Really too little time this week to report at any length – too busy preparing for my trip to Athens to give a paper at the Sylvia Ioannou Foundation conference at the Museum of Cycladic Art. Off in the morning. Our theme is Cyprus on the Crossroads of Travellers and Mapmakers and I shall be talking about three early British maps of Cyprus.
Making up the British contingent are Tony Campbell, former Map Librarian of the British Library and Catherine Delano-Smith, Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Historical Research, University of London – old friends and colleagues both. And our own Ashley Baynton-Williams will be there too. Other speakers are from the Ionian University, Tel Aviv University, the Institute of Languages and Cultures of the Mediterranean (Madrid), the University of Cyprus, 
the Sorbonne, the University of Bucharest, the University of the Aegean, the Hellenic Open University, the Université de Rouen, the Bank of Cyprus Cultural Foundation, the University of Münster, the National Hellenic Research Foundation, the Library of Congress and the University of Crete.
Who knows what they will make of my paper? – which somehow and rather unexpectedly seems to be bringing together the various images on view – at least I hope it brings them together. Fingers crossed. “Swanning around, pretending to be an academic”, as a colleague put it earlier today. Treat the pictures as a puzzle if you wish. More next week.
The Bookhunter on Safari 