1938

30.5.38[handwritten: Today we found another block of the well-head, 1.85 m. long!]

by the ropes which were used to draw up water. I think that you will understand my enthusiasm over this. Apart from its intrinsic interest, it indicates a place of no mean importance. Incidentally it is built of hard limestone, which is not found nearer than the Mandria, my bronze age site east of Apollo.

Another interesting find is the road which leads from the region dug last year up toward the top of the hill. We found it just last week, so I am not yet sure whether it really went to the top of the hill, or whether it skirted it a little below the top. I regard this as important, and will try to find out as soon as possible. The road is 2.50 meters wide, surfaced with gravel. There is a curbing on either side, filled behind with stones. I am not yet certain of its date, though I assume that it is contemporary with the Bronze Age city.

We have also just located two more groups of dwellings, one high up on the N-W side, near the road and the well. The other is low down on the west side, near the edge of the lot at the junction of the old Paphos road and the road which leads past the mouchtar's house. The highest level of the higher group of houses seems to date to the end of the 13th century. I am not yet certain about the date of the west group.

There are two new cylinder seals, good ones, much superior to those found last year, and we have several new inscriptions, including one with a purely Minoan sign [handwritten: s] which seems to be new in Cyprus.

You suggest that I might be willing and able to undertake the photography of the remaining Lapithos pottery. I am afraid that it is quite out of the question at the moment. In the first place I don't know how much has been done, and shall have left the island before there is time to find out. The other thing is that I am very much worried as to how I will manage to photograph my own tombs. So that Lapithos would logically come third in a sequence of jobs which will not even get past the first. [handwritten: But I should think that this is no immediate need of the lapithos space.]

Another problem with a chronological complication is created by your projected late stay in Troy: namely the arrangements for my trip to America, which you proposed arranging yourself in Athens. I will probably have to sail for America at or even before the middle of July, which means leaving Athens not later than the seventh at the very latest. I plan to leave here on the Greek boat the 29th of June, and will have only a very few days in Athens. If you are not there it will be very difficult to make the necessary arrangements, and of course they should if possible be made some time before sailing. If it meets with your approval it seems to me preferable to settle the matter before leaving Cyprus.

Another financial matter which was apparently not settled before you left here is that of Savvi's wages as guard. I gathered that you were in favour of his recieving an increase, but George says that you did not tell him anything about it. If we don't hear from you about it before we leave we will probably give him an increase anyway, but we would like to have instructions from you.

I am sure that there are a great many more things to tell you, but I can't think of anything more at the moment. My mind seems to have run out. [handwritten: Chiniste and Savvi, and of course George, ask to be remembered to you. Yrs. fully, Pete.]

Handwritten: Have you any dust useless to Trojan friends.