Dervish Pasha Mansion - Ethnographical Museum
	Belig Pasha Street, Nicosia Open 9am-1pm, 2.30-5pm Mon-Fri and on Sat 9am-1pm
	The konak of Ahmed Dervish Pasha, a traditional Nicosia mansion, is on Belig Pasha street which is off Salahi Shevket street. It houses the island's richest collection of Ottoman artefacts. It is one of the hidden treasures of the city. Ahmed Dervish Pasha was a leading figure of the Turkish Cypriot community and a member of the small assembly that rubber-stamped the decisions of the British colonial administration. His mansion is a fine example of Ottoman domestic architecture. The whitewashed walls, plain yellow stone arches, terracotta-tiled roof and blue-stained woodwork reveal a diciplined restraint amd classical love of order. The house is L-shaped, with a sturdy stone-arcaded basement which combines neatly with the arcade that defines the walled garden. The ground floor was devoted to the practical working of the household and spilled out into the shaded garden which contained a well, washroom, outdoor oven and bathhouse. At the entrance door is a linen-lined cafe which has been made from the external roadside room traditionally used to entertain male visitors at a distance from the family compound. The first ground floor room is arranged as a simple kitchen and displays Turkish metalware and plain glazed ceramics. The second room is furnished with a central charcoal brazier, a household loom, and a mill and a carved and painted dower chest. In the open downstairs hall are agricultural tools from the surrounding Mesaoria cornlands. The third room contains items relating to the wider culture of Ottoman Empire: scribes tools, mother-of- pearl inlaid work, 19th-century glassware, metal tableware, curved swords and two Iznik dishes from the Arsenal (Djambulat) Tower excavations at Famagusta.
	The private rooms of the family are all located in the wooden and plaster built first floor, approached up a formal exterior stairway leading directly into a cool, hall-like, verandah. On the first floor, care was taken to ensure that all rooms enjoyed harmonious rectangular proportions. The upstairs verandah is devoted to island embroidery, including a gorgeous deep red velvet waistcoat, patterned with silver and gilt floral devices, and a handkerchief stitched with poppies and pomegranates, the very image of Desdemona's fatally lost hankerchief. The Turkish Cypriot costume room contains three richly coloured and embroidered wedding dresses as well as the formal kaftan of Ali Rifat Efendi, the last `Kadi' (judge of traditional Islamic law) in Cyprus. There are two furnished bedrooms, both hung with the yellow shade of Cypriot cotton beloved by the Turks, as well as local woodwork and embroidered covers mixed with imported carpets, braziers and inlaid boxes.
	The house tour concludes at the formal reception room with its painted ceiling. It has a sparse eastern elegance with its minimal furnishings of light coffee tables, charcoal burner and narghiles -hubbly-bubbly pipes- for the smoking of water-cooled and filtered tobacco. An Ottoman gentleman took pride in his heritage of Turkic nomadic mobility, and traditionally could be on road with all his possessions packed within a few hours of receiving summons from his sultan.
	References
	B. Rogerson, (1994), Cyprus, Cadogan, London.