873), side note; Vasilikou, op. cit. (note 35), pp. 26–7.
Vasilikou, op. cit. (note 35), pp. 34–5; on Schliemann’s reaction, see also T. N. Bohotis, Ελέγχοντας τον τόπο του παρελθόντος. Η γερμανοελληνική σχέση εξουσίας στις ανασκαφές της Ολυμπίας, 1869–1882 (Athens, 2015), pp. 287–8.
Vasilikou, op. cit. (note 35), p. 38.
Ibid., pp. 39–43, with additional references. A report and drawings are today included in the Fonds E. Burnouf, Université de Lorraine, online at https://sama.univ-lorraine.fr/fr/fonds-emile-burnouf (accessed 10 June 2025).
Vasilikou, op. cit. (note 35), pp. 43–4.
Ibid., p. 44.
Ibid., p. 50.
Ibid., pp. 50–60.
Ibid., pp. 60–61.
Ibid., pp. 62–4, 69, 72–4.
Ibid., pp. 77–8.
The Olympia convention was established between two states (Greece and Germany) rather than between an individual and the state, as in Schliemann’s case. While the convention was contentious in many respects – for example, in allowing the exportation of ‘duplicates’ and granting Germany the right to make casts (Bohotis, op. cit. (note 91)) – in the long run it equipped the Greek government with additional negotiating powers and paved the way for a framework of archaeological operations, which – to some extent and with modifications – still exists.
V. C. Petrakos, ‘Ιδεογραφία της εν Αθήναις Αρχαιολογικής Εταιρείας’, Archaiologike Ephemeris 1987 (1989), pp. 25–197, esp. p. 57; Matthaiou, op. cit. (note 84) also explores the tensions between Koumanoudis’s efforts and those of foreign scholars working in Greece, including disagreements over the rights to first publication.
S. Koumanoudis, ‘Ἐπιγραφαί ἐκ τοῦ Ἀσκληπιείου καὶ τῶν πέριξ τόπων’, Athenaion 6 (1877), pp. 474–91, esp. p. 476; for a discussion of the context, see Matthaiou, op. cit. (note 84), pp. 126–8.
Matthaiou, op. cit. (note 84), pp. 127–8. Koumanoudis, and by extension the Society, was against the Olympia convention, the poor enforcement of the 1834 law, lending objects to international exhibitions, etc.
See, for example, R. Mazza, Stolen Fragments: Black Market, Bad Faith, and the Illicit Trade in Ancient Artefacts (Stanford, ca, 2024), p. 216, on ‘scholarship’, its uses and misuses, to this day.
Eustratiadis, Ημερολόγιον, p. 248 prot. no. 7981, 480/18.
Ibid., p. 249 prot. no. 8710, 480/18 (27 October 1875).
Ibid., p. 249 (28 October 1875).
Ibid., p. 249, prot. no. 8609, 480/18 (24 October 1875), with side notes. M. N. Tod and A. J. B. Wace, A Catalogue of the Sparta Museum (Oxford, 1906), pp. 133-4, no. 3.
On the Realpolitik of the time, see also Matthaiou, op. cit. (note 84), p. 139 (on Koumanoudis).
This instruction seems to repeat a request that Eustratiadis had sent to the prefect in July that year, to which he had apparently received no response; Eustratiadis, Ημερολόγιον, p. 280 (2 July 1877).
W. M. Whitehill, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: A Centennial History (Boston, 1970), pp. 210–17. Παλιγγενεσία, 3 March 1873, p. 3, where Martinelli is described as an artist and cast maker (‘καλλιτέχνης ἐκμαγευτής’). See also, E. Pipelia, ‘". . . τὸ ἀποκλειστικὸν δικαίωμα τοῦ λαμβάνειν ἐκμαγεῖα καὶ ἀποτυπώματα . . .", Πολιτικές και επιστημονικές όψεις του άρθρου 7 της ελληνογερμανικής σύμβασης περί των ανασκαφών στην Ολυμπία’, in Die Abteilung Athen desdaiund die Aktivitäten deutscher Archäologen in Griechenland, 1874–1933, eds. K. Sporn and A. Kankeleit, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Archäologie und der Altertumswissenschaften 2 (Wiesbaden, 2020), pp. 119–33, esp. pp. 128–9. On the catalogues of his casts, see Martinelli, op. cit. (note 61); N. F. Martinelli, Catalogue of Casts in Gypsum Taken Direct from the Masterpieces of Greek Sculpture Existing in Athens and Other Places in Greece (Athens, 1881). For more than twenty years, Martinelli’s workshop was the exclusive supplier of the collections of casts in Europe and America. Schliemann paid 4,000 drachmas to Martinelli, as instructed by the authorities, for the demolition of the Frankish tower on the Acropolis; Eustratiadis, Ημερολόγιον, p. 220, no. 1619 (19 June 1874).
Eustratiadis, Ημερολόγιον, p. 290 (1 March 1878).
As Vana Buse notes, many laws were ratified during the reign of King Otto: some were introduced (with varied results), others were only partially implemented (like the 1834 antiquities law), while others still were annulled or were impossible to implement or were rejected by the people altogether; V. Buse, Η Καθημερινή Ζωή στην Ελλάδα του Όθωνα (Athens, 2020).
1834 law on antiquities, section Γ, chapter 3, articles 76, 80. The law of 1834 further provided that those breaching article 76 (the ban on authorizing exportation of antiquities) would be fined ‘between 50 and 500 drachmas’, according to article 702 of the penal code. If the object(s) in question had already been exported, then the person accused had to also pay the object(s) estimated sale price.
‘Martinelli brought to Athens a gypsum copy’; Eustratiadis, Ημερολόγιον, p. 248, no. 7891 (8 October 1877). One copy was bought by the University of Cambridge on 9 October 1880, see https://museum.classics.cam.ac.uk/collections/casts/sabouroff-grave-stele (accessed 10 June 2025). That Dressel and Milchhöfer used the cast and not the original sculpture is detectable, as certain details are shared only by the drawing and the cast, and not the original piece. See also A. Furtwängler, La collection Sabouroff: monuments de l’art grec (Berlin, 1883–7), p. 56, n. 1, which notes the differences between the original and the casts that were made and, soon afterwards, sold. The cast of the Chrysapha relief appears in Martinelli’s catalogue, Martinelli, op. cit. (note 112), as no. 295.
H. Dressel and A. Milchhöfer, ‘Die antiken Kunstwerke aus Sparta und Umgebung’, Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Athenische Abteilung 2 (1877), pp. 293–474, esp. pp. 294–5, where they mention that Martinelli, on his return from Olympia, by chance happened to be in Sparta and was able to make several casts, among which was the one of the Chrysapha relief described here.
A. Milchhöfer to H. Brunn, 1 September 1877, DE-611-HS-455851 (erroneously recorded as dating to 1 October 1877), Nachlass Heinrich Brunn, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich, p. 7.
Magoula was a well-known location near Sparta which yielded numerous sculptures at the time; Dressel and Milchhöfer op. cit. (note 117), pp. 297, 298–9, 301, 318, 322, 344, 361, 373, 433–6. See also Eustratiadis, Ημερολόγιον, p. 280 (P. Thaniotes); Stamatakis’s registers of the Sparta Museum, ddeam, online at https://haas.culture.gov.gr/el/global-search (‘Σταματάκης’) (accessed 10 June 2025).
Dressel and Milchhöfer, op. cit. (note 117), pp. 314–15, pl. xxvb. It is noteworthy that this is the only reference in their work, of some 300 sculptures, to a ‘Privatbesitz’ without any further details provided.
Dressel and Milchhöfer, op. cit. (note 117), p. 294; they mention Stamatakis’s efforts to record antiquities in private hands in the region. On Dressel’s collecting, see C. Weiss, Die antiken Gemmen der Sammlung Heinrich Dressel in der Antikensammlung Berlin (Würzburg, 2007).
This practice, of young German scholars exploring Greek collections across the kingdom, was initiated by Alexander Conze and Adolf Michaelis from 1859–60 onwards as part of the Reisestipendium programme; A. Michaelis and A. Conze, ‘Rapporto d’un viaggio fatto nella Grecia nel 1860’, Annali dell’Istituto 33 (1861), pp. 5–90; L. Errington, ‘Die Berichte der ersten Reisestipendiaten des dai: zwei Funde im Preußischen Staatsarchiv’, Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts 130 (2015), pp. 241–58.
Rare as they were, such permits were issued for objects that were ‘useless for us’ (‘άχρηστα ημίν’) according to Eustratiadis. An instance is the legal exportation of ‘useless’ antiquities by Albert Lebègue (1845–1894); Eustratiadis, Ημερολόγιον, p. 199, no. 1493 (19 July 1873). Lebègue was a member of the French School in Athens and first director of the Delos dig (1873).
Antikensammlung, Berlin, inv. no. Sk 732, online at https://arachne.dainst.org/entity/1121002 (accessed 10 June 2025); A. Conze, Beschreibung der antiken Skulpturen mit Ausschluss der pergamenischen Fundstücke: Königliche Museen zu Berlin (Berlin, 1891), p. 274, no. 732, ‘aus Sparta; von Dressel in Rom’ bought for 500 Marks’ ?. A letter from A. Milchhöfer to U. Köhler, 28 July 1877, in the Archives of the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut in Athens, describes this sculpture as ‘ours’ (‘unseres Φιοκλής’). On the broader context of these archaeological investigations, and of those that followed in the region, see S. Vlizos, ‘Deutsche Archäologen und das frühe Interesse an Sparta: Furtwängler, Fiechter, Buschor, ihre Vorgänger und die Ausgrabungen im Amyklaion’, in Sporn and Kankeleit, op. cit. (note 112), pp. 205–18.
Milchhöfer to Brunn, 1 September 1877, postscript, DE-611-HS-455851, Nachlass Heinrich Brunn, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, p. 8. On this piece, see also N. Lanérès, ‘L’éphèbe au serpent de Magoula: propositions pour la reflecture d’une inscription archaïque laconienne’, Revue des Études Grecques 121 (2008), pp. 1–15.
Milchhöfer to Brunn, 1 July 1877, DE-611-HS-455851, Nachlass Heinrich Brunn, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich, p. 15. Brunn had ordered (through Ulrich Köhler, the Director of the German Archaeological Institute in Athens) some casts for Munich in the spring of 1876; Pipelia, op. cit. (note 112), p. 129. Casts were freely exported and were not limited by the 1834 law.
Martinelli was well known to scholars, having sold casts to Berlin, among numerous other places; Martinelli, op. cit. (note 112), pp. iii, v–vi, includes a long list of all the institutions and distinguished academics (fifty-six in total), who had purchased casts from his shop. From the start of the Olympia dig, he was tasked with the making of casts: Die Abgüsse der in Olympia ausgegrabenen Bildwerke: ein Leitfaden für die Ausstellung in der Dombaustätte (Berlin, 1880); Pipelia, op. cit. (note 112); E. Pipelia, ‘Η αθέατη όψη της αρχαιολογίας. Κλοπές και κιβδηλεία αρχαιοτήτων κατά τη θητεία του Παναγιώτη Ευστρατιάδη’, in Matthaiou and Chatzidimitriou, op. cit. (note 2), pp. 77–97; J. Driessen and T. Kalantzopoulou, Taking Home Agamemnon: The Casts of the Lion Gate at Mycenae (Louvain-la-Neuve, 2024), passim.
Dressel and Milchhöfer, op. cit. (note 117), p. 303.
Eustratiadis, Ημερολόγιον, p. 308 (1879); he mentions that the relief, ‘said to have been bought by Sabourov’, was in the possession of Leonidas Mavromichalis at Lykovouno, friend of minister Avgerinos, through whom the General Ephor tried to obtain more information (Avgerinos also had antiquities and was accused at one point of being involved in the illicit sale and export of a mirror; Εφημερίς, 24 May 1888, p. 1). Next to this entry, there is an additional note: ‘Martinelli delivered a plaster copy [of the Chrysapha relief] to the [ephor’s] office.’ A draft of a letter from Eustratiadis is preserved (Eustratiadis, Παράρτημα, 19 November 1879) urging the owner to sell the relief ‘for a fair payment so that it becomes a valuable possession of the Sparta Museum’ (Greek in the original). As Sabourov had, by 22 December 1879 (Gregorian calendar), been transferred to Germany, should we assume that the Chrysapha relief was one of his last purchases in Greece? Or that Eustratiadis was misinformed?
P. Stamatakis, Γ΄ Εισαχθέντα αρχαία εις το Μουσείο Σπάρτης από του έτους 1875–1881 (α/α 420-468) (1881), Directorate of the National Archive of Monuments, available online at https://haas.culture.gov.gr/el/global-search/?localId=72115 (accessed 10 June 2025), pp. 36–8, no. 468. The Theodoropoulos piece was bought by the Athens Archaeological Society for 150 drachmas. Stamatakis’s catalogue was completed on 10 November 1881, and additions were made up to 31 December 1881. Dressel and Milchhöfer also visited this location; A. Milchhöfer to H. Brunn, 1 September 1877, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, pp. 9–10.
For example, as attested in several of Merlin’s letters to Newton.
M. Sophronidou, ‘Les premières fouilles préhistoriques dans le monde égéen d’après la presse grecque de l’époque’, in Mythos: la préhistoire égéenne de XIXe au XXIe siècle après J.-C. Actes de la table ronde internationale d’Athènes (21–23 novembre 2002), eds. P. Darcque, M. Fotiadis and O. Polychronopoulou, Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique, suppl. 46 (Athens, 2006), pp. 209–21, esp. pp. 111–12, n. 122, 403, 444, 565, 569, n. 366, 571–3 (as viewed through the Greek press of the time).
‘... ἵνα μὴ ἐξαχθῶσι λάθρᾳ’. For example, Eustratiadis, Ημερολόγιον, p. 233, no. 1721 (16 January 1875).
E. N. Khodza, Античные терракоты из собрания П.А. Сабурова / Antique Terracottas from the Pyotr Sabouroff’s Collection (St Petersburg, 2018), pp. 30–32.
Translation: 'Favoured by circumstances, particularly by the excavations so actively pursued at Tanagra, this collector, thanks to his zeal, his love of art, and his proven taste, has succeeded in assembling, in greater number than is generally possible for a private individual, some very fine works... all originating from Greece proper.' Furtwängler, op. cit. (note 116), p. i (preface, dated 1 October 1886). Similar comments continued to be made regarding other collections of Greek antiquities: for example, R. Lullis, Eine Sammlung griechiescher Kleinkunst (Munich, 1955), p. 5: ‘happy external circumstances, love of things . . . humanistic education and a pronounced sense of artistic quality came together to make the collection’ (original in German). On Sabourov’s collection, see F. Wieseler, Archäologischer Bericht über seine Reisen nach Griechenland (Göttingen, 1874), pp. 95–7. On the ambassador’s archaeological activities in Greece as seen through press reports, see Sophronidou, op. cit. (note 77), pp. 111–12, n. 122, 403, 444, 565, 569, n. 366, 571–3.
A. Greifenhagen, Adolf Furtwängler: Briefe aus dem Bonner Privatdozentenjahr 1879/80 und der Zeit seiner Tätigkeit an den Berliner Museen, 1880–1894 (Stuttgart, 1965), letter 57, A. Furtwängler to his mother, mid-May 1882: ‘Ein schweres Marmorrelief habe ich vom Peloponnes über Athen bis hieher (!) im Shawl verbogen herausgeschmuggelt–es war eine hübsche Noth! Aber er ist auch etwas Gutes.’ On Furtwängler’s transformation from ‘antiquarian’ to ‘archaeologist’, see S. Marchand, ‘From antiquarian to archaeologist? Adolf Furtwängler and the problem of “modern” classical archaeology’, in Momigliano and Antiquarianism: Foundations of the Modern Cultural Sciences, ed. P. N. Miller (Toronto, 2007), pp. 248–85.
Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen, inv. no. 423; Furtwängler, op. cit. (note 116), pp. 364–71, no. 1, pl. 16; F. Poulsen, Catalogue of Ancient Sculptures in the Ny Carslsberg Glyptotek (Copenhagen, 1951), pp. 41–2, no. 23.
Letter from Count Tyszkiewicz to Wolfgang Helbig, who was acting as agent for Carl Jacobsen, 2 June 1888; letter from Count Tyszkiewicz to Carl Jacobsen, 7 June 1888, effectively giving the relief ‘for free’, as it formed part of a larger sale of sculpture totalling 140,000 francs, ‘to pay you homage as founder of a museum that will be able to rival the principle museums of Europe’ (original in French), available online at https://brevarkivet.ny-carlsbergfondet.dk/ (accessed 10 June 2025).
The sale in 1884 might have been associated with providing funds to cover the heavy expenses incurred by Sabourov in maintaining his ambassadorial establishment; J. Y. Simpson, The Saburov Memoirs, or Bismarck and Russia (Cambridge, 1929), p. 19; J. Lepsius, A. Mendelssohn Bartholdy and F. Thimme (eds.), Die grosse Politik der europäischen Kabinette, 1871–1914, vol. iii: Das Bismarck’sche Bundnissystem (Berlin, 1926), p. 327. The ever gossipy Merlin, writing to Newton (20 April 1875, gra, bm) also had an interest in Sabourov’s purchases – not least as the high prices he was paying affected the antiquities market: ‘Savouroff, the Russian Minister, has left. He bought 9000 fcs of statuettes [four pieces] from Xacoustis before leaving.’ Sabourov later recalled from memory, for the information of the Hermitage Museum authorities, that the highest amount he paid for a terracotta figurine was 40,000 francs (an impressive sum – about £1,560) for a Hellenistic ‘Hermes’ (naked youth), 68 cm high, allegedly from Corinth; Khodza, op. cit. (note 134), pp. 29, 69, 215–18, Hermitage Museum, inv. no. ГР-5389.
Greifenhagen, op. cit. (note 136), letter 84, Furtwängler to his mother, 24 February 1884.
Khodza op. cit. (note 134), p. 23. This amount, according to www.historicalstatistics.org (accessed 10 June 2025), is equivalent to c.100,000 rubles, or c.250,000 francs, or c.£9,800, or 260,000 drachmas.
E. N. Khodza, ‘История покупки коллекции П.А. Сабурова’, Сообщения Государственного Эрмитажа / Reports of the State Hermitage Museum 62 (2004), pp. 166–73; Khodza, op. cit. (note 134).
Greifenhagen, op. cit. (note 136), letter 85, A. Furtwängler to his mother, 5 March 1884.
The Chrysapha relief is Antikensammlung, Berlin, inv. no. Sk 731. On the vases, see A. Furtwängler, Description de la collection de vases de l’Antiquarium (Berlin, 1885).
An article in a Greek newspaper deplored Rhousopoulos’s listing in Murray’s 1884 handbook for travellers, under ‘Antiquities Dealers’; the anonymous author noted: ‘it goes beyond saying that he does not sell the good pieces to travellers. These are for other buyers, such as Sabourov, etc, or the director and representatives of museums, from whom he, of course, achieves higher prices’; Ακρόπολις, 17 July 1884, p. 3; see also, Ακρόπολις, 17 February 1888, p. 1; Ακρόπολις, 22 May 1888, p. 1.
Greifenhagen, op. cit. (note 136), letter 85, Furtwängler to his mother, 5 March 1884; L. Pallat, Richard Schöne (Berlin, 1959), pp. 178f.; see also, W. von Bode, Mein Leben (Berlin, 1930), p. 16 (‘zirka 300,000 Marks’). Cf. O. Rayet, ‘Les antiques du musée de Berlin’, Gazette des Beaux-Arts (1882), pt. 2, pp. 224–50; O. Rayet, ‘Sur la richesse et l’organisation comparées du Louvre, du Cabinet des Médailles, du musée de Berlin, du British Museum et de l’Hermitage’, Journal Officiel (Chambres des Députés) (1887), March–April, pp. 641–7, where Rayet noted that Berlin was spending 325,000 Marks, or 406,250 francs, for the acquisition of objects – a sum that equalled the total budgets of the Musée du Louvre and the British Museum combined.
‘4 million francs’, Στοά, 15 March 1884, p. 1; ‘1.2 million francs’, Αιών, 20 March 1884, p. 3 ; ‘according to the official statement of the Petersburg Museum, his collection of terracotta figurines was sold for 644,000 Marks. For 94 vases and 60 sculptures, he received 300,000 Marks from Berlin, another 805,000 Marks from the British Museum for the bronzes . . . in total 1.8 million Marks or 2.22 mill. francs’, Παλιγγενεσία, 9 August 1884, p. 4 . These numbers were, most likely, exaggerated to increase impact on the readership's side.
‘We don’t blame the man because he made an archaeological collection, but because, benefiting from his ambassadorial position and the privileges and immunity provided to him, he smuggled antiquities out of Greece, defrauding the Greek laws which he should be the first to respect . . . all out of financial greed [φιλοκερδείας]’; Αιών, 20 March 1884, p. 3:
‘... φιλάρχαιος δὲ εἰς ὑπερβολήν’; Εφημερίς, 24 April 1896, p. 2. Unlike Sabourov, whose reputation is wholly tarnished, Furtwängler is remembered to this day as one of the founding fathers of modern classical archaeology.
H. Schliemann, ‘Ίλιον καί ὁ καθηγητής Ρουσόπουλος’, Μέλλον, 9 March 1874, p. 2 (written 20 March, Gregorian calendar).
H. Schliemann, ‘Ilium und Professor Rhusopulos’, Νέα Ελλάς, 9 March 1874, p. 4 (written 18 March, Gregorian calendar); Schliemann, op. cit. (note 150).
A. Rhousopoulos, ‘Troja und Dr. Schliemann’, Νέα Ελλάς, 4 March 1874, p. 4 (written in February).
Rhousopoulos’s anticomanie had long been known – see, for example, Koumanoudis’s comment in 1846 that Rhousopoulos was ‘antiquities-mad’ (‘αρχαιομανής’); A. Matthaiou, Στέφανος Α. Κουμανούδης. Ανέκδοτα Κείμενα, 1837–1845, National Research Foundation 117 (Athens, 2010), pp. 234–5, no. 184.
Schliemann not only deceived the Ottoman authorities by exporting the entirety of the ‘Treasure of Priam’, but finally settled the issue in the spring of 1875 by buying the Ottoman share. He eventually paid 50,000 francs, which the Ottoman government used for the construction of the new building of the Archaeological Museum in Istanbul; J. L. Fitton, Heinrich Schliemann and the British Museum, Occasional Papers 83 (London, 1991), p. 14. Fitton reports that in 1873 Schliemann estimated to Newton that the value of his Trojan collections was £50,000, or 2 million francs (p. 14); and that Schliemann pleaded with Newton to undervalue the Trojan share of his collection (50%) to just £1,300, or c.52,000 francs – that is, closer to the settlement’s final agreed price (pp. 31–2); for the feud with Rhousopoulos, see p. 28. See also G. Uslu, ‘Ottoman appreciation of Trojan heritage, 1870–1875’, Tijdschrift voor Mediterrane Archeologie 41 (2009), pp. 4–9.
Eustratiadis, Ημερολόγιον, p. 215, no. 1569 (25 February 1874); Vasilikou, op. cit. (note 35), p. 41.
On the wider currents of debate around the nature of the development of ‘professionalism’ in archaeology, see O. Moro Abadía and E. Lewis-Sing, ‘“Genius”, “precursors”, and “great (white) men”’, in Díaz-Andreu and Coltofean, op. cit. (note 17), pp. 121–40; F. de Tomasi, ‘A history of the legal battle against illicit trade in antiquities’, in ibid., pp. 636–60; A. Stevenson, ‘Artifact distribution: networks in the history of archaeology’, in ibid., pp. 325–45.
On the importance of the press, see Sophronidou, op. cit. (note 77).
R. R. Farrer, A Tour of Greece (London, 1882), p. 72, for one such anecdote: an Oxford traveller to Athens in 1880 was caught by considerable surprise when the professor of archaeology (Rhousopoulos) mentioned that several things in his private collection were for sale: ‘we sighed and thought of Athens . . . as “a place where all things are for sale: the city itself, if it could find a purchaser”’.
For example, Dan Potter’s project for National Museums Scotland (2022–2024), Buying Power: British Archaeology and the Antiquities Market in Egypt and Sudan 1880–1939; see also, J. Smalcerz, Smuggling the Renaissance: The Illicit Export of Artworks out of Italy, 1861–1909 (Leiden, 2020).
For the schools in their Mediterranean historical context, see P. Galiatsatou, ‘Ξένες Αρχαιολογικές Σχολές στην Ελλάδα. Η Διπλωματία της Πολιτιστικής Κλήρονομιάς’, in Ελληνική Πολιτιστική Διπλωματία. Σύγχρονες προσεγγίσεις–μελλοντικές προκλήσεις, eds. D. Kizlari and M. Siechate (Athens, 2021), pp. 199–214; F. Whitling, ‘Foreign schools in the Mediterranean in historical perspective’, in Díaz-Andreu and Coltofean, op. cit. (note 17), pp. 531–57.
O. Rayet, ‘Les figurines de Tanagra au Musée du Louvre’, Gazette des Beaux-Arts 11 (1875), pp. 551–8, esp. p. 552.
Ibid., p. 552 (original in French).
An article is in preparation by the author on Rayet and his dealings with Greek antiquities dealers and with the Musée du Louvre from the early 1870s to the mid-1880s. He sold some 550 objects to the Parisian institution for a total of 67,215 francs.
Rayet, op. cit. (note 161), p. 552 (original in French).
Matthaiou, op. cit. (note 84).
Some of the private diggers, had they lived a few decades later, would probably have served as foremen in organized, state-authorized archaeological digs; see, for example, Thomas Kiely’s work on Cyprus: T. Kiely, ‘Poachers turned gamekeepers? The British Museum’s archaeological agents in Cyprus in the 1890s’, in The Tombs of Egkomi: British Museum Excavations, ed. D. Pilides (Nicosia, 2019), pp. 9–52.
Characteristic is Stamatakis’s assistance to Albert Lebègue, excavator of Delos: he noted in a letter to Koumanoudis that while the French scholar was polite, he was ‘entirely inexperienced in excavations and very weak in archaeological matters’, being entirely a ‘man of books’ (29 April 1873), cited in D. Vasilikou, Οι ανασκαφές της Αρχαιολογικής Εταιρείας στις Κυκλάδες 1872–1910, Library of the Archaeological Society of Athens 242 (Athens, 2006), p. 116, no. 1.
Petrakos, op. cit. (note 14), pp. 138–41.
‘... it is easier to change the law than to change human nature’; ‘Nouvelles archéologiques et correspondance’, Revue Archéologique 29 (1875), pp. 117–31, esp. p. 129.
Eustratiadis, Ημερολόγιον, p. 29 (29 April 1865), where remarks by the Society’s president are recorded (‘the law is not enforced fully’); in March 1867, the Society informed the government that changes in the law were necessary, but the advice was ignored; Παλιγγενεσία, 12 August 1868, referring to the law as ‘useless’.
The Society repeatedly pointed out to the ministry the issues of the 1834 law and asked that it be updated, or replaced with a new law, as is suggested by the available correspondence between 1874 and 1879; ddeam, box 517, folder 1834–85. B, Laws and Draft Bills. Already from 1878, the Society was asking for tougher penalties for those committing archaeological crimes. The text of a draft bill was available in 1879. When it was finally sent to the parliament for discussion in 1885, a vote for its ratification was not held owing to ‘lack of time’; P. Kavvadias (ed.), Δελτίον Αρχαιολογικόν. Έτος 1885 (Athens, 1888), p. 9. On the political dimensions of archaeological legislation, see D. Voudouri, ‘Law and the politics of the past: legal protection of cultural heritage in Greece’, International Journal of Cultural Property 17 (2010), pp. 547–68; J. Carman, ‘“Governed by legislation”: what laws do to archaeology’, in Díaz-Andreu and Coltofean, op. cit. (note 17), pp. 617–36.
Matthaiou, op. cit. (note 84), pp. 136–7, discusses the pressures and practical issues that emerged from constantly employing Greek ephors in foreign-led projects in the 1870s.
Galanakis, op. cit. (note 10).
It must be said that, apart from political intrigues, of which the Greek capital offered plenty, socializing and antiquities collecting were two of the most exciting pastimes for many residents and foreign visitors to Athens, especially those affluent enough to engage in both. Anyone visiting the city – associated with a long and distinguished history and a literary tradition deeply rooted in Western European thought – would be eager to engage in antiquities collecting. On the city’s social makeup, see E. Bournova and M. Dimitropoulou, ‘The capital’s social and professional stratification, 1860–1940’, in Athens Social Atlas: Digital Compendium of Texts and Visual Material, eds. T. Maloutas and S. Spyrellis (Athens, 2015), available online at https://www.athenssocialatlas.gr/en/article/social-stratification-1860-1940/ (accessed 10 June 2025).
The author has, elsewhere, described Rhousopoulos’s practices in the trade of Greek antiquities as framed by ‘cultural internationalism’ or ‘cosmopolitanism’, and the efforts of (some members of) the Archaeological Ephorate (for example, Koumanoudis) as representing ‘cultural nationalism’; Galanakis, op. cit. (note 18).
C. Mannoni, Artistic Canons and Legal Protection: Developing Policies to Preserve, Administer and Trade Artworks in Nineteenth-Century Rome and Athens (Frankfurt am Main, 2023).
As attitudes were changing within Greece – see, for example, E. Capps, ‘A new archaeological law for Greece’, The Nation 69 (1899), pp. 88–90 – not everybody was agreeable to these developments. Articles in Greek newspapers had long described the 1834 law as 'laughable' because of its gaps and limitations (e.g., Παλιγγενεσία, 24/8/1877). Salomon Reinach considered the 1834 law ‘absurde’, but for different reasons: he favoured the Ottoman antiquities law, which more generously permitted the exportation of antiquities at the time; S. Reinach, ‘Le vandalisme moderne en orient’, Revue des Deux Mondes 56 (1883), pp. 132–66. Reinach also opposed the law of 1899; S. Reinach, ‘Nouvelle loi des antiquités’, Revue Archéologique 35 (1899), pp. 339–40. See also Petrakos, op. cit. (note 2), pp. 203–12, on Reinach’s accusations about Eustratiadis’s and the state’s operation at the time. Nor did the practice of trained professionals change with regard to the unauthorized exportation of antiquities, even after the introduction of the second antiquities law of 1899; S. Sherratt, Catalogue of Cycladic Antiquities in the Ashmolean Museum: The Captive Spirit (Oxford, 2000), p. 3, n. 6, on Duncan Mackenzie’s activities in the Cyclades in 1900, sponsored by Arthur Evans.
On the normalization of archaeology’s many epistemic episodes, see the critique by T. Murray, From Antiquarian to Archaeologist: The History and Philosophy of Archaeology (Barnsley, 2014).
For example, M. Fotiadis, ‘Are histories of archaeology good to think with?’, in Ancient Monuments and Modern Identities: A Critical History of Archaeology in 19th- and 20th-Century Greece, eds. S. Voutsaki and P. Cartledge (London and New York, 2017), pp. 186–98.