Markides, Menelaos
- Object description
Menelaos Markides (Greek: Μενέλαος Μαρκίδης) (1878, Nicosia - 1942) was a Cypriot archaeologist and the first curator of the Cyprus Museum (1912-1931). He earned his PhD in Philology from the University of Athens in 1899. In 1897 he volunteered during the Greco-Turkish war. After returning to Cyprus he worked as a professor at the Pancyprian Gymnasium, as well as schools in Limassol, Port-Said, Athens and Caesarea.
In 1909 he was sent with a scholarship from the Committee of the Cyprus Museum to the University of Oxford as well as Germany to study Classical archaeology. Upon his return in 1911 he was appointed as the curator of the Cyprus Museum, a position he weld for two decades.
Markides organised the Museum in a systematic basis and conducted excavations at the Early-Middle Bronze Age site Vrysi tou Barba in Lapithos. In 1914 he briefly lived at Larnaca to catalogue the antiquities in the local collections.
Additionally, he excavated at Arpera, Skouriotissa, Katydhata, and in 1917, he excavated an Iron Age sanctuary at Arsos which was later published by the Swedish Cyprus Expedition, more specifically A. Westholm, due to his ill health. In 1916 and 1918, he excavated 50 tombs at Marion. He also excavated at Enkomi and Golgoi. He studied and published Cypriot sculpture.
In the 9th of April 1932 he retired as curator of the Cyprus Museum and he was appointed as an honorary member of the Committee of the Cyprus Museum. Porphyrios Dikaios succeeded him as curator.
He had a brother Filippos Markides. In 1912 he married an educated Cypriot woman, Merope Skoutaridou (Greek: Μερόπη Σκουταρίδου). Together they had one daughter Agni (Αγνή) who married Josef Vermeiren (Ζοζέφ Βερμέϊρεν) mechanical metallurgy at the Greek Company Limited Chemicals and Fertilizers (Ελληνική Εταιρεία Χημικών Προϊόντων και Λιπασμάτων).
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