INTRODUCTION
The 1936 London exhibition that celebrated the 50th anniversary of the British School at Athens (BSA) aimed at advertising the School’s work and at raising funds (Myres Reference Myres1936). While the second goal may not have been fully realised, with the BSA making a small profit of £200–300, it certainly managed to attract attention; some 11,000 visitors attended the show within a period of just one month (Shapland and Trepagnier Reference Shapland and Trepagnier2025, 10). This display is significant in the history of archaeological exhibitions, particularly in relation to their development before World War II in England and other European countries, and for the ways certain interpretations, stemming from excavations in Greece, had become canonised by the mid 1930s (e.g., the ‘Minoan Room’ that was organised by Sir Arthur J. Evans and was meant ‘to supply, as far as possible, the materials for a general survey of the Minoan culture in its widest range’: Evans Reference Evans1936a, 1). While several replicas were on display, the 1936 exhibition also featured numerous original pieces, most of which came to London from Oxford, largely from Evans’ personal (at the time) collection and the Ashmolean Museum.Footnote 1
A workshop held on 28 May 2025 in Oxford and a subsequent publication by Andrew Shapland and Renée Trepagnier have examined in detail the 1936 exhibition (Shapland and Trepagnier Reference Shapland and Trepagnier2025). An element, however, that requires additional attention relates to the objects, particularly the conditions under which they were exported from Greece. This paper focuses on, and discusses, the importance of personal networks, political influence and asymmetrical power relations behind the exportation of antiquities. Recent scholarship, including important doctoral research, has also provided new information and insights on this topic (e.g., Kostopoulou Reference Kostopoulou2009; Varouhakis Reference Varouhakis2015; Papatheodorou Reference Papatheodorou2017; Genova Reference Genova2019; Tzorakis Reference Tzorakis2019; also, most relevant here is the study by Coutsinas Reference Coutsinas2006). Using a microhistorical archival approach, this paper reconstructs a story composed of familiar elements that have, however, not previously been considered together and within a framework of antiquities procurement. This story is one of tensions and contradictions surrounding the exportation of objects from Greece to England. By focusing on certain incidents before, during, and after the start of the Knossos excavations, it aims at explaining why the Knossos dig was not BSA-led and at reframing the 1936 exhibition – beyond its triumphant status – into an event that should be examined also through the lens of colonial entanglements, legal ambiguities, and shifting ethical standards and considerations (Fig. 1).
Photograph of Knossos with ensign (British navy flag) visible on upper left corner, 1903. Long corridor looking south. Col. Boyle. Knossos Album 2a, p. 33 (E.Top.2172b). © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford.
Fig. 1. Long description
The photo captures a long, narrow corridor looking South through the ruins of Knossos.
* Foreground and Midground: Two parallel walls made of large, irregular stone blocks flank a central paved path. The wall on the West (right side of the frame) is more prominent, showing weathered textures and vertical cracks. Several flat stone slabs lean against the base of the East wall.
* Northwest: A tall flagpole stands behind the West wall, flying a dark British naval ensign that billows toward the East.
* Background: The corridor opens into a wider area where several figures are visible as small silhouettes. Beyond the ruins, the landscape rises into a rounded hill under a pale, overcast sky.
* Details: Large ceramic storage jars (pithoi) are partially visible along the corridor edges in the distance.
FRAMING EXPORT: ARTHUR EVANS, ARCHAEOLOGICAL LEGISLATION AND AUTHORITY
In the catalogue that accompanied the 1936 exhibition, Arthur Evans tried to justify the exportation of antiquities in three ways: firstly, by aligning himself with the Cretan and Greek cause, through which he presented himself as a salvager of antiquities (Evans Reference Evans1936b, 6); secondly, by invoking a sense of entitlement based on the concessions granted to him, for example his ownership of the land and the substantial financial investment he made in the project (Evans Reference Evans1936b, 6–7); and, thirdly, by appealing to the recognition of his work upon completion – a recognition that was accompanied by the politics of generosity of the Greek government (e.g., the ‘taureador fresco’ fragment, AE.1708, and the octopus jar, AN1911.608, forming two such examples that were gifted to Evans in recognition of his work) (Evans Reference Evans1936b, 7 and 23). Yet what is missing from Evans’ recollections and official narrative are the tensions and contradictions surrounding the exportation of objects and the changing ethics of archaeological practice.
A critical issue that warrants further attention is the framework of archaeological legislation, encompassing legal provisions established by the Greek state, the Ottoman Empire, and the autonomous Cretan polity, which at the time was a separate entity from Greece. During Evans’ travels in the 1880s and 1890s, the governing antiquities legislation in Greece was the law of 1834 which prohibited the export of all ancient objects without official authorisation.Footnote 2 Evans was fully aware of the law’s prescriptions, as is revealed through his correspondence, discussed below. Yet he hardly ever applied for a permit to export antiquities from Greece.Footnote 3 There is only a rare instance when in February 1894 he asked the General Superintendent of Antiquities of Greece, Panagis Kavvadias, to export four geometric pots (Catling and Mannack Reference Catling and Mannack2010, 13, 18–20 [Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, AN1894.13–16] and pls 32:1–3, 40:5–6, 42:3–4, 46:1–2). Kavvadias granted Evans’ request on the basis that these specimens, by that time, had become ‘common’ and were, as a consequence, ‘useless’ for the Greek museums with plenty of specimens of the same class already available in the National Museum in Athens (Mercouri Reference Mercouri, Matthaiou and Chatzidimitriou2012, 160–2, nos 5, 5a, 5b; Fig. 2).Footnote 4 A similar request, however, was not made for the numerous other objects exported by Evans from Greece during his travels and collections in the country.Footnote 5 What appears to have been more common was exportation without authorisation – a practice picked up by the Greek press, which condemned Evans’ purchases for the Ashmolean in 1893 while also associating his name to the trafficking of the Aegina treasure to London (e.g. Παλιγγενεσία, 1 December 1893; To Άστυ, 6 July 1894; To Άστυ, 5 April 1895) (Fig. 3).Footnote 6
(a) Application, dated 25 February 1894, by A.J. Evans to the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Public Education to export from Greece to England four Geometric pots that he had bought for the University of Oxford from I. Palaiologos in Athens. (b) Recommendation by P. Kavvadias to the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Public Education to approve Evans’ export request for the said antiquities on the basis that they were not useful for the National collections which already included better specimens of the same type. Note that while the signatures of Evans and Kavvadias are original, both documents (request and permission) bear the same date and are written by the same hand (most likely at the Ministry or the General Ephor’s office). (c) One of the Geometric pots the export of which was permitted by the Ministry (AN1894.13). © (a–b) Ministry of Culture / Directorate for the Curation of the National Archive of Monuments / Department for the Curation of the Historical Archive of Antiquities and Restorations and (c) University of Oxford, Ashmolean Museum.
Fig. 2. Long description
The image consists of three panels labeled a, b, and c.
Panel a: A handwritten letter on lined paper with a circular official stamp in the top left corner. A rectangular purple ink stamp on the left side contains the number 3646 and the date 25 February 1894. The text is written in Greek cursive and signed at the bottom by Arthur J. Evans.
Panel b: A second handwritten document on plain paper, partially overlapping panel a. It features a similar rectangular purple stamp with the number 3649 and the date 25 February 1894. The Greek text is written in the same handwriting as panel a and is signed at the bottom by P. Kavvadias.
Panel c: A black-and-white photograph of a ceramic pitcher (oinochoe) from the Geometric period. The vessel has a wide neck, a rounded body, and a single vertical handle. The decoration consists of horizontal bands and geometric patterns. The neck features large meander (Greek key) motifs and zig-zags. The body is decorated with vertical panels containing chevron and diamond patterns, separated by dark vertical lines. A large light-colored area on the neck indicates a restored section where the original surface is missing.
Article in the Athenian press reporting on and condemning the procurement of antiquities by the Ashmolean Museum. To Άστυ, 6 July 1894.
Fig. 3. Long description
The clipping is organized into three distinct vertical sections.
* At the top, the masthead reads TO ASTY, 6 July 1894 in bold Greek characters.
* Below a horizontal divider is the main headline in a larger, bold serif font: ARCHAIOKAPILON ATHLOI ‘Feats of Antiquities Looters’).
* The body of the article consists of a single, justified column of Greek text. It details the procurement of antiquities by the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, mentioning specific items such as Mycenaean artifacts, marble and ivory figurines from Amorgos, a bronze tripod from Olympia, and various Greek vases including a lekythos from Kerameikos. The text mentions names such as Arthur Evans referred to as the Keeper of the museum.
It is worth noting that in his publication of the Aegina treasure, Evans argued that states should not enforce restrictions on what he regarded as minor assemblages. As he wrote, ‘opinions may well differ as to the propriety of removing … the greater monuments of Classical Antiquity. But in the case of small objects, made themselves for commerce, and free from the same local ties, the considerations … lose their validity, while … the benefits to be derived by students from their partial dispersion are not to be gainsaid’ (Evans Reference Evans1892–3, 195). This view reflects Evans’ broader assumptions and anticipates the position he would later adopt at Knossos.Footnote 7
Evans further justified his approach by arguing that, in the case of ancient Greek culture, there was no single legitimate heir, and that this civilisation constituted a shared heritage to which all could lay equal and legitimate claim: ‘the theory that the present occupants … are the sole legitimate heirs even of such minor monuments of ancient culture is not likely to commend itself to the outside world. ‘Twere hard indeed that not so much as a plaything should come down to us from the cradle of our civilization!’ (Evans Reference Evans1892–3, 195).
In this framework of Evans’ views and press coverage of his purchases, the English scholar travelled in 1894 for the first time to Crete.Footnote 8 As soon as he landed on the island, he started buying antiquities. Through his travels, over many years, he acquired more than 300 objects, which are now mostly at the Ashmolean (Brown Reference Brown2001). On Crete, as also in Greece, there was an antiquities legislation, that of the Ottoman Empire of 1884.Footnote 9 The law specified that all antiquities belong to the State and that their export was completely banned. Such was the interest of foreigners to work archaeologically in Crete by the mid 1890s that the local government felt the need to translate the 1884 lawFootnote 10 so that ‘whoever is interested in practising archaeology on the island is aware of the prescriptions of the law and abides by its articles’.Footnote 11
The Cretan body that was responsible by the middle of the 1890s for safeguarding antiquities – the Syllogos as it was widely known – was the local society for the promotion of learning which by the summer of 1895 had received a special imperial order that institutionalised its rights and powers on archaeological matters.Footnote 12 This empowerment meant that any foreigner who wished to conduct archaeology in Crete had to go through the President of the Syllogos, Iosif Hatzidakis, and its Secretary, Stephanos Xanthoudidis.Footnote 13
OF TENSIONS AND CONTRADICTIONS OVER THE EXPORT OF ANTIQUITIES
Four case studies are employed to document the tensions and contradictions surrounding the export of antiquities during the period under consideration: the Ligortyno affair (1895–6), the Francis Carabott incident (1899), the drafting of the Cretan antiquities law on the eve of the Knossos dig (1899) and Duncan Mackenzie’s Cycladic pursuits (1900). The discussion then moves forward to the 1936 exhibition and the inclusion of some of the exported objects in that show.
These cases are supplemented by additional archival material that situates them within a broader institutional context, highlighting the role of archaeological legislation and antiquities export practices in Evans’ decision to apply for an excavation permit at Knossos through the Hellenic Society of London – a body then well positioned in Eastern Mediterranean archaeological activityFootnote 14 – rather than through the Ashmolean Museum of the University of Oxford, or the British School at Athens. The Hellenic Society had a vested interest not only in the acquisition of antiquities (Haarer Reference Haarer2021) but also in their redistribution to British institutions, as illustrated by its proposed division of material from excavations at Paphos in Cyprus in the 1880s (then a British colony), which allocated finds to the British Museum (with first right of selection), followed by the Fitzwilliam and Ashmolean Museums, as well as elite public schools such as Eton, Harrow, Winchester, and Rugby, among other institutions (Kiely and Ulbrich Reference Kiely and Ulbrich2012; Haarer Reference Haarer2022). Within this wider system of exchange, early BSA students began their archaeological training at Naukratis in Egypt, where partage – the division of duplicate or insignificant finds with local authorities – was already a well-established practice.Footnote 15 Evans’ archaeological activity, before and after the commencement of the Knossos excavations, should therefore be understood within this framework of institutional collaboration, regulated dispersal, and controlled distribution of antiquities.
From the time of his initial acquisition of a quarter of the Kephala hill in 1894, Evans appears to have operated on the assumption that, as the eventual landowner, he would be entitled under the Ottoman law then in force to apply for an excavation permit (Κρήτη – Ἐφημερὶς τῆς Γενικῆς Διοικήσεως Κρήτης, no. 1381, 9 February 1895, articles 15–27). However, legislative changes introduced on 18 June 1899 required a revision of these plans.Footnote 16 Article 14 of the 1899 Cretan law on antiquities ‘absolutely prohibited any private individual from carrying out excavations for the purpose of discovering antiquities’. Except for the Cretan government, only ‘scientific institutions’ were permitted to conduct excavations, and only with the authorisation and supervision of the local authorities. These institutions were also granted ‘the exclusive right to take casts of the antiquities found by them and to publish them first in a scientific manner’ (Article 13; this right was valid for a maximum of ‘five years from the discovery of each antiquity’: 1899 Cretan antiquities law). With the purchase of the Kephala site finalised by Evans just five days before excavations began in the spring of 1900, he received the excavation permit in the name of the Hellenic Society of London; this excavation would ultimately extend far beyond the Kephala hill itself in the wider Knossos area.Footnote 17
The Ligortyno affair
The Ligortyno affair is a case for which extensive documentation exists that allows one to reconstruct the sequence of events with some certainty (Brown Reference Brown2001, 237, 345; Bardiès and Vakirtzian Reference Bardiès and Vakirtzian1990–1; Vakirtzian Reference Vakirtzian2006). A rock-cut chamber tomb, that we now recognise as belonging to the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries BC, was discovered by a local school teacher, Ahmed Effendi Moustaixakis, in December 1894.Footnote 18 John Myres, a close friend of Evans from Oxford, tried to secure the objects for the Ashmolean Keeper in late April 1895 – without the knowledge of the Syllogos and remarking that this whole affair is “πολύ μυστικό” (‘very secret’). Myres was also unaware that Charles Clermont-Ganneau, the French orientalist and archaeologist, had already bought the objects ( J.L. Myres to A.J. Evans, 22 April 1895, GB/1648/AJE/1/1/1/112/2, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford).
Interestingly, and according to the same letter by Myres to Evans, it was ‘Mr Ittar’ who took him ‘to see today the contents of a θόλος with two osteothecae (like those in the museum but unpainted) which are for sale; the proposal is to give something on account to the finder who will dig again – his field seems to contain several θόλοι – and to make a collection of everything found’. When Myres was asked by Ittar to give a price, he undervalued them: ‘I was asked to value them & said 15£ explaining that Myk[enaean] vases on themselves did not fetch much, that the goat vase was the only first-rate piece’ (most likely referring to krater CA 883, Louvre, from tomb II; £15 was equivalent at the time to c. 375–400 francs). The other side, the proprietor that is, was in ‘the £1000 stage at present – no price has been named to him; only Dr Ittar & his clerk (who was there) know my estimate’ (£1000 was equivalent to c. 25,000 francs, probably an exaggeration on the part of the proprietor).
Amabile Ittar was one of Evans’ first contacts in Heraklion, a renowned physician and vice-consul for both France and Italy (Detorakis Reference Detorakis1994). He is described as a colleague of Hatzidakis, the President of the Syllogos ( J. Evans Reference Evans1943, 310–11; also, Kotsonas Reference Kotsonas2016, 319 with additional references). Given his possible involvement in the sale, together with that of his clerk, it is reasonable to question whether the sale to Clermont-Ganneau had, at that stage, already been finalised, or whether Ittar, either independently or in collaboration with the proprietor, was attempting to secure a higher bidder for the Ligortyno finds.
Whatever the case might be, however, early in 1895, and before Myres, Clermont-Ganneau had arrived in Crete, as part of a broader mission in the Eastern Mediterranean sanctioned by the Instruction Publique et des Beaux-Arts (17 January to 7 April 1895). He stayed on Crete for 25 days, during which time he purchased antiquities. 2,500 francs appear to have been earmarked for the Ligortyno finds. His mission was successful (Louvre CA 882 to CA 923 and AM 1844: see Bardiès and Vakirtzian Reference Bardiès and Vakirtzian1990–1; Vakirtzian Reference Vakirtzian2006).Footnote 19 The available records and the study by Isabelle Bardiès and Takoui Vakirtzian suggest that the sale had been agreed ‘directly from the peasants who made the discovery’ by February 1895.Footnote 20
It was only a year later, in the spring of 1896, that Evans visited the site, apparently unaware of the sale that had taken place. A Cretan named A. Sardas (possibly Ittar’s clerk mentioned by Myres?) purchased the objects in February 1895, when the contents of both tombs were still available (Bardiès and Vakirtzian Reference Bardiès and Vakirtzian1990/1, 17). They were eventually loaded onto Le Linois, arriving at Toulon on 17 September 1896. Although the matter remains unclear, it is possible that the contents of both tombs, Ligortyno 1 and 2, had already been agreed for sale to Clermont-Ganneau in February 1895.
During his 1896 visit, Evans observed some of the finds that were still in the house of the discoverer, Ahmed Effendi Moustaixakis (Fig. 4). These objects presumably derived from the first tomb, since the more numerous contents of the second tomb (unearthed shortly thereafter) had already been transported to Heraklion. Evans also excavated the dromos of a nearby tomb (perhaps a third) and described several of the finds of tombs 1 and 2 in his diary, accompanying his account with informative illustrations (Brown Reference Brown2001, 348). It remains uncertain which of these tombs – or possibly another – Evans investigated; however, he records that he employed ten men for the work, though ‘their labour [was] in vain’ ( J. Evans Reference Evans1943, 320).
The Ligortyno finds as noted in Arthur Evans’ notebook (p. 91) of 1894 notes of Crete and 1896 notes of Ligortino, GB/1648/AJE/1/2/1/2. © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford.
Fig. 4. Long description
The page is numbered 91 in the top right corner. At the top, the heading Ligortino is underlined. Below are diary entries dated Tuesday 1st and Wednesday May 12.
In the center is a plan view diagram of a tomb or pit, drawn as a large oval with hatched lines around the perimeter. Inside the oval are rectangular and circular shapes labeled with numbers 1 and 2, and notes such as Vases on cover, on tripod, and mass of smaller vases.
Below the central diagram are three larger sketches of artifacts.
1. On the left is a circular seal or coin depiction showing a standing female figure next to a tree and a structure, labeled Pasiphae.
2. Below that is a wide-mouthed vessel decorated with two horned animals facing a central floral motif.
3. To the right is a large, tall vessel with a bulbous body and decorative handles, resting on a four-legged stand.
The bottom of the page contains several lines of descriptive text mentioning a bulls head vase and a funnel. Small sketches at the very bottom include a T-shaped object, a curved horn-like item, and a small bowl with a handle.
On 12 May 1896, Evans examined material from the second tomb at Heraklion, noting in his diary: ‘Saw Ligortino find & obtained arrangements of contents of 2nd Tholos from Excavator’.Footnote 21 He further recorded that he ‘examined the larnakes in the Museum with Hazzidakis & Savignoni’, a remark that raises questions regarding the precise location of the Ligortyno finds in Heraklion at that time. According to Ann Brown (Reference Brown2001, 452), ‘Larnakes numbered 1 and 2 were not described. Larnax no. 1, which was in the care of Ittar, contained 2 skulls and 2 galopetras …’.
It is, therefore, unclear whether these objects were housed in the Palazzo d’Ittar at 18 Epimenidou Street or within the Syllogos collection. Whatever the case, Savignoni later published a photograph of the contents of Tholos 2, presumably taken in Heraklion during his visit with Hatzidakis and Evans in 1896 (Savignoni Reference Savignoni1904, 655–9, figs 119–20). He also provided a plan of the second tomb, produced during a subsequent visit to the site with Hatzidakis in 1899.
By that stage, it would be surprising if Hatzidakis had been unaware of Ittar’s involvement in the affair, or if the Ligortyno finds had not already become a focal point of contention among the Syllogos, Clermont-Ganneau, and Evans. This situation further illustrates the tensions, lobbying, and contradictions that characterised not only the actions of foreign actors but also those of local authorities responsible for the safeguarding of antiquities.Footnote 22
Xanthoudidis had visited the site shortly after its discovery and in the summer of 1896, following Evans’ departure from Heraklion, he gave the English scholar a report ‘in accordance with the promise’ he had made to him (S. Xanthoudidis to A.J. Evans, 29 June 1896, GB/1648/AJE/1/1/1/177/1, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; see also Brown Reference Brown2001, 348). Xanthoudidis noted that the information contained in the letter was ‘received a few days after … discovery having visited the spot myself ’ (in the Greek original “μεταβάς επί τόπου”). By the time of his visit, most likely in January 1895, only one tomb had been discovered with the second excavated shortly afterwards. ‘I acknowledge that the information’, he further noted to Evans, ‘was collected hastily and almost without the will of the owners and because of this I am not entirely certain about its precision. Nevertheless, it is very close to the truth’ (in the Greek original, Xanthoudidis speaks of owners in the plural, “τῶν ἰδιοκτητῶν”, perhaps suggesting that they did not originally just belong to Moustaixakis, who is not mentioned by name by Xanthoudidis). Xanthoudidis seems to have sent this information as a colleague to a colleague. In the same letter, for example, he noted that he had recently bought ‘for the account of the Syllogos, 25 Mycenaean stones … If you wish to have good wax impressions of them for your work’. Information-sharing appears, therefore, central in Xanthoudidis’ exchanges with Evans.
According to Evans’ notes, on 8 May 1896 Moustaixakis offered him the antiquities from Ligortyno at Heraklion for £100, adding that ‘[the owner] has been offered £80 by Myres! for the larnakes offered £30 by the Syllogos! – lie upon lie’ (Brown Reference Brown2001, 238–9; Vakirtzian Reference Vakirtzian2006, 407). While the owner may indeed have been providing Evans with misleading information – for example the alleged offer from Myres, which we know from his correspondence with Evans was actually £15 – and although we cannot confirm the offer attributed to the Syllogos, their reported interest is nevertheless significant, as is the stated price of £100 for the contents of tomb 2 at Heraklion.
Ultimately, and most likely amid the political turmoil on the island during the summer of 1896, the bulk of the Ligortyno antiquities from Tombs 1 and 2 was shipped – without official authorisation from the Cretan administration – to Toulon in September of that year. Vakirtzian (Reference Vakirtzian2006, 408) highlights the political tensions of that summer, when conflict between Cretan Muslims and Christians reached its peak. During this period, Hatzidakis packed the most important antiquities and placed them in the temporary care of the Italian navy. Vakirtzian plausibly speculates that, under these conditions, the Ligortyno objects were loaded onto Le Linois in July of that year, eventually reaching Toulon in September.
Purchased by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, the collection was subsequently transferred to the Louvre for 3,100 francs (approximately £124), a considerable sum at the time for material of this kind and strikingly close to the amount reportedly mentioned by Moustaixakis to Evans (Bardiès and Vakirtzian Reference Bardiès and Vakirtzian1990– Reference Bardiès and Vakirtzian1; Vakirtzian Reference Vakirtzian2006). Many years later, Pottier (Reference Pottier1907, 116) described Clermont-Ganneau’s intervention as ‘heureuse et énergique’, which enabled the Louvre ‘de se rendre acquéreur de cet ensemble’.
The Carabott incident: between legality and illegality
When Crete was recognised as an autonomous state in 1898, Prince George of Greece was appointed High Commissioner. By March 1899, a projet de loi concerning Cretan antiquities had been drafted, which Evans hoped would include favourable provisions allowing foreign explorers to acquire sites for archaeological work and to export unwanted specimens.Footnote 23 Although Evans believed that the Prince was sympathetic to his requests, the latter was in fact suspicious of both Evans and the Syllogos.
Prince George bypassed the Syllogos (i.e. Hatzidakis and Xanthoudidis), instead entrusting Kavvadias, General Superintendent of Antiquities of Greece, with the final drafting of the new Cretan antiquities law.Footnote 24 This decision likely reflects both the strained relationship between the Prince and the Syllogos and the influence exercised by Kavvadias – an experienced archaeologist and administrator who had also been responsible for drafting Greek antiquities legislation over many years. His position may have been reinforced by the broader political expectation of Crete’s eventual union with Greece. A letter from Consul R.W. Graves to Evans (6 June 1903, GB/1648/AJE/1/1/1/61/1, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford) further illuminates this context: the Consul observed that Prince George ‘fears the Greek Chief Ephor’, who opposed such proposals, and advised Evans to ‘wait till it is fait accompli’, suggesting that only objects deemed of little value might eventually be exported.Footnote 25
Kavvadias had been invited to Crete by Prince George in December 1898.Footnote 26 In late January 1899, he submitted an initial memorandum outlining the legal framework for Cretan antiquities: ‘on the laws that will govern the issue of Cretan antiquities. This memorandum will be studied by the Committee for the drafting of laws, and on this basis the relevant bill will be drawn up’ (Ακρόπολις, 23 January 1899, p. 3; also, Το Άστυ, 16 March 1899, p. 2). He returned to Crete in early April 1899 to identify sites for excavation by the Athens Archaeological Society, which had recently revised its statutes to permit work beyond the Greek state (a development also announced in the press: Το Άστυ, 20 January 1899, p. 2). These actions appear to reflect both Kavvadias’ personal agenda as well as broader Greek governmental interests in extending archaeological activity outside national borders. Following his second visit, Kavvadias gave an interview where he outlined the key points of the Cretan law.Footnote 27 He also sought to use the Cretan context to promote legislative reform in Greece, a long-standing objective of his.Footnote 28
Kavvadias had already, on at least one occasion, prevented the export of antiquities from Crete via the Piraeus. In 1895, he intervened when the American School attempted to ship clay objects from Praisos to New York. Federico Halbherr, who at the time was leading the American Archaeological Expedition in Crete, asked Hatzidakis to write directly to Kavvadias, ‘stating that you have seen the objects and that you already possess many of them in the Syllogos, and that it is ridiculous [for Kavvadias] to act in this way’ (“γελοίον” is the word used in Greek for ‘ridiculous’ in the original text). The final sentence of Halbherr’s letter, however, suggests that the attempted export did not comply with the legislation in force in Greece at the time – namely, the antiquities law of 1834. This law required antiquities imported from outside Greek territory to be declared upon entry before they could be authorised for export as duplicates or ‘useless’ objects. As Halbherr notes, ‘Stylianos [the courier who transported them to Greece] had to declare them when he imported them at the Piraeus’, implying that this requirement had not been fulfilled in the first instance.Footnote 29
The dialectic of law and infringement, on display in this letter and in several other instances cited in this paper, was indeed a common trope of doing things at the time (I am borrowing the term ‘dialectic of law and infringement’ from Shaw Reference Shaw2003, ch. 3). It describes well the structural tension at the heart of antiquities legislation and archaeological practice. Law and infringement exist in a dialectical relationship and form part of a broader ecology of networks, actions and consequences. Laws can generate infringements (e.g. by restricting long-established practices), and infringements can generate new laws, regulations, or administrative practices (also, set precedents and control or funnel relations and affect subsequent actions). Some of these activities, that we would today describe as ‘illegal’, were often tolerated by authorities (or were impossible to monitor and control) and were, even, retrospectively legitimised in what can be called negotiated legality. This approach blurs the boundary between lawful and unlawful behaviour. Moreover, this dialectic is also political: ‘law’ and ‘archaeology’ become fields of action, where sovereignty was asserted symbolically but compromised practically. By framing the issue as a ‘dialectic’, Wendy Shaw has challenged the oppositional thinking of ‘theft’ versus ‘protection’ – in her case for the late Ottoman Empire but which here aptly also aligns with the situation in Crete and Greece around the same time.
Along this line of thinking, possession of antiquities emerged through this negotiated legality, and museum collections were built through practices that were simultaneously licit and illicit within a system structured by asymmetrical power relations, legal ambiguity, and cultural politics. The articles of the Cretan law, as we know from archival documents, changed several times until they were formalised, with the final text ratified in the summer of 1899 (signed by the Prince on 18 June and published in the Official Gazette of the Cretan State on 21 June 1899). The delay in the introduction of the law by the High Commissioner had already been attributed, according to the Athenian press at least, to the foreign intervention of archaeological missions that thought this new law would pose a threat for scientific research and obstruct archaeological activity. One newspaper author noted: ‘regardless of these efforts though, we are informed that the Cretan government will not make any amendment of the draft law … with the conviction that … the archaeological wealth of the island, which belongs to the government unconditionally, will not be endangered …’.Footnote 30
To some extent, therefore, the Cretan law continued Ottoman policy in the broad sense that state ownership was maintained, as was the complete ban on the exportation of antiquities. These were provisions that certain Greek officials had been trying to push since the 1870s, and which they only managed to enforce in Greece itself through their new antiquities law, ratified later in 1899.Footnote 31 Kavvadias, fully aware of the ineffectiveness of Greece’s 1834 antiquities law and the problems it posed – not least for the formation of the Greek national collection in Athens – was a leading figure pushing for these changes for many years.
Federico Halbherr, the Italian archaeologist and a close friend of Evans, wrote to him in the summer of 1899 that ‘the quality of the archaeological law made by the Cretans at the suggestion … of Mr. Cavvadias, is very questionable. Its severity is almost laughable, and the articles concerning the ownership of finds, to me, seem even contrary to justice, the overall law is practically unforceable …’ (Momigliano Reference Momigliano2002, 284, no. F.H. 8: F. Halbherr to A.J. Evans, 16 July 1899, original in Italian). In another letter to Evans soon after, he further noted:
According to the Cretan archaeological law, excavations on the island can only be carried out by the Cretan Government πρὸς ὄφελος τῶν Κρητικῶν Μουσείων [for the benefit of Cretan museums]. When foreign institutes and missions excavate, they become representatives of the Cretan Government … This is a bit annoying, but it is purely a question of form, given that everything found must remain here. The worst thing is that according to the law, no one can keep the antiquities for himself, not even by leaving them in Crete, even if they are found in a field of his own, but must immediately hand them over to the Government, which alone has the right to the finds. This is so unfair that I believe it cannot help but cause frequent disputes’ (Momigliano Reference Momigliano2002, 286, no. F.H. 9: F. Halbherr to A.J. Evans, 9 August 1899, original in Italian)
These views were widely shared among most of the foreign archaeologists in Crete and Greece at the time, including Salomon Reinach of the French side (S. Reinach to A.J. Evans, 7 September 1899, GB/1648/AJE/1/1/1/136/7, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; also Reinach Reference Reinach1883; Reference Reinach1899) and the classicist William Roger Paton, from 1897 resident on Samos.Footnote 32 For Paton, who had a vested interest in antiquities and had in the past been financially supported in his explorations by the Hellenic Society,Footnote 33 the Greek or the Cretan laws should exist to accommodate the needs of the European Museums, not the other way round (W.R. Paton to The Athenaeum, forwarded by the journal to A.J. Evans on Paton’s request, 29 August 1899, GB/1648/AJE/1/1/1/122/1, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford):
Whether or not we accept the principle, that the antiquities of Greece and Crete should remain in the sole custody of the Hellenic and Cretan governments, we may be quite sure that additional stringency in the law will not prevent the exportation of antiquities. None of the European museums admit or will ever admit this principle, and be content with the leavings of the National Greek Museums. (The phrase of the Greek law defining those antiquities which it is permitted to export is not ‘unsuitable’ for the museums, but ‘useless’ (ἄχρηστα) for the Museums.) Means will always be found for satisfying the desire, be it legitimate or not, of the European Museums to enrich their collections, and increased stringency in the law only means increased danger of friction between these learned institutions and the learned institutions of Greece. A friction which would be exceedingly regrettable. … The true salvation seems to me to lie in a recognition by the Greeks of the principle on which the European Museums act, the principle that the possession of first class originals is necessary for the purposes for which these institutions exist. If the Greeks would frankly recognise this principle, they should have no difficulty in creating means for applying it. In Crete, an island which the administration is yet unorganised, it will be far more difficult than in Greece to enforce a stringent law on this subject. The Syllogos of Heraklion did excellent work under Turkish rule towards the conservation of antiquities, and will, no doubt, do far better work in the future but the Cretan government will not be able to enforce this law. The Samian government has quite failed to enforce a less stringent one. Could not the archaeologists of the four powers, who are the actual sovereigns of Crete, suggest to the Cretans through their governments a more liberal policy in this matter, a policy which Greece might find it wise in the future to borrow from her nearly recovered child[?]
The following case study illustrates the points raised above, demonstrating that the movement of antiquities continued regardless of whether the prevailing legal framework was favourable. I refer to this episode as an ‘incident’ because the export of antiquities was, almost always, a source of controversy. In this instance, objects that Evans had acquired while the Ottoman law was still in force were being prepared for shipment to Oxford. Evans asked Francis Carabott, the officer in charge of the Eastern Telegraph Company in Candia, to transport them to Oxford without formal authorisation.Footnote 34 He justified this act to Carabott on the basis that these were antiquities of low value, useless for the local collection (since similar specimens already existed in the Syllogos Museum), and on the basis of his excellent relations with Hatzidakis. Last, but not least, Evans reassured Carabott that he had no issues exporting such objects before.
This incident further reveals that those involved were fully aware of the legal implications, public scrutiny, and local sensitivities, yet chose to ignore or circumvent them. The reaction was not what Evans or Carabott expected in this case (Fig. 5). Carabott wrote to Evans on 10 December 1899:
that the man to whom I trusted the two cases to carry to Malta has deceived me. On his arrival there, saying that the cases contained ancient pottery, he got them seized … Seeing that the cases contained ancient potteries (he) kept them malgré my writing to him to give them to the party for conveyance to Oxford. He kept (them) till he came to Canea & reported the matter to the Minister of Education. Then this last wrote a private letter to the Prefect telling him to arrange the matter privately so as not to make the thing officially known and bring the cases back to Candia & deliver them up to this Museum. Now the cases were sent long before the Law was made about antiquities and others have sent away a lot & sold at Athens – no fuss was made over it. Hatzidaki has been informed of the matter. I told the Prefect that the contents of the cases have been offered to this Museum & that they did not want them as they were of little or no value. I begged him to write to the Minister & try to drop the matter & say no more about it. He replied that he will speak to Hadjidacki [sic] – let me know today as steamer is leaving, I shall have no time to let you [know] the result, but in any case, on receipt of this, wire me what to do. In case you would like to write to Hadzidaki [sic], you will wire the word writing. On the contrary, if you wish to bring them back and make a present to the Museum you will wire deliver. I am awfully sorry about this and am very anxious for your reply so as to put an end to this affair one way or the other and as soon as possible, though I am doing all in my power to make them stop the matter & say no more about it, but all the same I should like to have your decision by wire. I told the Prefect also that others have taken out valuable things & sold them at Athens. I assured him that the contents are not worth much. I shall pay that man out as he is doing business in Malta & lives there. His name is Giovanni Sorotto he is a Greek.Footnote 35 I dare say he wanted to show himself a good patriot by espionage. (F. Carabott to A.J. Evans, 10 December 1899, GB/1648/AJE/1/1/1/28/1, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)
F. Carabott’s letter to A.J. Evans, GB/1648/AJE/1/1/1/28/1. © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford.
Fig. 5. Long description
A two-panel photo of a handwritten letter on aged, cream-colored paper with horizontal ruling.
Left Panel (Page 1):
At the top right is the location and date: Candia 10th Decr 1899.
Below this, the salutation reads: Dear Mr Evans.
The body text begins: I have heard only today that the man to whom I trusted the two cases to convey to Malta has deceived me on his arrival there saying that the cases contained ancient Potteries kept them malgre my writing to him to give them to the party for conveyance to Oxford he kept on till he came to Canea + reported the matter to the Minister of Direction.
See main article text
There is no other information about these objects and it is unknown whether they ever made it to England.
The Knossos dig and the Hellenic Society
There are other indications that Evans was keen to export Cretan antiquities even after Cretan autonomy had been declared. David Hogarth, when he was director of the BSA, noted in a letter to Evans in 1899 that
we can work together – you & I – excellently. There is one point only in which our different positions may make us incline to slightly divergent policies, i.e., the question of disposition of finds. Our School is jealously watched here. The name of Lord Elgin is always on Greek lips … We must not appear in the light of wholesale robbers of Crete which, as you know, is regarded here as virtually Greece. You, as a Museum Director & a great collector will be more anxious to export than I. We must discuss a common understanding on that important point which shall not do us injury here … (D.G. Hogarth to A.J. Evans, 6 April 1899, GB/1648/AJE/1/1/1/78/3, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; see also Brown Reference Brown2001, 269)Footnote 36
This is a notable extract also because it appears to explain (partly at least) why Knossos was primarily Evans’ project, under the auspices of the Hellenic Society, as opposed to being led by the BSA.
The correspondence between Hogarth and Evans provides additional crucial contextual insight into the political dynamics surrounding archaeological policy at the time. Hogarth acknowledged that Kavvadias possessed a far superior command of legislative matters – what he termed his ‘business in law making’ – compared to Hatzidakis (D.G. Hogarth to A.J. Evans, 26 May 1899, GB/1648/AJE/1/1/1/78/5, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford); nevertheless, he insisted that support should be directed toward the latter, whose position was more aligned with British interests, including Evans’ desire to secure permission for the export of excavated objects.
In a letter dated 26 May 1899, Hogarth elaborated on this tension. A version of the draft law prepared by Kavvadias had been forwarded to him by Prince George and, as he observed, appeared in several respects more effective than that of Hatzidakis, suggesting that multiple drafts were in circulation. Kavvadias’ spring draft of the Cretan antiquities law was described as ‘comprehensive and concise’ by Hogarth and included concessions such as granting ‘one-third, rather than one-quarter, to proprietors’,Footnote 37 while prohibiting the export of antiquities altogether (D.G. Hogarth to A.J. Evans, 26 May 1899, GB/1648/AJE/1/1/1/78/5, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford). The circulation of these drafts – shared with the directors of foreign schools, discussed with the Prince and other actors in Crete, and partially reported in the press – appears to have been a deliberate strategy to gauge reactions from multiple sides before implementing a solution that, at the time, seems to have been guided primarily by ‘Athenian influence’ (see below).
Overall considerations favouring British archaeological interests in Crete necessitated Evans’ and Hogarth’s backing of Hatzidakis, including Evans’ plea to export objects from his (forthcoming) excavations (Panagiotaki Reference Panagiotaki, Cadogan, Hatzaki and Vasilakis2004a; Reference Panagiotaki, Cadogan, Hatzaki and Vasilakis2004b). Hogarth further indicated, in his May letter, his intention to oppose Kavvadias’ proposal for dual museum sites and expressed willingness to favour Heraklion over Chania to accommodate Hatzidakis, while emphasising the need for a single, unified museum. In the same correspondence, he underscored the strategic priority of excavations at Knossos: ‘The more I think of the matter the more I see that the main campaign of the opening season must be Cnossus. The pretensions of the French, the celebrity of the site, its nearness to Candia, make it imperative that our work there should be thoroughly working on an adequate scale – no scratching!’
By June, however, things took a different turn than anticipated by Evans and Hogarth. Hogarth advised Evans to be very careful with Prince George, whom the Ashmolean Keeper thought to be very favourable to his Knossos project, as already noted. The reason was that Prince George was suspicious of Hatzidakis and the Candia party and considered them (including Evans) ‘an association for smuggling out antiquities’:
I am afraid Athenian influence is prevailing in Crete. Cavvadias told me that he has been again summoned by the Prince & there is a report that the Archaeological Society is to be asked to fund two Ephors. Bourchier also tells me that the Prince on reading my comments on Cavvadias’ draft law said emphatically that there must be two Museums and two Ephors. The Chief at Canea. B. says that P. is very suspicious of you, Hazzidakis [sic] and all the Candia party regarding you as an association for smuggling out antiquities. Probably he includes me in the gang. This is no doubt due to Athenian influences. Can you set any counter influences at work in England in favour of Hazzidakis [sic]? I suspect the French are not unconcerned in this matter. Also, I have heard that the Greek Archaeological Society looks after a share of our sites. There is some danger that all the Prince has said may come to be considered as purely provisional. Entre-nous he has the reputation of being most unreliable – saying one thing one day to you – the contrary another day to another. This is to warn you. (D.G. Hogarth to A.J. Evans, 19 June 1899, GB/1648/AJE/1/1/1/78/7, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)Footnote 38
Despite these tensions, however, Prince George of Greece did become the Patron of the newly established Cretan Exploration Fund in the summer of 1899, which was under the directorship of Evans, Hogarth and Robert Carr Bosanquet.Footnote 39
A series of letters in the SPHS Macmillan Papers shed further light on Evans’ decision to advance his Cretan excavations and associated funding initiatives outside the established framework of the BSA, which he regarded as ill-equipped to respond to the political and practical exigencies of the moment.Footnote 40 The five letters written by Arthur Evans to the publisher and Hellenic Society treasurer George A. Macmillan between February and June 1899 provide a candid view of the diplomatic, institutional, and personal negotiations preceding the excavation of Knossos. Evans presented the situation to Macmillan as both urgent and diplomatically sensitive, shaped by the active interest of rival foreign powers, most notably France, in securing archaeological access and prestige in Crete (letters from A.J. Evans to G.A. Macmillan, 4 February 1899, 25 March 1899, 8 May 1899, 14 June 1899, 18 June 1899, SPHS Macmillan Papers).
Evans operated with a coordinated strategy. In a single letter, dated 4 February 1899, he emerges as a strategic broker, mobilising the Foreign Office, the Hellenic Society, and potentially the Prince of Wales himself to shore up the position of his Cretan ally Dr Hatzidakis against French encroachment:
I further learn that for three years at last all matters concerning antiquities etc are likely to be provisionally regulated by Princely decrees … [Hatzidakis] will do all he can to forward the interests of the British School & it is most important on our side that he should be supported … Do you think it would be possible to get him made an honorary member of the Hellenic Society? That would, I think, considerably strengthen his position … Another step would be to set the F.O. to do something to help in his appointment … Perhaps even H.R.H. might be induced to write a few lines to his nephew. (letter from A.J. Evans to G.A. Macmillan, 4 February 1899, SPHS Macmillan Papers)
The ease with which Evans moved between scholarly, diplomatic, and dynastic registers reveals his fluency in combining them as instruments toward a single goal and with archaeology functioning not merely as an academic pursuit but as a form of national presence and influence. He repeatedly stressed, therefore, that the BSA, which ‘can at present do nothing’, suffered from chronic deficiencies in funding, personnel, and institutional flexibility, rendering it incapable of acting decisively (letter from A.J. Evans to G.A. Macmillan, 25 March 1899, p. 4, SPHS Macmillan Papers). Read together, they challenge the familiar image of Evans as a solitary visionary, instead presenting him as a strategic operator embedded in overlapping networks of patronage spanning late Victorian imperial politics, aristocratic diplomacy, and learned societies. At the time, French competitors (as he claimed) were attempting to secure excavation rights at key sites, while the island’s antiquities laws remained unsettled under the new autonomous administration of Prince George.
The letters suggest that archaeological access in Crete was not granted solely on scholarly merit but was actively secured through the careful mobilisation of influence at the highest levels of British and Cretan political life. By March (25 March 1899), these efforts had borne fruit: a letter routed through Sir Francis KnollysFootnote 41 to the Duke of York and thence to Prince George of Crete had secured British reservations over Knossos, Zakro, Psychro, and multiple other sites, while simultaneously neutralising French rival claims:
the letter you wrote to Sir F. Knollys bore good fruit. It was forwarded by the Duke of York to Prince George who was so favourably inclined that he was quite prepared to refuse the French demands … Prince George however at once booked Knossos & Lyttos (which I had also suggested) for us. I further learned from my friend Bourchier (the Times’ Correspondent here who is much to Prince George’s confidence) that he was quite prepared to grant us more & accordingly I put down several minor sites – Zakro, & Kalamafka on the East of the Island where I know of important Mycenaean remains; Kamáras on the S. side of the island where there is an important Cave & beehive tombs; the sacred Cave of Zeus at Psychro at Mt Dikte and the Cave of Hermes on the West side of Ida. In an audience I had with Prince George today he said he would reserve all these for us & also promised to nominate Dr. Hazzidakis Ephor – a most important advantage … Unfortunately, the Brit. School can at present do nothing, but I have come to the conclusion that the first thing to do is to start at once a ‘Cretan Exploration Fund’ of which provisionally at any rate I will assume its direction. I shall of course act in unison with the School & will hope for some help from them in men at least for this season. A little delay will be caused by the necessity of the law about Cretan antiquities, a draft of which has been drawn up by the Assembly … Prince George thought he would be able to allow me to start ‘exploratory’ diggings by decree. The projet de loi as drawn up by Dr. Hazzidakis & others is much more favourable than the Greek law as regards the acquisition of sites – & I hope to deal with it as promulgated as it stands … Knosos the City of Minos – the Diktaean Cave of Zeus – are all spots which may appeal to the imagination & I hope that such preliminary work as we may now be able to undertake with result in attracting the public appetite! (letter from A.J. Evans to G.A. Macmillan, 25 March 1899, SPHS Macmillan Papers)Footnote 42
Throughout the correspondence with Macmillan, Evans casts himself as a crucial intermediary between Greek and Cretan authorities and British institutions, emphasising his personal credibility, his allegedly trusted relationship with Prince George, and his established standing within Greek archaeology. This self-positioning is important and should be seen not just as rhetorical self-aggrandisement but as strategic explanation of the leverage he believed essential to exploit while it remained available (see also the discussion in Haarer Reference Haarer2021; Reference Haarer2022). Taken together, the Hellenic Society letters constitute a sustained argument that Britain, for Evans, needed to move swiftly and assertively to secure its position in Cretan archaeology before impending antiquities legislation and intensified foreign competition foreclosed opportunities; and that the Hellenic Society (which was after all closely associated with the BSA) provided the best institutional framework for helping Evans achieve his aims on the ground.
Institutional tensions become clearer in the letter of 14 June 1899. Evans had worked with D.G. Hogarth, Director of the BSA, on proposals for the new antiquities law, which he regarded as favourable. Yet he also sought to define his position relative to the School. He insisted that his role was collaborative rather than subordinate, and that inviting Hogarth as Associate Director of the Fund demonstrated solidarity rather than dependence.
The June letter adds a further institutional dimension, revealing tensions between Evans’ independent Cretan Exploration Fund and the BSA:
With regard to the Cretan Law on Antiquities Hogarth & I made certain suggestions & a copy of the Projet de loi was sent here a short time since by Prince George which he has returned with the remarks which we thought desirable. It was to have been proclaimed almost at once & may be in force before our new Consul General arrives. I am extremely glad that he is so much interested in the matter & will write to him … I did my best to stir the Committee & Council to common action. By starting a Fund under my own direction, I was able to take the place I might fairly claim in respect to Cretan Exploration, side by side with the Director of the School. You would not yourself expect that I should agree to take any other than a co-ordinate position in the matter & I always wished to direct some part of the excavation myself. It was my belief that in making me Associate the British School threw to a certain extent its mantle over any work I might undertake in the Greek lands & that such would in future form a contribution, such as it was, to the sum of the School’s activities. In asking Hogarth as Director of the School to become Associate Director of the Fund I gave a proof of absolute solidarity with the School interests … My own belief is that with a little tact we shall steer clear of any rocks ahead & I dislike the policy of raising too many hypothetical & contingent questions. For my own part I am sincerely desirous of making the Fund a lever for the interests of the British School. (letter from A.J. Evans to G.A. Macmillan, 14 June 1899, SPHS Macmillan Papers)
His insistence on a ‘co-ordinate position’ alongside the School’s Director reflects broader anxieties about authority, credit, and institutional ownership of archaeological enterprise that would characterise British classical archaeology well into the twentieth century. Furthermore, Hogarth was very clearly, and understandably so, sceptical of Evans’ skills in the field, both as an archaeological director and as a field archaeologist (roles for which Evans had no pre-existing real experience; see e.g. Momigliano Reference Momigliano1999).
These documents, therefore, illuminate the interplay of scholarship and power, revealing archaeology as a practice shaped as much by negotiation as by discovery. They show Evans not simply as an excavator but as a negotiator who understood the importance of influence, timing, and alliances in securing opportunity. In doing so, they complicate heroic narratives and place the origins of Knossos within a broader political and social context of empire and cultural exchange.
Duncan Mackenzie’s Cycladic pursuits
This is the framework within which the Knossos excavations began in the spring of 1900, and at the end of the first season we encounter the final case study that takes us beyond Crete. Duncan Mackenzie, previously employed by the BSA as field archaeologist at Phylakopi, was at the time Evans’ main assistant. At the end of the first season at Knossos, Mackenzie travelled to the Cyclades. Upon returning to the Piraeus, he was stopped by customs officials, and the antiquities in his knapsack were seized (Mercouri Reference Mercouri, Matthaiou and Chatzidimitriou2012, 166–7, nos 10, 10a). In a polite, but defiant, letter to Panagis Kavvadias, Mackenzie claimed that he had no hidden agenda, that he had been misled by locals and that the acquisition of the objects was unintentional. He further emphasised that he was acting in a personal capacity, not as a representative of the BSA, or any official excavation for that matter; and that he had never sent a single item to England since he had no taste for collecting antiquities. For all the above, Mackenzie requested the return of the seized objects not least because of their low value (see Appendix).Footnote 43
However, archival evidence contradicts his claims, such as the Ashmolean’s Antiquities Register, where the objects sent via Mackenzie to England are recorded (AE.415–35). Mackenzie sold, or donated, 21 Cycladic antiquities, including several figurines and pyxides, which suggests that he was acquiring antiquities for the museum. Some even come from Kastraki on Naxos, like those confiscated by the Greek authorities (e.g. noted in Sherratt Reference Sherratt2000, 153, AE.418). There are also in the Ashmolean the notes of Mackenzie to Evans dating 22 November 1900 which offer a brief description of the objects that Mackenzie brought with him to England.Footnote 44 In the notes Mackenzie also listed the antiquities that stayed in Athens,Footnote 45 the prices paid for them and the names of his providers. He had paid for the antiquities that were eventually confiscated 275 drachmas. The most expensive was the schist pyxis (100 dr.). Local providers included Jannis Anamatéros (for the schist pyxis), Florios Grasias for a kandila from Kastraki, Theodoris Chorianopoulos for a kandila from Apollona (all from Naxos) as well as Papa Dimitrios Prasinos from Amorgos (on the latter see Galanakis Reference Galanakis2013).
To source the objects in the Cyclades, Mackenzie relied on his extensive local network, with some individuals going back to his official BSA excavation days at Phylakopi. In a memo at the end of the notes, marked ‘private’ and probably addressed to Evans, Mackenzie stressed that although it would be wise to leave out Naxos for now, following the incident, once he had the antiquities in his possession on board, he could easily sail to Catania direct, escaping detection by the authorities (notes for AE.415–35, Department of Antiquities, Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford):
Ios finds, including helmeted male figure, in absence of owner were not procurable. Seen afterwards in Attica and after much persuading was induced to come down to Dr.300 for the lot. Promised to have them at Piraeus next year. The following persons have promised to excavate in the course of the season. 1. In Paros, Spiros Frankoulis who was my muleteer when I visited Paros 3 years ago and who was foreman to Tsountas when he excavated in Paros.Footnote 46 2. In Amorgos, Papa Dimitrius Prasinos who excavated with Dümmler. 3. In Ios, Michalis Kostis,Footnote 47 proprietor of the above mentioned Ios collection. 4. In Naxos, Dimitrius Chorianopoulos who owns part of the cist-tomb cemetery at Ston Apollona. I should be prepared to revisit Paros, Amorgos, Ios, but Naxos might be left out for a time. Telegrams would have to be outwitted through a plan which I have been told of according to which the things are brought on board ship at Piraeus by another person. The things would have to be brought to Piraeus by their owners or sent there through some trusted person. If I once had the things in my possession on board ship I should sail to Catania direct.
Indeed, some of the objects ended up in Italy, and upon Mackenzie’s death were donated to the Museum of Antiquities in Pisa by his sister (Momigliano Reference Momigliano1999, 141–5).
Through the cross-referencing of the available sources – those available in Athens and in Oxford – it transpires that Mackenzie had 16 antiquities in his knapsack at the time of confiscation, six of which, all being clay vessels and potsherds, were allowed to be exported by the Greek authorities as ‘useless’. Another 10 objects were kept for the national collections, all marble or stone items, including figurines and some rare finds for the time. One such rare find was a carved stone pyxis, with similar examples known in 1900 from only two other surviving specimens, one each in Berlin and Munich, hence the interest of the local authorities to retain it (Fig. 6). Another piece that caught the attention of the authorities was a curious clay object which was only known from Ferdinand Dümmler’s excavations on Amorgos (Galanakis Reference Galanakis2013) – a ‘helmet-like terracotta object’ for Mackenzie who thought it bore ‘horns of consecration’ and considered it a cult object.Footnote 48
The Pyxis (Athens, National Archaeological Museum, 5358) that D. Mackenzie tried to export without authorisation. He bought it for 100 dr. (c. £4). © Hellenic National Archaeological Museum, Athens – Archive (photographer Kostas Xenikakis).
Mackenzie does not appear to have acted primarily for financial gain. Although he ultimately sold the acquired objects to the Ashmolean Museum – thereby realising, most likely, a modest profit – he was almost certainly acting on behalf of Evans, as already suggested by Sherratt (Reference Sherratt2000, 64). The purchase prices themselves were unremarkable by the trade standards of the time; what remains uncertain is the extent of any profit Mackenzie may have made upon their resale to the Ashmolean.
Mackenzie was certainly not alone in sourcing and exporting antiquities. Other British archaeologists, including Robert C. Bosanquet, Richard M. Dawkins and John L. Myres, likewise exported Cycladic material, much of which entered the Ashmolean collectionsFootnote 49 – predominantly as gifts, though some items were sold. One such example is the marble head said to be from Amorgos (AE.147), which the Ashmolean purchased from Bosanquet for £3 in 1897. More broadly, informal acquisition and opportunistic collecting – rather than systematic excavation – were not uncommon at the time. For instance, John H. Marshall, prior to his later prominence as Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India, acquired antiquities on Crete for the University of Cambridge in 1901 (Gill Reference Gill2000, 522–3). Gill also records a letter from Hogarth to Evans in which the former complains of a ‘piece of piracy’ by Marshall, possibly referring to an illicit excavation.
At the 1936 exhibition, some Cycladic objects were displayed not in the Minoan room but in a section dedicated to the BSA’s archaeological explorations that included objects from Palaikastro, the Kamares cave, and numerous other sites (Myres Reference Myres1936, 36–9, East room, floor case A). The accompanying label noted that these included items presented by the Greek government, referencing the 1902 Phylakopi agreement between Kavvadias and Bosanquet, the then director of the BSA – i.e., duplicate vases and potsherds that were not needed in Athens but would be valuable as reference material at Oxford or Cambridge.Footnote 50
Despite the legislative developments introduced after 1899, Mackenzie did export a number of objects without authorisation, several of which also featured in the 1936 exhibition (Fig. 7). The Greek authorities permitted him to retain only six clay pots and sherds – far fewer than the number that eventually reached the Ashmolean Museum, which received at least 20 additional objects that had escaped the notice of the Athens authorities. These items are now catalogued as AE.415–35 in the Ashmolean collection.
Cycladic antiquities on display in the 1936 London exhibition. A number of these were exported by D. Mackenzie without authorisation (e.g. AE.419, AE.421, AE.424, AE.432, all visible on the photo). The head, no. 34, was sold by R.C. Bosanquet to the Ashmolean in 1897 for £3. BSA-SPHS_01-6828.C6838. © BSA.
Fig. 7. Long description
A black and white photo captures a glass-enclosed museum display case filled with marble and ceramic artifacts.
At the front base of the case, from left to right, are:
- A small shallow bowl.
- A violin-shaped marble figurine labeled with the number 33.
- A small sculpted head mounted on a dark square pedestal labeled with the number 34.
- A standing female figurine with arms crossed over the midsection.
- A broken ceramic fragment.
Behind these, on a raised central platform covered in dark cloth, are:
- A marble animal figure, possibly a sheep or pig, standing on two small dark blocks labeled with the number 31.
- A large, rounded marble vessel with a wide neck positioned directly behind the animal.
- Several smaller dark ceramic jars and vessels flanking the central marble pieces.
The background shows the interior of the exhibition hall with other display cases, framed wall hangings, and posters visible through the glass. In the top left corner of the negative, the mirrored text C 6 8 3 8 is visible.
PUSHING FOR MORE: LEGAL AMBIGUITY AND SUSTAINED PERSONAL MANOEUVRING
Through reactions from the press, private individuals and certain officials – in Greece as much as on Crete – we see the emergence of shifting attitudes and of efforts to establish a tighter state control over antiquities (Genova Reference Genova2019; Tzorakis Reference Tzorakis2019; Sidiropoulos Reference Sidiropoulos, Garezou and Chatzidimitriouforthcoming): admittedly always top-down, from positions of power, and with the true stakeholders – such as landowners or farmers, etc. – having limited or no say (Table 1).Footnote 51
Foreign and local agents and their relationships shown in juxtaposition to legal control, cultural awareness, scientific goals and ownership rights over antiquities
Table 1. Long description
The table consists of four columns and five rows. The header row identifies the Category, Foreign Archaeologists, Greek or Cretan Authorities, and Local Communities.
* Legal Control: Foreign Archaeologists are limited by local laws with activities ranging from illegal to legal. Authorities follow Greek laws of 1834 and 1899, or Ottoman and Cretan laws. Local Communities are often bypassed by state rhetoric but exploited by those seeking antiquities.
* Cultural Awareness: Foreign Archaeologists focus on preservation, study, sourcing, and exporting. Authorities have a strong interest in developing local collections. Local Communities show pride in heritage but have varied awareness.
* Scientific Goals: Foreign Archaeologists prioritize research, excavation, and publication. Authorities support research with local control and oversight. Local Communities have limited direct involvement in decision-making.
* Ownership Rights: Foreign Archaeologists desire to export finds for study, display, or private collecting. Authorities aim to retain antiquities while allowing export of casts and duplicates. Local Communities have mixed views, with some seeing antiquities as a source of income or supporting exports for political reasons.
Amidst the climate of legal ambiguity and personal manoeuvring, as noted above, Evans continued lobbying for permission to export Knossian antiquities, despite the 1899 Cretan law prohibiting such a provision altogether. He cultivated relationships with local politicians who advocated for his cause in the Cretan assembly. One such politician was Antonios Michelidakis, influential at the time (Hatzidakis Reference Hatzidakis1931, 11; Xyritakis Reference Xyritakis2001), who offered his support to Evans and in 1901 advocated in the Cretan Parliament in favour of allowing the export of duplicates, including a few of the inscribed tablets he had unearthed at Knossos (A. Michelidakis, Stenographic Proceedings of the Parliament [First Period], Session 13, 1 June 1901, pp. 125–6, Official Gazette of the Cretan State, Issue 4, Historical Archives of Crete, National Archives of Greece, Chania). Evans’ actions, while attracting some favourable press (e.g. Κήρυξ, 13 September 1902, 2), mostly drew criticism from the Greek as well as the Cretan press (Fig. 8).
An article in the Cretan press reproducing information that had already circulated in the Athenian press which challenged Evans’ efforts to secure an export for some of the antiquities he had excavated at Knossos. Πατρίς, 25 June 1901.
Fig. 8. Long description
A vertical newspaper clipping from the Cretan press.
At the very top, the masthead reads ΠΑΤΡΙΣ 25 Ιουνίου 1901.
Below this, a large bold headline is centered in three lines. The first line reads ΤΑ ΑΡΧΑΙΑ ΤΗΣ ΚΝΩΣΣΟΥ. The second line reads ΚΑΙ Η ΑΙΤΗΣΙΣ ΤΟΥ κ. ΕΒΑΝΣ.
The body text is arranged in a single column of justified Greek typeface. The first paragraph introduces the topic by referencing the Athenian press outlet Asty and Evans’ request to the Cretan Parliament.
The second, longer paragraph begins with a quotation mark and discusses Evans’ request to export a portion of the valuable archaeological finds to England to stimulate interest and funding for further excavations. The text expresses opposition to this request, arguing that it is better to postpone excavations until local resources allow for them rather than allowing the export of ancestral wealth. It concludes by praising the foresight of Cretan archaeological legislation in protecting these treasures from danger.
In one report, Evans’ key points are reproduced verbatim, including his aim to stir up interest among his fellow citizens through the display of objects in England and to raise further funds for the continuation of the excavations at Knossos. According to the way Evans presented it at least, he was forced to rely on his countrymen’s generosity to fund the project.Footnote 52 Yet the unnamed author of a Greek newspaper article also recorded that
if the generosity of the antiquarians abroad to perform excavations in Greece or in Crete has to be the outcome of our generosity, transforming the archaeological findings into objects to be exported, we think that it is doubtlessly more preferable for the archaeological excavations in Greece and Crete to be postponed for a better time, since the resources of the country are not sufficient for them at the moment.Footnote 53
Although Philip Carabott (Reference Carabott, Hamilakis and Momigliano2006, 49) has remarked that there was no formal record of Evans’ dissatisfaction with the Cretan antiquities law, his correspondence and actions tell a completely different story. In a letter to Solomon Reinach in 1901, Evans expressed frustration that his ‘moderate demands’ for a few duplicates and inscribed tablets had been ignored, blaming Kavvadias for the ‘iniquitous’ law and calling the Greeks ‘incorrigible’ (letter from A.J. Evans to S. Reinach, 29 December 1901, Bibliothèque Méjanes, Aix-en-Provence; also cited by Duchêne Reference Duchêne, Darcque, Fotiadis and Polychronopoulou2006, 93). Part of the reason, at least as he presented it, was the need (as already noted above) to export original antiquities from Crete to England in order to raise awareness of his excavation and to secure additional funding for its continuation through the Cretan Exploration Fund that had been established for that purpose, already in the summer of 1899 and in anticipation of the start of the Knossos dig in the spring of 1900.Footnote 54
In 1903, Evans’ persistent lobbying finally bore fruit, when a new article was added to the law allowing the export of antiquities that were deemed to lack scientific value or utility for Cretan museums.Footnote 55 Marina Panagiotaki has extensively documented the first departure of such objects, although inscribed documents were initially excluded due to their special significance.Footnote 56 While there were suggestions for further shows to raise funds for the excavation, these did not materialise in the 1900s: ‘would it be worthwhile’, wrote R.C. Bosanquet – one of the Phylakopi excavators and Director of the BSA at the time – to Evans,
to arrange an exhibition of Cretan antiquities in London, and to pool for that purpose the ἄχρηστα to be given under the new law from Cnossos, Zakro, Psychro, Praesos, P.K.? Together they should make a good collection and a good advertisement for the Fund. If you apply in the spring, we should have the collection to England by the autumn. Do you mean to share the booty with other museums? (letter from R.C. Bosanquet to A.J. Evans, 18 November 1903, GB/1648/AJE/1/1/1/18/1, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)
In a popular circular drafted by Xanthoudidis in c. 1903–4, it was clearly stated that removing antiquities from Crete – regardless of size – was strictly prohibited, with violators facing object confiscation, heavy fines, and imprisonment (Varouhakis Reference Varouhakis2015, 151–2, n. 163, 234, fig. 29, and Subchapter 6; Genova Reference Genova2019, 462–8, Appendix 9). However, in practice, enforcement was inconsistent to say the least. Take for example the jar with three palms on each side: as Evans openly stated in print, ‘only half of the jar was discovered. The fragments of one side taken to England by a British officer at a time when the local administration withheld even duplicate specimens from the excavators’ (Evans Reference Evans1921, 253, n. 3). This side is now at the Ashmolean Museum (AE.1654). The other, joining, side is at the Heraklion Museum (HM7691).
Equally, a Vassiliki spouted jar given to Evans by American archaeologist and close friend Richard Seager illustrates well the double standards in force at the time:Footnote 57 referring to an incident that occurred in the port of Heraklion in 1904, Evans recalled many years later:
this time I was greeted by a newly appointed man, who finding the bottom of the jar in my knapsack strongly demurred. I made up my mind that he shouldn’t have it. So, I threw it into the sea. They did not find the bit in my portmanteau … there was an uproar in the government. The Ephor of antiquities went down to the port and instructed divers to fish for my wretched piece of crock at the bottom of the sea … when I returned … the Ephor unlocked the glass case, and I put the piece into my pocket and brought it home. (referring to AN1910.160: MacGillivray Reference MacGillivray2000, 225, referring to period c. 1904; Fig. 9).
A long-spouted Vassiliki clay vessel, featured in the 1936 exhibition and now housed at the Ashmolean Museum (AN1910.160), was the subject of an incident around 1904 when Evans attempted to remove it without authorisation. When faced with confiscation, he threw part of the vessel into the sea, sparking uproar in government circles and a subsequent search, as described in the text. During a later visit, Evans recovered the piece and was permitted to take it back to England, where it was reunited with the other half. © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford.
Foreign archaeologists, particularly figures like Arthur Evans, were often treated more leniently than locals, reflecting the asymmetrical power dynamics of the time. These double standards reveal a gap between the official rhetoric of protection and the reality of selective enforcement, especially when influential foreign individuals were involved. Yet, and despite receiving numerous concessions including those already cited above, Evans continued to push for further privileges, even straining his relationship with staunch allies like Hatzidakis (Panagiotaki Reference Panagiotaki, Cadogan, Hatzaki and Vasilakis2004b; Varouhakis Reference Varouhakis2015; Genova Reference Genova2019). In a revealing draft letter, Hatzidakis acknowledged Evans’ scientific motivations but also expressed frustration at his persistent demands: ‘whatever you did until now … you did it due to your love for science & not because you hoped you would get something in return’ (draft letter from J. Hatzidakis to A. J. Evans, 22 May 1909, Book 28, Heraklion Archaeological Museum Archive, 23rd Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities, Heraklion, after Varouhakis Reference Varouhakis2015, 141–2 and 149; there is no evidence that it was ever posted to Evans).
In June 1909, Evans was granted the much-desired permit to export a few Linear B tablets. The justification, by the local Committee that included Hatzidakis, was based on the abundance of similar finds, their perceived lack of historical significance, and recognition of Evans’ financial and scholarly contributions.Footnote 58 These tablets, now housed at the Ashmolean Museum, featured prominently in the 1936 exhibition – the caption that accompanied them recording that ‘they were presented to the excavator by the Cretan government before the union with Greece’ (Evans Reference Evans1936b, 27, Desk Case L; also Shapland and Trepagnier Reference Shapland and Trepagnier2025, 38–9; Fig. 10). As the story goes, they played a pivotal role, through their display in London, by inspiring a young Michael Ventris, who would go on to eventually decipher Linear B (Robinson Reference Robinson2012).
Desk Case L in the 1936 London exhibition where specimens of Linear scripts were displayed with the accompanying caption noting that most of these specimens had been ‘presented to the excavator by the Cretan government before the union with Greece’ (Evans Reference Evans1936b, 27). BSA-SPHS_01-6825.C6834. © BSA.
Fig. 10. Long description
The display case is divided into four quadrants by a central metal frame.
In the top-left quadrant, artifacts include a rectangular stone block with a circular depression, and two smaller fragments, one of which is a triangular piece mounted on a card.
In the bottom-left quadrant, there are three large stone fragments. The leftmost is a rectangular block with carved indentations, followed by two irregular, light-colored stone pieces.
In the top-right quadrant, several elongated, leaf-shaped clay tablets are arranged in rows. These tablets are thin and inscribed with horizontal lines of script.
In the bottom-right quadrant, more clay tablets are displayed. A central feature is a square, dark-framed box containing a flat inscribed fragment. To the left of this frame are two rectangular tablets, and to the right are three smaller, broken fragments of inscribed clay. All items are resting on a light-colored fabric or paper base within the wooden-framed glass case.
Although not directly related to Evans’ permits in Crete, Kavvadias’ political dismissal a few months later in 1909, following the Goudi coup in August by the Military League, adds nuance to the complexities of lobbying and achieving desirable outcomes (whether for foreign or Greek archaeologists). Several Ephors, with the support of the League, accused Kavvadias and the Directors of the Foreign Archaeological Schools of connivance, alleging that they had ‘stifled Greek archaeological activity’ and ‘secured the best sites and the greater glory’.Footnote 59 The Directors denied these allegations of favouritism, made a representation to the Premier, and rallied in support of Kavvadias, with Robert Carr Bosanquet, Percy Gardner, and Ernest A. Gardner even organising a fund to assist him (Walters Reference Walters1910). The Directors praised his integrity and academic rigour and, while not stating this explicitly, clearly favoured his liberal attitudes and willingness to negotiate.
By 1912, Evans had exported approximately 3,500 objects from his excavations at Knossos to England. While the majority of these exports were legal, they followed extensive lobbying and negotiation, as already noted. Many of these objects were later included in the 1936 exhibition. This period also witnessed the Greek government formalising and expanding the export of so-called ‘duplicates’ or ‘useless’ items through agreements with foreign archaeological schools, despite opposition from some local archaeologists and politicians. For example, three objects from Palaikastro (including AN1896–1908.AE.780) were exhibited; these had been exported by the BSA in 1906 with the permission of the Cretan government. Such cases demonstrate that the export of antiquities was not limited to Evans.Footnote 60 Nevertheless, Evans continued to acquire antiquities outside official channels, including forgeries such as the ‘Fitzwilliam’ Goddess and the Thisbe Treasure, both of which were also displayed in the London exhibition.Footnote 61
FROM THE KNOSSOS DIG TO THE 1936 EXHIBITION
This paper began by addressing a seemingly straightforward question: why were the early excavations at Knossos not undertaken under the auspices of the BSA but instead proceeded under the authority of the Hellenic Society in London and through Arthur Evans’ personal initiatives and lobbying at a time of major political transformation for Crete? It also sought to reconsider the 1936 exhibition, traditionally framed as a celebratory event, as one that should be examined through the intertwined dynamics of colonial entanglements, legal ambiguity and shifting ethical norms.
The evidence presented – and organised around four case studies spanning the period before, during and after the Knossos excavation – indicates that a central issue behind the permit was the drive to secure exportable antiquities by every available means, an agenda that the BSA, in the view of its then Director David Hogarth, believed threatened its position and activities in Greece. The cumulative legacy of acquisition and exportation associated with Evans, Mackenzie, and others requires us to view the 1936 exhibition as a moment in which the epistemic, legal and ethical tensions of early twentieth-century archaeology are laid bare. These tensions, emerging from legal uncertainty, evolving professional norms and asymmetries of colonial power, complicate any retrospective attempt to draw a clean boundary between the pursuit of knowledge and extractive entitlement.
Intended primarily for a UK audience despite its focus on Greek archaeology, the 1936 exhibition illuminates the politics of cultural authority and claims to the past. Although it attracted little attention in the Greek press, it generated over 50 articles in British newspapers (R. Trepagnier, pers. comm.). Greek officials were formally invited, yet the event avoided any reference to the prior export of original objects. The opening ceremony was presided over by the Duke of Kent. The organisers publicly acknowledged that Greek law prohibited the removal of excavated antiquities, and emphasised that the Greek Archaeological Service had facilitated the creation of reproductions for display.Footnote 62 In reality, the exhibition contained significantly more than casts and replicas: the circulation of original artefacts – rarely described in commercial terms – rested on assumptions of intellectual superiority, unequal power relations, and self-appointed custodianship grounded in claims to scientific expertise. Evans’ transfer of the site of Knossos to the BSA in 1927, with the agreement of the Greek government, meant that the School inherited the site and subsequently incorporated it within the 1936 exhibition to broaden its audience. In the postwar period, with the management of the site proving financially burdensome, the School resolved to hand Evans’ former property to the Greek state.
The case studies explored here showcase well the uneven distribution of authority both within Crete and between foreign archaeologists and local officials, while also revealing the law’s remarkable malleability. Although considerable emphasis is often placed on Arthur Evans, he was one of several key figures rather than the sole or consistently dominant force in shaping the tone of the debate or determining its trajectory. Furthermore, as I have sought to demonstrate, antiquities legislation was far from a stable regulatory framework; rather, it functioned as an instrument that was repeatedly reinterpreted to accommodate individual ambitions and institutional pressures. In Evans’ case, the committee responsible for determining what could be exported comprised individuals he knew personally, effectively shaping the legal process to his advantage. At the same time, these episodes highlight the dense networks of personal relationships, political influence and professional alliances through which museum collections were formed, networks that continue to sustain the authority of institutions such as the Ashmolean Museum.Footnote 63
As argued throughout this paper, Evans’ excavation permit was entangled from the outset with his expectation of acquiring a share of the finds with the aim of exporting them. While the BSA officially viewed this expectation as problematic, the practice of collecting, exporting, donating, and selling antiquities persisted among its members well into the post-Second World War period. This continuity underscores how archaeological knowledge production and object acquisition historically operated as mutually reinforcing rather than ethically separable processes. Moreover, the cases examined all reveal the gap between public scholarly discourse and the frank competitive motivations and tensions expressed in private correspondence.
At the centre of this history lies a dialectic of law and infringement: a pattern in which antiquities legislation and its violation were mutually productive. Laws generated infractions; infractions prompted legal adaptation; and practices now framed as ‘illicit’ were often tolerated or retroactively validated (Shaw Reference Shaw2003). This dialectic was also political: both law and archaeology served as arenas through which sovereignty was asserted symbolically yet compromised in practice. Applied to Crete and Greece, this perspective shows how negotiated illegality became a structural condition of archaeological practice under asymmetrical power relations.
Hatzidakis and Xanthoudidis played a dual, somewhat contradictory role in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (as noted by Varouhakis Reference Varouhakis, Petmezas and Tzedaki-Apostolaki2014; Reference Varouhakis2015; also Genova Reference Genova2019). They acted as guardians of local/national heritage, protecting antiquities and promoting a continuous ‘Hellenic’ identity, both a cultural and political project. Yet, despite this tendency, they also collaborated with foreign archaeologists, at times seemingly advancing non-local interests, including the export of antiquities. Cretan archaeology was thus neither purely nationalistic nor collaborative, but a hybrid shaped by patriotism and international networks.
Arthur Evans is often critiqued for his questionable fieldwork and restoration methods; yet he was primarily a museum director and avid collector, the latter an inclination most likely inspired – if not actively encouraged – by his father, the distinguished prehistorian Sir John Evans (Galanakis Reference Galanakis, Cappel, Günkel-Maschek and Panagiotopoulos2015). Any attempt to understand his work at Knossos must, therefore, be filtered through his museum experience, which appears to have informed considerably his efforts to publicise his theories and interpretations visually, whether through publications or exhibitions, including the 1936 ‘Minoan Room’. The fact that he had purchased the land and invested heavily from his personal fortune – much of it inherited from his father – placed him within a well-established tradition of proprietorial entitlement to a share of the finds, a practice to which many of his predecessors and contemporaries had been equally accustomed.
Seen through this lens, the 1936 exhibition emerges not only as a historical episode but as a challenge to contemporary museum ethics. The presence of these objects in modern collections compels a re-evaluation of curatorial narratives that continue to privilege discovery, scholarship, and national prestige, while downplaying or marginalising the circumstances of acquisition and the voices of local stakeholders. Engaging seriously with this past aligns with broader decolonial debates that call for transparency, reflexivity, and the redistribution of interpretive authority within museums – from Crete to England and beyond.
Ultimately, acknowledging the complex, and often unsettling, trajectories of these objects is not merely a matter of historical correction. It is a step toward reimagining archaeology and museums as social practices shaped by people and accountable to them. Such an approach foregrounds responsibility over possession, dialogue over authority, and ethical accountability over inherited legitimacy, offering a path for museums to move beyond triumphalist narratives toward more critical, inclusive, and historically grounded forms of engagement.
APPENDIX
Letter from D. Mackenzie to P. Kavvadias (translated by the author from Mercouri Reference Mercouri, Matthaiou and Chatzidimitriou2012, 168–9, no. 11, 19 August 1900; original text in French).
Athens, August 6/19, 1900
To Mr. Kavvadias
Dear Sir,
I feel it is my duty to personally inform you that tomorrow a suitcase containing certain prehistoric objects, which I understand to be specimens from necropolises in Naxos that interest me, will be handed over to the Ephorate of Antiquities. I revisited the island after four years to better understand the locations where these necropolises and other prehistoric sites – similar to those in Milos – exist, where, as a representative of the British School, I directed excavations. The best method to discover such sites is to visit the homes of peasants who have found antiquities on their properties. Each time, I told these individuals that my sole interest was in identifying the locations where antiquities existed, with the eventual aim of organising an excavation under the auspices of the British School and with the government’s consent – if the government itself did not wish, as in Paros and Syros, to conduct such excavations personally. I stated this purpose of my visit frankly and without any hidden agenda, even to the local authorities and police in Naxos. And that if I were to purchase antiquities, it would be primarily as specimens of objects from specific sites. Except for two or three items, all the antiquities are from the necropolis of Kastraki in south-west Naxos. They did not seem to me to be of great museum value, and I only wanted three or four pieces as specimens from this necropolis, which greatly interested me and which I had already visited. But the person wanted to give either all or nothing. Thus, I find myself the possessor of a small collection unintentionally. A telegram from Naxos informed customs of my arrival at Piraeus with these objects. Everyone in Naxos who has known me since my first visit knows that I bought nothing then because, as I told them, that would not be appropriate for someone who was then directing excavations in Greece (Milos) with the government’s consent. During my recent visit, I felt freer in my dealings with the peasants, because at present I am neither a member of the British School nor a representative of excavations in Greece. I have only directed British excavations in Crete as an archaeologist. My visit to Naxos was, as was my interest, entirely a personal matter at the time.Footnote 64
These antiquities I purchased I treat as specimens. I always reside either in Greece or in Rome; I have not been in England since 1893, and throughout the period during which I conducted excavations, and since then until today, I have never sent a single item to England. I have never had a taste for collecting antiquities,Footnote 65 but ever since I conducted excavations in Milos, similar prehistoric sites in the other Cycladic islands have held particular interest for me. It is for this reason alone that I wished to possess these prehistoric specimens, and thus, if at all possible, I respectfully ask the Ephorate to kindly consent to my retaining these specimens, seeing that I did not consider them of great value for a museum, even though they hold considerable personal interest for me as specimens from prehistoric sites I have studied.
Hoping you will forgive this petition, please accept, most honoured sir, the sentiments of my highest esteem and gratitude,
Duncan Mackenzie
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am grateful to the many individuals who have contributed to this research. I thank Andrew Shapland and Renée Trepagnier for inviting me to the Oxford workshop and for their valuable feedback. I have also benefitted from stimulating discussions with Nicoletta Momigliano and Susan Sherratt, who generously shared their ideas and insights. Fiona Haarer assisted me with material held in the Archives of the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies. Feedback from Kostas Paschalidis and Vasiliki Pliatsika, together with their assistance with research queries at the National Museum in Athens, has greatly enhanced my understanding of the objects discussed here. I am also grateful to Katia Mandeli at the National Museum for facilitating my queries regarding Mackenzie’s confiscated Cycladic antiquities. At the BSA, Amalia Kakissis has continued to provide unwavering support, for which I remain deeply grateful. Athina Chatzidimitriou and the team at the Directorate of the National Archive of Monuments, Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports (Athens), offered prompt and effective assistance. Discussions with Polina Kapsali helped refine several of the arguments presented here, and I am grateful for her insights. Johannes Siapkas generously shared his manuscript prior to publication, for which I am very grateful. I am particularly indebted to Caspar Meyer and Joshua Hey for their editorial support. David Gill provided most useful feedback, which further strengthened the study. This research has been supported by the Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge, and by the Library of Classics team, who assisted with queries regarding difficult-to-obtain publications. Any remaining errors are my own.
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