Report by Courtois on Enkomi 1970Jacques-Claude Courtois

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During the XXI st season of excavations at Enkomi-Alasia, the exploration was resumed of quarter 6 W of the town, located to the south-west of the reconstruction or building 18, a quarter in which partial excavation had been carried out in 1966, a house of Cypriot Iron I known as the Bronze Knife House ( cf. Chronique des fouilles à Chypre en 1966, in B.C.H. 91, 1967, p. 245 and fig. 102, p. 246 ) . This year, the excavation of the levels earlier than floor III led to the discovery of several significant series of finds , notably in the two rooms situated immediately to the east of the one that yielded the bronze knife in 1966. In the first rectangular room measuring 3 m by 4 m 20 , north of the stone-step staircase, was uncovered on floor IV, well hardened at this spot, a dagger blade in bronze with three rivets and a fairly large weight in solid bronze of rounded form (topographic point 1935 and 1957 at 1 m 60 depth) practically intact . Shortly after, and only about thirty centimetres away, at the point topographic 1960 , an interesting steatite cylinder of fine workmanship of the beginning of the Sea Peoples period, showing three persons dressed in the long latticed robe ; this cylinder lay within the thickness of floor IV . Subsequently important remains of the floor blanc épais V , underlying . Immediately to the east of the eastern wall of this room, and beneath the rubble of a perpendicular wall in rubble masonry dating from the period of floors II and III, we were fortunate enough to find at the level of floor IV , of beaten earth, a bronze knife with tang and handle in ivory with terminal ring, of a type never yet encountered in Cyprus, in l'actuel de nos connaissances , datable du début du XII e siècle avant J.-C. This knife , earlier than the one discovered in 1966, has an equally curved blade, but of thicker section and relatively narrower ; its total length is 25 cm ; the three rivets which fasten the handle in ivory to the flat tang are preserved . This type of knife, rare, … continues