Some of my Tur¬kish Diggers at Cyprus’
Gender information of the object:
Color:
Type:
Primary Material:
3D object:
Source:
Marfin Laiki Cultural Centre
Code:
395
Translator:
Euphrosyne Rizopoulou-Egoumenidou
Description:
The photograph ‘Some of my Turkish Diggers at Cyprus’ presents eight men, four seated in a row and another four standing behind them. All of them wear the baggy, pleated vráka with a sash around the waist; their vráka is white except for two men, who wear a dark-coloured, probably black vráka tied at the waist with a string. Most of the upper garments, shirts and sleeved jackets, apparently of loom-woven striped cloth, are also of light hues. Only a young man seated in front wears a brilliant waistcoat crossed over the chest and made of a flower-patterned fabric. His head bears a tall fez with a tassel falling to his right side and a white headscarf wound around the lower part of the fez. The head-kerchief of the bearded old man sitting next to him is probably of printed fabric. The headdress of the other men presents a variety of the same type, namely fez or red cap wrapped with a scarf.
Bibliography:
Some of my Turkish Diggers at Cyprus’, photograph by Luigi Palma di Cesnola, taken between 1865 and 1876 (Marangou 2000, 348). Published with the permission of the Marfin Laiki Cultural Centre.
References/Remarks:
The diplomat (American consul) and antiquarian Luigi Palma di Cesnola (1832-1904), was a pioneer in photography on Cyprus. During the eleven years of his stay in Cyprus (1865-1876) he carried out excavations all over the island, and used to take photographs of the antiquities he uncovered together with native people, mostly men who worked in his excavations. Although his lens was mainly focused on an¬tiquities, some of Cesnola’s photographs are very illuminating as far as the dress of the people, and particularly that of the Turkish Cypriots is concerned.