1972–1977

British School at Rome Via A.Gramsci, 61 ROMA 00197 13 I 1977

c/o

Dear Mr. Edwards,

I am sorry I have not been able to answer to your letter of 9 VI 76, earlier, but my stay in Libya had to be unexpectedly prolonged.

I have to confess that the tone of your letter has left me dumbfounded!

I would like to make one point clear. I have never visited the U.S.A. so it was not I who discussed the Curium publications with you in Philadelphia.

Moreover, I am acquainted with "the usual procedure with regard to the study and publication of excavation material".

Anyway, let us start from the beginning: Six years ago I worked with the Department of Antiquities of Cyprus on the excavation of the Building with the Gladiator mosaics, at Curium. My studies had already been concentrated on Roman mosaics, and as during that period I was in search of a subject for an M.A.dissertation, I chose to study the mosaics of Curium.

Naturally I was fully aware of the fact that several of these mosaics had been excavated by your University. The excavations date back to the 1930s,1940s etc, and the much awaited publication of the results had not (and still has not) appeared. All the same the various seasons of work at Curium have been made known to a certain degree by the short reports in your Bulletin, which also published some photographs.

In the meantime the mosaics at Curium were open to the public. This meant that anybody could look at them and photograph them. At the same time the mosaics began to show clear signs of deterioration. So I deci- … continues