Report on the 1955 seasonH. de Contenson

Handwritten: 19

On Floor IV, the objects are grouped in the South-West corner: a large pithos with wide mouth, flat rim and vertical handles below the rim (Pt. 22, I.40), an ovoid jug with small ring foot a sherd with broad parallel red bands, a loom weight of white hard stone with black points, a bronze rod, as well as a polished bone stylus (Pt. 36, I.50) and painted sherds belonging to the "Granary style" type "wavy line", end of the 12th c. of the middle of Iron I. It should also be noted a bowl with horizontal "wish bone" handle of degenerate type, a handle with incised sign in the form of [handwritten: MY] and a rectangular bone plaque.

Handwritten: cf. Lyon?

Below this floor, one meets, over forty cm. in thickness, a jumble of stones in disorder, which probably indicates a destruction. In the middle of these stones had remained intact and resting on the white floor, Floor V, at 1.90 depth, a krater Late Cypro-Mycenaean, with opposed spirals in red paint on the buff wall without slip, of the late 12th c. (Inv. No 137)(Pt. 12). To this layer is attached the architecture lower, with the dividing wall of large squared blocks ; it represents the transition from Late Bronze to Iron.

Floor V, in this area, rests on the rock, except in the middle of the hall. West of the dividing wall: There is a tomb with a family frame and filled with greenish powdery earth between 2.00 and 3.00 depth; it yielded remains of Late Bronze III: head of small animal figurine, "milk bowl".

One can therefore recognise here four phases of occupation: The first is represented by the robbed tomb of Late Bronze; the second is marked by solid constructions, with the pottery called "submycenaean" of "Mycenaean III c 1" early 12th c. on Floor V.

The third comprises Floors IV and III, with architectural reworkings and the "wavy line" bowls of the late 12th c. (Myc. III C 2"); intellectual activity is intense, judging by the number of bone styli. Finally, the fourth phase, with Floors II and I, is a period of decline, with impoverished pottery, probably at the beginning of the 11th c.