1956–1957

THE UNIVERSITY MUSEUM UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 33RD & SPRUCE STREETS, PHILADELPHIA 4

Handwritten: Jack

Dear Jack,

Thank you for your letter of the 8th. Monday is a good day for me to get the drawings and photographs which we have assembled, as you say, and to see the duplicate sherds you suggest.

This, of course, would have advantages from the point of view of convenience in checking both here and in Cyprus. And, as you say, they could be assembled in a categorical arrangement from your catalogue.

I had heard vaguely about the Al Mina sherds. Are these, I trust, uncatalogued BM sherds? I am told that the BM will not part with anything which has been given a catalogue number. Am curious to know what fabrics are represented among them. I have written Peter, as a matter of form, about this exchange, since it is stipulated in our agreement that he be informed if anything from Curium is transferred elsewhere. I have no reason to suppose that he will object to this particular exchange. Peter Corbett, we expect, will be lecturing here in April, shortly before his return to England, so that we can give him our sherds then, if all is well at the other end.

I have also written to Peter Megaw concerning the discrepancy in the matter of the graffiti (G 69 and 71) which you mentioned. I have suggested that we can, if they wish, substitute two others assigned to us, and that possibly you would be willing to furnish a list of those belonging to us from which they might choose.

There is a still further discrepancy in the graffiti. According to the official copy of the division letter of 28th August 1954, G 9 and 17 which you include in your letter as belonging to us, are assigned to the Cyprus Museum, not to us.

A matter which is regrettable, but not irreparable: the catalogue numbers 54-28-1 through 54-28-197 had been previously assigned to a number of the objects received from Curium in 1954, and a great many appear in J. & S. Young's publication of the terracottas, pp. 255-56. Hence any numbers you used falling within these limits will have to be changed. I find in my file a list giving some of the numbers you assigned, the lowest being 54-28-73 and the highest 54-28-110, but have no way of knowing if this includes all that you assigned in this unit. If so, -73 might be changed to -273 and so on up to -310, and we could use up the numbers vacant between -198 and -272. Let me know the score.

The Cypriote basement has undergone a change since you left, since Miss Bruckner asked that we move our storage material out of the Beisan Room to make room for anticipated acquisitions from Near Eastern parts and to provide working space for the badly cramped R. Dyson. So the Beisan cabinets now form a hollow square around the central part of the room. There still remains a considerable space in the center under the light and the big table. It is, actually, much better for working purposes than I thought it would be before we moved. And though we have lost from the point of view of working space and mobility it is somewhat of an advantage to have all our basement storage material in one place.

(over)