Love's Obsession Read online

  Wakefield Press

  LOVE’S OBSESSION

  Judy Powell is an archaeologist and historian with a PhD in classical archaeology. Judy has worked on excavations in Cyprus, Greece, Jordan, and was a Fellow at the Australian Archaeological Institute at Athens. She has undertaken a range of Indigenous and historical archaeology projects in the course of over fifteen years in the cultural heritage and museum sector in Queensland. She is an adjunct lecturer in the Archaeology program at The University of Queensland.

  Judy lives in the Sunshine Coast hinterland with a placid and ever-expanding family of kangaroos.

  Jim and Eve Stewart, Singapore, 1955 (DES archive)

  Wakefield Press

  1 The Parade West

  Kent Town

  South Australia 5067

  www.wakefieldpress.com.au

  First published 2013

  This edition published 2013

  Copyright © Judy Powell 2013

  All rights reserved. This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced without written permission. Enquiries should be addressed to the publisher.

  Cover designed by Stacey Zass

  Front cover illustration: Early Cypriot III–Middle Cypriot I pottery sherds, excavated by J.R. Stewart at Palealona Tomb 3A in 1961 Courtesy Nicholson Museum catalogue number NM 2009.120.1–4 and NM 2009.114

  Edited by Penelope Curtin

  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

  Author: Powell, Judith, author.

  Title: Love’s obsession: the lives and archaeology of Jim and Eve Stewart / Judy Powell.

  ISBN: 978 1 74305 274 7 (ebook: epub).

  Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.

  Subjects:

  Stewart, James Rivers Barrington 1914–1962.

  Stewart, Eve.

  Archaeologists—Australia—Biography.

  Classical antiquities.

  Cyprus—Antiquities.

  Dewey Number: 930.1092

  For my father, Owen Powell (1921–2013)

  I believe that Archaeology is so unimportant, so divorced from modern life, that it is worth taking seriously.

  J.R.B. Stewart, 28 December 1943

  Foreword

  Some stories you seek, while others come knocking at your door. That’s how it was at the Australian Archaeological Association conference at Noosa in 2008. A combination of events conspired and I was soon to discover the joys and frustrations of serendipity, which plays a crucial role in the decision to embark upon a biography, as it does in the survival of the sources with which a biographer has to work.

  On the night of the conference dinner, there was a crush in the dining room. A line of people snaked out the door, moving slowly into the dining area, where clusters of tables made movement difficult. Professor David Frankel stood behind me and, although I didn’t know him very well, the few glasses of champagne I’d had encouraged me to congratulate him on the paper he had given earlier in the day. He had spoken about his recent work on Bronze Age Cyprus and it was, for me, nostalgic. I hadn’t worked on anything Mediterranean for over a decade, but I love Cypriot pottery and the landscapes of his talk were those I was once familiar with, and still love. I told him this.

  A group of people were standing nearby and I was introduced to Dr Laila Haglund, who of course I knew by name but had never met. ‘Have you been to Cyprus?’ she asked. ‘I have a lot of papers about Cyprus that I really must get around to sorting through. It’s been a few years …’ And so the journey began.

  Jim Stewart was a name I knew, but only vaguely. Eve Stewart was completely unknown to me. In the 1980s, as a student of archaeology, I had frequently seen reference to Jim Stewart’s excavations on Cyprus but, apart from a short article with the delightful title ‘The tomb of the seafarer’, I had seen little written by him and idly wondered why. As an archaeologist I knew that ‘it all began at Sydney’,1 but I was then a student at the University of Queensland and had not heard all the stories.

  I arranged to visit Laila at her home in country Queensland, with its views of Mount Barney and kangaroos in the front yard. The papers she had mentioned at the conference were in large plastic archive boxes that lined the back verandah, among pot plants and the ephemera of daily life. Inside each, buff-coloured manila folders were concertinaed row upon row. Each folder was labelled, and familiar names leapt out: Alan Wace, Winifred Lamb, Hector Catling, Vassos Karageorghis. I couldn’t resist riffling through them. In one folder—marked simply ‘bibliographies’—was an envelope addressed to Lieut J. Stewart, Oflag VIIB. Slips of paper and flattened out cigarette packets spilled out, each covered with tiny neat writing in pencil. I felt the same excitement holding these letters and files that I had the first time I dug up an artefact. These papers were real. Many of them had not been read for decades but, like the bone fishhook and the obsidian blade I had excavated so long ago, they belonged to real people and were touched by their humanity.

  I was hooked. From that day, I wanted to find out about these people, to understand their obsessions. In time, the quest became my own obsession and has led me to follow them around the world. To England, where much of the story began, to Cyprus, and around Australia. I met people who knew them, who adored them or hated them, who trusted them or were wary. It has been a different sort of travelling, and has taken me to places I would never otherwise have visited—the wild Karpas in northeastern Cyprus, museum storerooms in Stockholm, a Scottish baronial folly in Bathurst. Along the way I have met people I never thought to encounter—a numismatist specialising in the coins of Medieval Cyprus, a retired major general from the Tower of London, a Maronite lawyer from Kyrenia, a Turkish Cypriot artist.

  Jim Stewart was the first Australian to direct an archaeological excavation outside Australia and the first field archaeologist to teach archaeology in Australia. Together with Dale Trendall, he ran what constituted the first department of archaeology in an Australian university and taught the first generation of classical and Near Eastern archaeologists in Australia. Jim Stewart had worked with some of the early pioneers of archaeology in Europe and the Near East, and his excavations on Cyprus between the 1930s and 1960s enriched the collections of museums across Australia, and overseas.2

  But these were Eve Stewart’s files and it was her diligence that was so evident in the carefully curated archive. It was she who intrigued me. What was her legacy, I wondered.

  Acknowledgements

  I am deeply indebted to many people, all of whom gave freely of their time. Indeed one of the most enjoyable aspects of the research for this book has been the opportunity to meet so many interesting characters and work with such engaging colleagues.

  Although the internet has made life more complex, it has also made many things more accessible. I am humbled by the generosity of people and institutions who happily shared material across continents.

  For their continued support for this project I owe a particular debt of thanks to Peter Stewart, Dr Laila Haglund and Professor Basil Hennessy.

  Other individuals who have, in various ways, helped me to complete this work include, in alphabetical order:

  In Cyprus: Yiannis and Dora Cleanthous, Petro Colocassides, Professor Tom Davis, Dr Vassos Karageorghis, Ruth Keshishian, Elicos Liatsos, Professor Dimitri Michaelides, Andreas Pitsillides, Dr Rita Severis, Alison South.

  In the United Kingdom: Edward Baldwin, Dr Hector Catling, Dr Lisa French, Mary Ann Fishbourne (née Meagher), Dr David Gill, Derek and Sonja Howlett, Professor Michael Metcalf, Major-General Giles Mills, Hallam Mills, Dr Eddie Peltenburg, Dr Rachel Sparks, Sarah Vale.

  In
Sweden: Elisabet Åström, the Lorimer-Olsson family, Dr Kristian Göransson.

  In the United States of America: Dr Paul Hockings, Dr Stuart Swiny, Dr Joanne van Tilburg.

  In France: Dr Robert Merrillees.

  In Australia: Professor Jim Allen, Dr Craig Baker, Dr Judy Birmingham, Dr Stephen Bourke, the Butcher family, Karin Calley, Professor Alexander Cambitoglou, Dr Chris Davey, Professor Iain Davidson, Robert Deane, Alex Diamantis, Dr Kathryn Eriksson, Professor David Frankel, Linda Hennessy, Ruth Hennessy, Professor Greg Horsley, Suzanne Kelly (née Sneeling), Professor Vincent Megaw, Christopher Morgan, Professor John Mulvaney, Michael Quinnell, Sally Salter, Dr Andrew Sneddon, Dr Jenny Webb.

  The staff of the following institutions:

  In Sweden

  The archives of the Medelhavsmuseet, Stockholm

  Lund University archives, Sweden

  In the United Kingdom

  Imperial War Museum, London

  National Archives (UK)

  The Leys School, Cambridge

  Trinity Hall archives, Cambridge

  British Ministry of Defence

  University College, London, Special Collections

  In Cyprus

  State Archives, Nicosia

  Cyprus American Archaeological Institute (CAARI), Nicosia

  Cyprus Veterans Group

  In Australia

  University of Sydney Archives

  Nicholson Museum, University of Sydney

  The Kings School, Parramatta, NSW

  Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, Archives

  University of New England archives, Armidale

  Blue Mountains Historical Society, Wentworth Falls, NSW

  Australian Institute of Archaeology, Melbourne

  In Greece

  The Archive of the British School at Athens

  Archives of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens

  Manuscript advice was provided by Annette Hughes.

  Other readers include Dr Marion Diamond, Margot Duncan, Barbara Heath, Ross Johnston, Catherine Quinn, Michelle Riedlinger and Peter Riedlinger. I want to thank Trish Rea in particular for providing meticulous commentary.

  I would like to acknowledge Wakefield Press, who have been supportive throughout the publication process, and my editor Penelope Curtin, who was unfailingly helpful.

  Financial assistance for aspects of this work was provided by the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute (CAARI), the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities and the Australian Academy of the Humanities.

  A note on terms

  Monetary units are given exactly as they appear in the sources and I have made no attempt to convert these amounts to modern equivalents.

  The pound sterling remains the currency of Great Britain. Australian currency consisted of Australian pounds, shillings and pence until 1966, when the country adopted a decimal currency and the Australian ‘dollar’. In Cyprus, the currency was the Cyprus pound divided into twenty shillings. In 1955 the currency went decimal with 1000 mils to the Cyprus pound. This was changed to 100 cents to the Cyprus pound in 1983. Until 1972, the Cyprus pound and pound sterling had equivalent value. In 2008 the national currency became the Euro.

  The term ‘Near East’ came into use during the second half of the nineteenth century, and was used to describe areas ruled by the Ottoman Empire. The term has different meanings for archaeologists, political scientists, historians and journalists. From an Australian perspective, Eurocentric terms such as the Near East, Middle East and Far East, have no logic at all, given that Japan and China (the Far East to Europe) are our northern neighbours. The term is retained primarily because it is the term used by J.R.B. Stewart in correspondence referring to Turkey and Cyprus. It is also the term of the professorship at Sydney University, which Stewart held.

  Although neither Jim nor Eve Stewart would have understood the terms BCE (before the Common Era) and CE (Common Era), and are unlikely to have approved their use, these terms are used to conform to modern conventions and replace the earlier BC and AD.

  Maps

  Prologue

  Cyprus 1947

  The car bumped and ground its way along the rough road that wound its way up and over the Kyrenia Range. In the back a young woman sat numb, emotionless after months of waiting and preparation. She glanced back. Only the faint brushstroke of Turkey separated the sea from the sky. They dropped down into the vast sprawling plain of the Mesaoria. As they drove through Nicosia she bade a silent farewell to the museum, then they passed through the city gates and headed south.

  Hassan parked near the wharf at Limassol. Cypriot travellers called to relatives, waving scarves. A small boy sat on a pile of boxes. A mother cradled a baby in her arms and turned towards an elderly couple standing at the edge of the crowd. Four hundred passengers were boarding, along with all their goods and chattels, on the SS Misr, embarking upon a new life in an unseen continent. The air was heavy with anticipation.

  Her father directed Hassan to unload the baggage and find someone in charge. Tom Dray was aged seventy, tall with a neat white moustache to balance his receding hair, and a tendency to lean to the right to favour his good leg. Formally dressed in a double-breasted grey suit, he looked anxious but had little influence on his daughter’s decisions. At thirty-three Eve was no longer a child. He fidgeted with the car keys and looked at his boots, wondering how long she would be gone and when she would come home.

  She stepped from the car, drawing her cardigan close, and for a few minutes stood looking out at the translucent waters of the harbour. With plenty of time to board, she left the luggage to the men and set out along the foreshore.

  She took a seat at her favourite café and watched fishermen in a rowboat as they untangled their nets. To her left, a man in baggy breeches was being shaved, and a hunter sat at a nearby table, his gun propped against the wall.1 She ordered coffee and searched her purse for a sheaf of letters. She unfolded them carefully, with a caress, and began to read. Not that she needed to—she had all of his letters word perfect.

  Eve, my darling … All this western country is magical today and the sun seems brighter than ever before … So far from feeling ashamed, this is the first day I’ve really felt peaceful since I came home … Your courage and quiet dignity took me first, then your mental probity; now your personal glory, your eyes, yourself, your lovingness, the way you dress. How futile it was for me to pretend that it was only an emotional entanglement … P.S. For god’s sake don’t go weaving pretty pictures round me. I’m a most unpleasant person really—selfish, self-centred, dogmatic, pompous, cowardly, unsensitive, stupid, affected.

  She fingered the brooch he had given her that Easter.

  The commonest mistake which we all make is to assume that our own personal miseries are worse than anyone else’s. Please, my darling, accept this brooch … with some blessing in its original owner. The people of Castelorizo were evacuated to Cyprus (I think during the Dodecanese battles) for the safety of their lives, and were then left destitute. The women had to sell their ornaments to find money for food … May it be a symbol of hopelessness destroyed forever, and of joy and love and comradeship for all living future. It is nothing in itself, base island silver re-gilt. But it is survival of an old East-Mediterranean art, old already when Mycenae was young.2

  She smiled at the memory. He had gone with Petro to a Turkish village near Paphos in search of coins, his first love. They were welcomed with cheers and roars of delight from former soldiers of the Cyprus Regiment, and quite a celebration ensued.

  ‘When Turks drink they do it properly’, he said. ‘Even the cats have raki instead of milk.’3

  Back at the house Hassan had helped her stuff the car with bags and boxes. She had packed linen from Ayios Philon and summer clothing. How different could the weather be? Would it be like a Cyprus summer? Winter in Cyprus, summer in Australia; a topsy-turvy world. What a lot of luggage. Pots were wrapped carefully, each in crumpled newspaper, and
pottery sherds nestled in dozens of flat cigarette tins, each labelled. She could never get enough of them and smiled, remembering his rebuke: ‘You fiend’, he said, ‘You’re not to use me as an excuse for smoking’.4

  She looked out across the water. A shepherd’s voice rang out and she could hear the bells of his flock of sheep as they scampered over the stony ground, reminding her of that last day of their three months together, visiting favourite haunts and places where they would one day excavate. While sherd-hunting at Sotira, he scrambled ahead, racing over the rocks, then, calling to her, he suddenly stopped and bent to scoop up a Neolithic stone pounder lying on the ground as if dropped only yesterday.

  ‘What a wonderful day to farewell Cyprus’, he said. Her hair fell loosely to her shoulders and she looked directly at him, shading her face against the fierce sun with her hand, her skin browned from months in the Cypriot sun.

  ‘It is our Cyprus’, she said, standing with her back to the sea.5

  In the evening he lay in bed, watching her by the window, marvelling at the peace these months had brought him. She turned toward him and smiled. Their future was uncertain then. Memories would have to sustain them. Later, on the other side of the world, the sherds from Sotira helped him to relive this moment.6

  She drained her coffee and stubbed out a cigarette as she read the final lines of the letter. ‘I’ve always hated leaving Cyprus’, he said, ‘I realised that you are quite right. It is our island, and we must have a stake in it. Those dusty roads, the Northern mountains, the sea, the bareness of Ayios Ioannis are all part of you and me.’7

  ‘Kiss me, my Eve.’8

  PART 1

  The Old World, 1914–47

  Chapter 1

  England, Egypt and Cyprus, 1914–36

  Margery Dray turned into the hallway and sighed. ‘Oh dear.’ Strung out before her were all her shoes, the laces knotted neatly one to the other to form a long accusatory line. Chastised earlier in the day for poor behaviour, her daughter Eve had exacted her revenge.1 Quiet, efficient, determined. Eve never forgot and she never gave up.