Like all other countries whose soil has preserved the relics of ancient art, Cyprus has been the arena for a struggle between the natives, with whom it is an article of faith that all antiquities found in their country should be kept there, and the people of less favoured lands, who scramble for works of art to fill their museums. There is no disputing the fact that until the collectors, public or private, of the West began to compete for such treasures they were regarded with indifference and neglected in the lands of their origin. In a Memorial to Joseph Chamberlain the Cypriote Greeks claimed that he had done them an injustice when he reproached them with not being interested in their antiquities, and they asserted that their antiquities had for them ‘the additional value of being objects of adoration’. Commenting on this claim, Chief Secretary Arthur Young quoted the remark of a Moslem Member of the Legislative Council: ‘The Cypriots did not worship the antiquities as had been stated by the Honourable Mover, but they appreciated their money value.’ The gibe was hardly fair; nationalistic sentiment was as much the motive so far as Greek (but not mediaeval) antiquities were concerned as appreciation of money value. Money value was of course the incentive inspiring the native riflers of tombs; but foreign antiquity hunters like Alexander Palma di Cesnola, whose depredations were inspired by no archaeological sense, had no more honourable motive.