Over the last six months, Sebastian Spight and I have been conducting research on the School’s Cypriot collection of antiquities. This has involved correspondence with – and a visit from – curatorial staff from the British Museum. The School Archive contains a wealth of artefacts, ranging from Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets that are almost 5,000 years old to books that were famously saved from the Great Fire of London by John Goad, then headmaster of the School, who rowed them into the middle of the Thames. The pièce de résistance of the collection, however – and the focus of our labours – is a 2,500 year old terracotta model of a quadriga (four-horse chariot) which is not only exceedingly rare but also an invaluable window into archaic Cypriot life.
Over the last two weeks we have had the opportunity to present an overview of our research to the Middle School (Divs and 5ths) in their morning assemblies. We are also writing a report on the Cypriot artefacts which will be available to all to read.
Our thanks must be extended to Mrs Hesketh for facilitating this work.
