Menelaos Markides

Menelaos Markides (1878, Nicosia - 1942) was a Cypriot archaeologist and the first curator of the Cyprus Museum (1912-1931).[1][2] 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 Cyprus Museum to the University of Oxford 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.[3] Markides organised the Museum in a systematic basis and conducted excavations at the Early-Middle Bronze Age site Vrysi tou Barba in Lapithos.[4] 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.[5][6][7][8] In 1916 and 1918, he excavated 50 tombs at Marion.[9] He also excavated at Enkomi and Golgoi. He studied and published Cypriot sculpture.[10]