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foam of the waves off the coastline of Petra tou
Romiou on the rocky south coast of the island.
James Rivers Barrington Stewart was born the
descent of a former Lieutenant-Governor of the
colony of New South Wales, and after schooling
in Sydney, read archaeology at the University
of Cambridge. In 1935 on his way to Turkey he
stopped at Cyprus and began a passion for the island
that would last the rest of his life.
In 1937-1938 Stewart worked at Bellapais
Vounous
,
on a series of tombs dating to the Early Cypriot
Bronze Age. He had become fascinated with the
pottery of the period and the broader material culture
of the transfer from the Early toMiddle BronzeAge,
so the site was perfect for his research questions.
The village of Bellapais has since gained worldwide
fame after the publication of Lawrence Durrell’s
book
Bitter Lemons
(1957), in which Durrell writes
of drinking coffee under the ‘Tree of Idleness’ in the
village when he lived there in the 1950s. Twenty
years earlier however, Stewart was interested in
archaeological investigations of a cemetery inwhich
the Cyprus Museum and the National Museum
of France had already begun excavations earlier
in the decade. Working under the auspices of the
British School atAthens, it was arguable the earliest
archaeological excavation directed by anAustralian
ever conducted in the Mediterranean area.
The cemetery was rich in finds, and many excellent
examples of Early Cypriot pottery were excavated
by Stewart, such as a Red Polished I Ware incised
tulip bowl (NM 53.171) which is typical of the era,
and despite being unusual in shape, was probably
used to store dry items such as grains and seeds.
“I feel that if I had been a Cypriot Bronze Age
potter I would have made some very extraordinary
shapes”, Stewart once wrote in a letter. His work on
Cyprus was interrupted by the Second World War.
He enlisted in the Cyprus Regiment and fought in
Crete before being taken as a prisoner of war. He
served his time in camps in Germany working on
archaeological reports and writing about the Cypriot
BronzeAge.
In 1947 Stewart returned to Australia and was
employed by the University of Sydney. In the
following year he assisted Professor A.D. Trendall
with the creation of the University’s Department
of Archaeology, the first in Australia. He used the
Nicholson collection extensively for teaching,
expanding the Cypriot collection and Near Eastern
Students from the University of Sydney excavating at the theatre of Nea Paphos, Cyprus in 2012 (Photo: Craig Barker - University of Sydney Paphos Project)