Unnumbered pageScan 37 of 56
Handwritten: Megaw : Curium, Basilica
Paphos
25 November 1984Dear Roger,
Yours of Oct. 23 took just a month to reach me here, owing, I suspect, to delay in collecting it (and forwarding) from our shut-up flat in Athens, as well as a postal "go slow" in Cyprus. It was reassuring to hear that you were still at the PUM.
My report on the Kourion basilica, part i, "the excavations is written, I have arranged most of the relative plates and the plans required only about a month of Richard Anderson's time when he recently landed a (one year?) job in Oman. The ̸po position regarding "the finds" is less good. I farmed out various sections to helpers who participated in the excavations, several of whom have produced nothing yet. When contributions do come in, these do require editing, as does my own text, to bring them into line, and there is work to be done on the plates that go with them.
While I shall strive to complete in 1985, it is clear that money to pay the printer will not be required that year; though that could happen in 1986. When the whole MS and the material for illustrations are ready, I propose to get them to Dumbarton Oaks somehow, for they financed the excavations from 1974 to 1979 and have since been helping with pre-publication expenses (I still have a small appropriation in their 1984-85 budget). I suppose that at that stage estimates will be prepared and the proposal for a joint DO-PUM publication, which was discussed between Giles Constable and Martin Biddle, will be looked at seriously. So, a token item in your Museum's 1986 programme would not be out of place.
We now spend almost half the year in the house we bought here before the tourist boom started (October - December and April-June). It has been useful as a base for the excavation of the Saranda Kolones castle, completed this year. Some time ago it was revealed as an early Lusignan construction.
We continue our peripatetic life-style (London in the summer and otherwise Athens), but find it difficult to simplify. It is vexing when we cannot remember what we left where, though at our age that is to be expected. Eyesight is another problem and Elektra seldom uses the studio we built for her here.
With all good wishes from us both,
Handwritten: Peter
65 figures hard to readstruck struck outadded written in above” jug ditto, and what it repeatsword reading not certain