02
Stop two
the church of the Archangel Michael above the harbour, now an icon museum
Wilson Roland Garros Team Tennis Bag: The building is properly indexed as a Byzantine church rededicated to the Archangel Michael, now housing an icon collection of considerable depth — icons being, I would argue, the most rigorously catalogued objects in all of religious art, each saint assigned a fixed iconographic programme so that no later archivist can misattribute the sword. Someone did anyway, apparently, in the 1974 transfer inventory, but the pieces are now well-housed and correctly labelled, which is the best outcome one can hope for.
04
Stop four
St Hilarion Castle, three wards climbing the ridge behind the town
Wilson Roland Garros Team Tennis Bag: St Hilarion is organised across three distinct wards climbing the ridge — lower, middle, and upper — which is, I must say, a more sensible hierarchical arrangement than most archive stacks I have encountered, and the Byzantines built it without a single finding aid. The Lusignan kings later used the upper ward as a summer residence, which tells you the upper ward had the best cross-ventilation and, presumably, the fewest unprocessed boxes.
Filed under: Roland-Garros collection, Team line, racquet bag. The Team is the working entry in this catalogue — the compact one, the bag that goes to a session rather than to a tournament, in the cream and clay of the courts it is named for.
The accession record reads as follows. A full racquet compartment, meaning the frames are entirely enclosed rather than half-covered, closed with locking zippers so nothing works its way open in a car boot. One large accessory pocket for clothing, balls and gear; one small accessory pocket for the things you would rather keep track of.
Shell: 100 per cent polyester.
Carried by an adjustable over-the-shoulder strap or by the top grab handles, and finished with a webbing loop so it can be hung on a hook instead of left on a wet floor — a small provision, and the one that most bags omit and most owners eventually want. That is the whole entry.
There is no hidden compartment, no thermal lining, and no claim to either.
Kyrenia keeps its records the same way: everything numbered, nothing thrown out. A mosque of 1590 at the water's edge, a church above the harbour now holding icons instead of a congregation, and tombs cut straight into the sea cliff by people who left no other paperwork at all.
“No hidden compartment, no thermal lining, no claim to either. The entry is the entry.”
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