1937

THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO SYRIAN EXPEDITION

Printed: c/o Banque de Syrie / Antioch, Syria / Cables: ORINST, Antioch

Tell Tayinat

15 Aug 1937John Franklin Daniel, Esq., Athens.

Dear Mr Daniel:

I have your letter of July (August?) 5. The photographs interest me very much, but I'm afraid I can't be very helpful to you. We had to give up our big house last season, and are living in a mud-brick shack at present. The field records of previous years are in Chicago, and I have no library at all.

The cylinder seal with an archer -- we have found several similar examples in Sub-Mycenaean strata on Chatal Hüyük and Tell Judeideh. That is, in Period V of the chart published in AJA last March (I have no reprints here.) The other cylinder (with hands), I don't recognize, nor the stamp seal. The impression on the sherd may be Cappadocian. So much for my glyptic help! I have however taken the liberty to send the photographs to Dr H H von der Osten, in Istanbul, whom I consider the leading authority on such matters. I have urged him to answer you promptly since you are pressed for time.

The pot could be Syrian, not earlier than 1200, more probably around 900, belonging to the earlier part of our Period IV. Your description of it agrees with several of our examples, except the paint on ours is red or black (really the same, varying from the firing), instead of the "Light brown and greyish" of yours.

I sincerely regret my present inability to tell you anything useful. But I am sure a comparison of our material sometime in Philadelphia or Chicago would be mutually helpful.

Cordially yours,

Handwritten: signature

C W McEwan

Handwritten: Our two-man staff is copying with men 300 workmen these days - this is an excuse for this letter's shortness, but not, I'm glad, for its general futility -