Letters from Cyprus on archaeology, folk art and life: Angeliki Paschalidou-Pieridou to Anna Hadjinicolaou

Abstract

In the years 1950-1954 two women archaeologists, Angeliki Paschalidou-Pieridou in Cyprus and Anna Marava-Hadjinicolaou in Athens, old friends and political comrades since their original acquaintance in the 1930s, exchange letters on their life and work. The six letters and three subsequent post cards published in this article were addressed by Angeliki Pieridou to Anna Hadjinicolaou. The responses by Anna Hadjinicolaou have not survived. Despite their limited focus on matters of immediate personal interest to the two correspondents the letters provide insights into other issues as well, insights which ascribe to these personal testimonies a broader interest. The two correspondents exchange views and experiences on the position of the working professional woman in society: what they say supplies valuable evidence on what it meant to be an archaeologist in a society which still considered that the primary role of a woman was and should be limited to the domestic sphere. The letters also reveal the difficulties facing scholarly work in the insular and academically backward society of Cyprus in the 1940s and 1950s. Finally the letters document the emergence of Angeliki Pieridou’s interest in the study of the folk art of Cyprus – an interest that led to the gradual creation of her own collection of Cypriot embroideries, part of  which was donated to the Benaki Museum in 1981. At this level the Pieridou-Hadjinicolaou correspondence is a contribution to the history of the collections of one of Greece’s greatest museums.