Folk Art Museum in Geriskipou
The museum of Geriskipou is situated
in a 19 century traditional house of both architectural and historical
importance, the House of Hadjismith. It is stone built with rooms
accessible through two paved courtyards and a covered terrace. On the
upper floor there is a long room ('makrynari') and a verandah reached by
an outside staircase. The two-storey museum building forms the nucleus
of a larger complex which once comprised the mansion of Andreas
Zimboulakis' family.
This house was connected with the name of the British commodore and
later admiral Sir Sidney Smith (1764-1840), famous for his success
against Bonaparte at the siege of Acre in May 1799. Soon afterwards
Smith landed at Paphos and stayed at the house of Andreas Zimboulakis,
an immigrant from the Ionian islands, who had settled in Geroskipou /
Yeroskipou.
Smith appointed him British Consular agent at Paphos principally
responsible for the provisioning of the British men-of-war that were
patrolling the eastern Mediterranean. Since Sir Sidney Smith visited the
house frequently, it came to be known as 'Smith's house' and, in honour
of the British admiral, Zimboulakis' son, who succeeded his father as
Consular agent in 1826, was named Smith Zimboulakis. Their house was
considered a mansion in those times and from 1800 to 1864 it served as
the residence of the British Consular agents at Paphos. The Spanish
traveller Ali Bey (1806) and the Briton W. Turner (1815) who stayed as
guests in the house of Andreas Zimboulakis praise the 'gentlemanly and
courteous' host. Ali Bey noted further that the eldest daughter of
Zimboulakis was a worthy inhabitant of the 'sacred garden of Aphrodite'
and the most perfectly beautiful person he had seen in Cyprus.
Because of its architectural and historical importance, the 'House of
Hadjismith' is one of the first buildings of Folk Architecture to have
been declared 'Ancient Monument' by law. The Department of Antiquities
acquired half of the house in 1947/48 and the other half in 1974. After
systematic restoration the building was converted into a Folk Art
Museum, which has been open to the public since 1978. In order to extend
the Museum by including the ruined buildings which in the past had
formed an integral part of the same mansion, a major project of
restoration work and re-organisation has been undertaken. A new room with
a covered verandah in front was constructed to form the main entrance to
the Museum. The spacious courtyard on this side has been laid out as a
garden, which includes a water-raising wheel ('alakati') and an olive
press. The collection of the Museum has been considerably enriched and
the conservation of exhibits is a continuous task. The exhibition of
many items has now been re-arranged. Special measures have been taken to
create a suitable museum environment with proper lighting conditions for
the safekeeping of sensitive items such as embroideries and costumes.
The room next to the entrance is exclusively devoted to didactic
material providing an introduction to the Museum as a whole. Since most
Museum exhibits are objects related to the activities of everyday life
in the recent past, the text and photographs shown here are concerned
with traditional agriculture and scenes of rural life, local handicraft
and craftsmen, silk, manufacture and rope-making. A special unit is
devoted to the history of the building itself.
The agricultural implements and mule trappings are exhibited in the
storeroom and the stable which have been restored. Shepherd's equipment
along with several examples of basketry, craftsmen's tools, glass
vessels, a home still for producing rosewater, and a weaving loom are
exhibited in another room on the ground floor accessible from both
courtyards. Also displayed is a hand-turned cotton de-seeder. A similar
wooden apparatus used for cleaning the cotton staple of seeds is
described by a traveller who visited Cyprus in the 16th century.
A smaller room opening onto the back yard houses the apparatus for
processing hemp and flax and for the manufacture of rope. The machinery
for the reeling of the silk, called 'anapinistiri' has been installed in
an outhouse in the yard of the Museum. In the spring months visitors
have the opportunity to watch the silkworms feeding on mulberry leaves
in a shadowy place and at a later stage the newly spun cocoons on
branches of thyme.
Silk was once one of the most important products of Cyprus. At the
season - usually in May, silk-makers visited the various silk-producing
centers and after setting up their cauldron and wheel they began to
extract the silk threads from the cocoons brought to them and to wind
them onto the wheel in skins. The silk of Pafos was of a golden colour
and was famous for its strength.
Using the natural fibres of silk, cotton and flax, the craft of weaving,
confined originally to household needs, developed into an important
cottage industry and one of the richest branches of folk art.
The ethnographic material exhibited in the Museum of Geroskipou is dated
to the 19th and the first decades of the 20th centuries and comes from
several areas of Cyprus but mainly from the Paphos district. Many items
are exhibited in rooms specially arranged to represent typical rooms of
a traditional peasant house. Such is the room with a hearth surrounded
by bread-making and cooking utensils, a loom, a wooden bed, a
breadbasket suspended from the ceiling and other household items. On
entering, one gets the impression of actually being in a Cypriot peasant
kitchen. A similar impression is created in the wedding reception room
(called 'pastes') set out in the way houses were customarily decorated
on a wedding day. This custom was common, with several variations, all
over Cyprus.
In Pafos in particular, a special seat was arranged for the bride and
bridegroom to receive their guests. On the wall behind them was hung a
woven embroidered bed-sheet, decorated with pastries in various symbolic
shapes (such as a cross, a snake, a basket), which were made specially
to decorate the house for the wedding. Several pieces of embroidery,
wooden chests and copper cooking utensils which comprised part of the
dowry, along with a variety of handicrafts, crosses made of ears of
wheat, multi-coloured flat baskets ('tsesti') and decorative pictures
with designs made of silkworm cocoons, complete the decoration of this
room.
Of different character is the exhibition in the single long room on the
upper floor. Representative examples of woodcarving, textiles and folk
costumes, bronze utensils, decorated gourds and musical instruments such
as a six-stringed 'tam-bouras', the 'tamboulekki' (a percussion
instrument made from an open clay vessel with a stretched leather cover)
and the 'pithkiavli' (shepherd's reed flute) are on display in
showcases. Articles of practical use such as bed-sheets, table cloths,
chests and vessels for serving wine are presented as genuine works of
folk art.
The Museum's collection of woven embroidery includes important examples
of the two basic kinds of embroidery produced in Pafos: textiles with
interwoven designs created on the loom during the weaving, such as the
colourful 'phythki-otika' named after the village of Phyti, and the
white drawn thread needlework and cross-stitch embroidery done by hand.
These two kinds, which appear in many variations, are found all over
Cyprus. The items usually embroidered include hand-woven napkins,
bed-sheets and tablecloths and parts of traditional clothes such as the
borders of the women's best underwear.
Among several decoratively carved wooden pieces of furniture, including
chairs, tables, cupboards and shelves an interesting variety of chests
is to be seen in the Geroskipou museum. In Pafos the chest makers
confined themselves to carving simple, incised patterns, but in this
Museum there are also carved chests typical of the Lapithos area, as
well as other of the 'Akanthou' type with a combination of relief and
painted decoration. On the front panels of the chests are preserved the
most typical motifs of folk art: arches, flower pots, rosettes, stylized
cypresses, lions, the double-headed eagle, angels, vine leaves and
birds.
An interesting group of exhibits is the decorated gourds which were used
either as vessels for serving wine or for purely decorative purposes.
Among the examples there are gourds with pictorial scenes such as the
bombardment of ships, animals and birds from exotic countries, hunting
scenes, and a scene in a popular tavern. On some the artist has carved
his name and the date. There is also a 'tambouras', a musical instrument
belonging to the flute family, made out of an elongated gourd. On its
body it has an incised decoration with the inscription: 'by G.
Papasavvas, Kathikas Village, Pafos District'. Taken as a whole, the
exhibits in the Geroskipou Museum provide a vivid picture of traditional
life and its expression in various branches of folk art before the
changes brought about by the sudden invasion of modern technology.
The two rooms next to the storeroom and the stable are presented as a
rural house with a covered verandah and an oven in the courtyard. A
separate unit houses the exhibition of traditional pottery made at.
Kornos, Kaminaria and Ayios Dimitrios including the tools still used by
traditional potters.
Old wine jars and several other types of traditional vessels are to be
seen under a portico in the back yard.
Through the ethnographic material seen from these different
perspectives, the aim of the Museum is to transmit the values of the
recent past and help us make modern life more humane.
