Love's Obsession (24 page)

At Lapatsa the excavation employed twelve labourers, a donkey man and a night watchman. High in the northern foothills of the Kyrenia Range, Lapatsa sat on a hillside and was, as Jim explained:

extensively terraced with stone walls and … heavily wooded with olives, carobs and pine trees. The wind up in the trees makes a noise like the sea but on quiet days there is nothing except the braying of donkeys and the sound of the woodman's axe. The nearest village is called Karmi and it is about two miles away but we have a little church dedicated to Ayia Marina just below us and an excellent spring of water where there is a buried dragon. Karmi is a delightful village, miserably poor but extremely picturesque and full of cats. At the moment the almond blossom is out and all the wild flowers. We are just beneath the Castle of St Hilarion which rises up another 1000 ft. on top of a sharp pinnacle of rock.
63

After only two days of work, snow fell. Jim thought the site disappointing, in part because so many of the tombs had suffered water damage and the layout of tomb entrances was confusing. On 1 March Jim applied for a permit for Palealona; six landowners gave permission.
64
Also heavily looted, Palealona was to dramatically relieve Jim's disappointment.

Jim was on site when a bas-relief was found in Tomb 6 at Palealona. On the wall of the tomb entrance a half-size human figure—legs, head and torso—had been roughly cut. Jim immediately sent Derek and one of the workmen to phone Dikaios in Nicosia with the news. The closest phone was a steep scramble up to St Hilarion and a snowstorm made their ascent tricky. At first Dikaios was sceptical. No such sculpture had yet been found from a Bronze Age site on Cyprus—but no one ever knew what Jim would come up with. Dikaios had known Jim for many years. Finally persuaded, he visited Karmi the next day and Eve photographed Dikaios and Jim standing together on the trench wall. They were ‘like kids in a sweet shop', so delighted were they with the find.
65
In honour of the holidaying Sydney University student, the figure was dubbed the Mary Ann, although today archaeologists believe the sculpture is of a man.
66
Jim was excited but knew that special conservation was needed if the sculpture was to be preserved. He used his contacts at St Andrews College, where he stayed in Sydney during the university term, to obtain funds to erect a protective shed over the tomb and asked the Cyprus Museum to send a conservator.

More was to come. With the timing familiar to many archaeologists, the very last day of excavations produced the most important find. A single, unlooted tomb dating to the Middle Cypriot period produced a wealth of burial goods, including a faience bead and a pottery cup from Crete, dating to the Middle Minoan II period and in the so-called Kamares ware style.
67
Uncharacteristically, Jim engaged his fantasies and imagined the objects were souvenirs collected by, perhaps, a seafarer who joined his ship at Lapithos and ‘took service with one of the vessels travelling between the Syria ports and the Aegean'.
68

A popular childhood game uses a flat square plastic case full of sliding plastic tiles—usually eight or fifteen—that together form a picture. A space without a tile allows the others to move—left or right, up or down—so the picture becomes confused. Not until all the tiles are back in their original place will the picture re-emerge. Complex pottery typologies within and between sites are like the tiles in a puzzle: the vertical line of tiles corresponds to the stratigraphy of a single site; the horizontal line to the connections between sites within a geographic area. Archaeologists must move the tiles until related typologies, placed side by side, line up so that the stratigraphy of one site aligns with the stratigraphy of nearby sites. Only then will the true picture emerge. Jim saw the Kamares Cup as the key tile.

By linking a datable period in Crete to an undated period in Cyprus, Jim believed that the Kamares Cup solved the chronological problems besetting the whole of the Near East. The find was, he wrote, ‘the most important discovery since the 1890s, since it is so definite and the repercussions so wide spread'.
69
He asked Dikaios to release the find to the press and Dikaios did so, while making it clear that the announcement was at Jim's request.

Jim wanted to repay his workmen's hard work and planned to pay bonuses but Yiannis demurred. Much better, he thought, for a collective celebration, a party to mark the end of an unexpectedly successful season. A long low table was set on the hillside under the olive trees, with bread, salad and lemons laid out in piles. The workmen arrived dressed in neat white shirts and pressed trousers. They lit a fire and, when the charcoal was just right, laid over it a long spit of skewered kebabs. Unfortunately the party coincided with the arrival of the conservator from the museum.

Jim was unwell but came to watch as the conservator placed a frame over Mary Ann and filled it with gypsum. Jim made him promise to take extra care.

‘If you ruin that figure I will shoot you.'

‘Mr Stewart I've done hundreds of these', the conservator assured him as he filled the frame, and then went to help with the kebabs.

The gypsum was left too long, went rock hard and, as the conservator began to lift the frame, poor Mary Ann's pelvis came away.

‘My God', Yiannis recalled years later. Jim roared in rage and threw his stick to the ground.

‘You museum people are only good at making kebabs and having glasses of wine and coffees.'

It was the only time Yiannis saw him really furious and for once the workmen went silent.
70

Nonetheless the feast was a success. Jim sat opposite Tryphon with Betty and Eve on either side. Betty Hunter-Cowan had brought her guitar and sang to the young man on her left. Someone brought a piano accordion, and when the meal was finished the men danced and sang.

At the end of the season's work, Jim gloated that Karageorghis ‘rolled over' when the Karmi finds were divided. Jim and Eve, Betty, Derek and Robert would sail for Australia with over seventy packing cases full of artefacts. Despite his internal jubilation, Jim could be gracious and wrote to Archbishop Makarios from on board the SS
Himalaya
thanking the government of Cyprus for their kindness and assistance and congratulating him on the efficiency and courtesy of all the government departments they had dealt with. He asked that the Archbishop convey his gratitude to both Dr Dikaios and Dr Karageorghis and noted the important role that the Department of Antiquities played in developing the tourist trade. He expressed optimism for the future of Cyprus.

The group stopped briefly in Egypt where, once again, Jim loaded up with books. To the intense annoyance of the university's finance people, Jim arranged for the shipment of material from Cyprus (at a cost of £584 in freight) and Egypt (£150) and bought over £920 worth of books in Cairo. None of these costs were approved and on the party's return to Australia Mr Bongers from the university's financial area raised the matter with higher authorities. ‘The Vice-Chancellor asked me to say further that he takes a serious view of any staff committing the University to expenditure without the prior approval of the Senate or the Finance Committee or the Vice-Chancellor as laid down by the University By-Laws.
'
71

Despite his cheerful correspondence written on board SS
Himalaya
, Jim was desperately unwell. A few days into the voyage he collapsed and was confined to his cabin for the remainder of the voyage. On arrival in Sydney he was immediately hospitalised and spent two further periods in hospitals in Bathurst. At times he was delirious. Tethered to his hospital bed, he dictated letters to friends and colleagues and Eve typed them, propping the typewriter on the edge of his bed. The excavations, so unproductive at first, had succeeded beyond Jim's expectation and he believed that the discovery of the Kamares cup would mean a complete reassessment of Near Eastern archaeology and history, making its discovery one of the most spectacular of the century! The season was, he told everyone, the natural completion to Flinders Petrie's work. Often Eve sat beside Jim proofreading his manuscript for the Swedish Cyprus Expedition. Sometimes, reluctantly, she shared the job with Betty.

Everything seemed in order at Mount Pleasant: ‘more sheep than ever before, more turkeys than usual (over 500 of them), but fewer outside cats as several of the older ones have vanished; the Bishop is very much the Senior Cat, very dignified, but quite well even though he is over 12 now.
'
72
Basil is fairly sure that Callan had shot most of the outside cats.
73

But Jim's father was seriously ill and within a month of their return, Jim travelled to Sydney to be with him. A.A. died in July 1961, aged 90. He was old and had been ill for some time, but it was still a wrench. Jim had grown close to his father.

The return to Australia should have been triumphant. The excavations had proved successful and Jim was returning to an enlarged department. Max Mallowan had recommended Judy Birmingham as a Near Eastern lecturer and Vincent Megaw would teach European prehistory. He was Peter's nephew, recommendation enough. Jim had suggested Alexander Cambitoglou for the Classical Archaeology position and Dale Trendall, now at the Australian National University, agreed. Derek Howlett was not his first choice for the technical position, but under Eve's guidance should manage. He hoped the university would soon appoint a ‘Quaternary' person.

But much had changed. In Kyrenia Jim had received Basil's telegram with news of his decision to leave Sydney University and enrol in postgraduate studies at Oxford. Jim could do little about it and with great sadness, accepted the resignation. Tears were shed. They were as close as father and son could be, with all the friction that such relationships engender. Jim felt he had let Basil down and said so. ‘On the contrary,' Basil said, ‘You've set me up to succeed.
'
74

Another fracture line finally cracked. Robert was the only student in 1959 to complete an Honours year, but Jim seemed determined to prevent him obtaining a First, even if this meant manipulating both exam and result. On the ship sailing home a final rupture occurred and by July, Robert confirmed that he could not—and would not—work at The Mount and his offers to fulfil his duties from the university store room at the Golden Grove in Sydney were met with antagonism. They argued on the telephone but the break was complete.
75

‘You work according to my instructions', Jim had demanded. ‘And when I ask you to do a thing I expect it to be done unless there is a very good reason. I will have some influence on your life for the next twenty-five years if you wish to continue Archaeology,' he warned, and made good this threat when asked to write a reference for a Commonwealth Scholarship. While his report to the Institute of Archaeology where Robert Merrillees planned to enrol in postgraduate study was measured, the reference was vicious. Jim wrote to his bank withdrawing support for a personal overdraft to Robert. A wealthy man, Jim used money to curry favour and manipulate. Eve had predicted for some time that Robert would want to make his own way, but Jim was blind and refused to see.

Eve had long since made her peace with both Basil and Robert—the role of mediator came more naturally to her, as she had demonstrated with the Cypriot workmen at Karmi. More than anything though, she was glad that Jim had finally made peace with the only real son he had. Jim's stepmother Hope negotiated a meeting and, at fifteen, Peter Stewart finally met the father he had never known. Peter was a young man with a passion for the country and a single-minded determination to become a farmer. If Jim had ever had any doubt about his paternity, these doubts disappeared when he met his son, who was sandy-haired with a complexion like his father's that would freckle and redden outdoors. There was certainly no doubting the physical similarities between them and Jim was delighted to at last meet him. Friends and family urged him to move slowly. In September and again over the New Year, Peter visited Mount Pleasant, and shot rabbits, which Maroulla stewed in red wine.
76
Jim's good friend John Ouvrier told Eve how wonderful it was to see Jim's delight in his son. In his turn Peter ‘assured me, after a bottle of
vin rose
that he too had had a wonderful time'.
77

For the rest of the year, Jim lurched between desperate ill health and extravagant plans for the future. Writing to Vassos Karageorghis he let slip that the doctors had thought he might die, but he and Eve still found time to send a ‘consignment of bears' to Vassos's children for Christmas. Karageorghis reminded Jim, gently but increasingly firmly, that his manuscript had been with them for some time, also taking the opportunity to urge Jim to fulfil his obligations to publish his Cypriot finds.

Meanwhile Eve failed to finalise her father's estate on Cyprus and Tom's property in Egypt remained to be sorted. To her great relief Mrs Duckworth had at last left Tjiklos but the estate became impossible to administer from long distance. One property, Aspenden, had water problems and when her tenant drew water, the nearby town ran dry. Another of her tenants was unemployed and unable to make payments. Repairs to the houses seemed never-ending. Tenants fought over their access to carobs and olives and the property had not yet been transferred to Eve. Until that happened, all repairs were charged to her lawyer's personal accounts but this could not continue indefinitely. Her legacy was becoming more of a worry than a source of income.

Jim was keen to advertise his recent success and wrote a report on the Kamares ware cup for
Antiquity
, where Glyn Daniel, a fellow student at Cambridge, was now editor. Daniel rejected the article—after many delays—as too technical.

Reluctantly we have come to the conclusion that, as it stands, your article is a straightforward and fairly difficult excavation report with an inventory, and that it is not really what we are aiming at in
Antiquity
 … I feel that for this journal we have to get articles of wide general interest signalising [
sic
] an important discovery or setting a discovery in its widest contexts, or giving accounts of a new synthesis.