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Comm. 1954 to the Academy.
The French Archaeological Mission under the direction of Mr C.F.A. Schaeffer, Member of the Academy, has cleared the Cyclopean enclosure of the town of the Bronze Age which, between the 16th and 11th c., existed at the mouth of the principal river of the island of Cyprus near the present village of Enkomi, to the North of Famagusta. [illegible] It is a work defensive of remarkable dimensions intended to protect against an attack from the side of the interior of the island, the prehistoric town and its port supposed to have been Alasia, capital of the island in the second half of the 2nd millennium.
Preserved along its whole length (more than 1.200 m), today entirely underground, the enclosure consists of a double row of enormous blocks set on edge, some of which, 4 m long by nearly 2 m high, weigh more than 60 tonnes. The interval between the two faces is filled with a rubble infill of earth and stones. On this foundation reinforced at the corners by buttresses a été élévé in the form of small square towers, was raised the brick wall proper, nearly 4 m. thick, of which only traces remain.
A sortie gate presenting the system of
65 figures hard to readstruck struck outadded written in above” jug ditto, and what it repeatsword reading not certain