1958–1961

UNIVERSITY OF MISSISSIPPI UNIVERSITY, MISSISSIPPI

March 20, 1960Dear Roger,

I am returning this card to you rather than to Ellen since I want to bring you up to date on Bam-Kal affairs. I made a trip to Columbia to see Saul during January. He is very busy with a million other things and will not, I predict, do anything on our project until I can report that I have finished everything I am to do. That happy state of affairs will be reached, I hope, by the end of this summer. I am giving it full priority now since I want to be free next academic year to begin work on the Corinth volume at Princeton. Bam-Kal could be much farther along now but for the various special studies in connection with it which I have felt obliged to make for one reason or another. The last of these concerns the Proto-White Painted ware and will be finished this summer in connection with final revision of my chapters on Cypriote pottery. It is for this complex that I need a final bit of work from Reuben. I wonder if you could get him to finish up whatever it is of mine that he still has, so that that much is clear? When I get to the above-mentioned revision I will have a few more plates (black and white figures) for reduction - these to be made up from the material you recently handled for me.

Our plans are not entirely definite but it appears that we will remain here for part of most of June, then go to Mexico during July and on to Princeton in early August. I presume that I will not be likely to find Reuben working that month; however, since I shall be nearby the whole year following, there should not be too much difficulty getting him to finish up these last few plates?

Coming back to the subject of the special Bam studies, I have one on "Coarse Ware Stirrup Jars of the Aegean" ready to go now. I wrote Ingholt to see if he would care to read it for Berytus and have not had a reply. Since then I have heard that he never answers letters. Have you had any experience with him on this score or do you know of other Berytus writers who have?

Things are quieter here this year than they were last but the complex personality of D.M. Robinson still makes our lives difficult. The estate lawyer in Baltimore has said his is the most complicated will ever to go through his office and it is still not completely settled.

We understand you will be abroad this summer so will look forward to seeing you in the autumn.

Best wishes from us both,

Handwritten: Jack

PS. Ask Ellen what makes her so sure March was to go out like a lamb. Still no sign of such an event here!

Handwritten note top left, not transcribed