Editorial

Cypriote Antiquities in Toronto
A new A.G. Leventis Foundation Permanent
Gallery of Cypriote Antiquities
was inaugurated at the Royal Ontario
Museum, Canada on the 3rd November,
2005. The Museum, one of the most
important in Canada that attracts more
than one million visitors annually, has
been reopened after undergoing a major
refurbishment which has doubled its
exhibiting space.
The Cypriote Gallery is the fifth in the
series of permanent galleries created by
the A.G. Leventis Foundation in museums
around the world over the last fifteen
years. Similar Permanent Galleries
can be found in the British Museum, the
Fitzwilliam Museum of Cambridge, the
Metropolitan Museum of New York
and the Copenhagen National Museum
in Denmark. Two more similar galleries
are in the process of being created: in the
Ashmolean Museum at Oxford University
and at the National History Museum
in Bucharest, Romania.
Most of the Cypriote antiquities in the
Royal Ontario Museum had lain in its
store-rooms since 1885 and have been
exhibited for the first time. It is mostly
by chance that the museum acquired this
important collection. It first purchased a
number of pottery items at the beginning
of the 20th century from Dr. Allen Strurge,
an Englishman who formed his collection
while travelling in Europe. The greatest
bulk of the collection, approximately 300
objects including pottery, terracotta and
limestone sculptures and figurines were
transferred to the museum from the National
Gallery in Ottawa. These had been
donated in 1880 by Colonel Falkland
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