1955

Columbia in September. All early bronze, both cemetery and settlement, come off in the Spring of '57.

All the best

Dear Jack:

I must start with an apology for this all-too-long delay in answering your letter of April 20. But you barely made it. The letter arrived a couple of hours before I left Episkopi to take the boat at Larnaca, and you know how hectic those hours are apt to be. I read the letter, but that was all I could do. Got back to Athens on the 29th and set to work to write final reports, clear up the accounts of the dig and finish it all up before leaving for Turkey on May 5th. Just back from Turkey two days ago and have ploughed through the mail that was waiting and only this morning could get down to dragging out the Bamboula material and to re-reading your letter with it. Since we leave here for good on the 15th, and I must do some final checking at Corinth for about five days before then, I cannot go into all the arguments in detail, and as you say I would need the notebooks to do so anyway. But I'll outline briefly my architectural reasons for putting the houses in the order I did.

My houses I,II and III seemed obviously to be the first and in that order, and I'm glad that you you find them to be OK in that order. I put IV and V next because architecturally they are obviously the same complex as I-III, being parallel to them, of the same type, just on the other side of the street. Architecturally, it seems compelling that by IV-V must have been laid out before the orientation of the houses was changed by the building of VI over II-III. It seems just as obvious architecturally that the three buildings with different orientation, VI-VIII, are part of a later complex, and clearly later than I-III, which they replace and over which they are build. Of these three, VI seems clearly to be the earliest and the basic structure, to which VII and VIII were later appended, probably in that order with VIII being the last one built.

So the obvious things are these: I, II and III are first; VI-VIII are later than I-III. The question then is whether my IV and V were built before my VI-VIII and, ans I say, it would seem almost impossible architecturally that they could have been built later than VI and still retain the orientation of I-III and keep so strictly to the type of house plan common to I-III and certainly clearly shown in IV. I feel therefore, that architecturally I-V must all be part of a common complex, together with the street between II and IV, and that whatever their relative sequence, these five houses must be earlier than the three that were built over I-III. Of these later three, I believe again, on architectural grounds, that my VI is earlier than VII or VIII. It still retains the house type of I-V, but changes the orientation, setting the pattern for the other two. When VI was built, II and III went out of use, but not I, I believe, and then VII was built, and then VIII was a reuse of I with an adaptation to the newly oriented VI. VIII may have been stuck into the corner before VII was built, for they have no connection architecturally and either one may be the earlier.

I would be eager to know wherein the evidence from the pottery either supports or contradicts this reconstruction of the sequence of building. As I read D's notes and manuscript, together with his stratigraphic material, the sequence seemed possible, but I did not have all the material which you now control. As you say this is a difficult thing to do by letter and it would be better if we could talk about it, and it looks as though there are a few possibilities in September. We expect to stay in NY on the 30th. We sail for home on Aug. 25th, arriving in NY for a week, until the Labor Day holiday is over, and start driving home about Sept. 7, not arriving in Columbia until about the 13th or 14th. Therefore, I can either see you in Philadelphia or NY between Aug. 31 and Sept. 6, or in Columbia after Sept. 14. If, as you write, you will be going to KC in early Sept., then wither or both seem possible. If you write me here by return mail, you'll still catch me, or the letter will follow, and let me know where you want to meet.

Hope this is of some help to you. Talked much of you in Episkopi, where I spent six weeks. Had a fine dig and found some lovely things, which I hope you'll see in