The XXIst Campaign of Excavations of the French Archaeological Mission at Enkomi-Alasia (Cyprus) in 1970, a preliminary reportClaude Frédéric-Armand Schaeffer

Printed: Copy no. 3 for corrections

Stamp: 14.I.70

Handwritten: Ve-Ir? / Ve—Ie?

Handwritten: Draft ? illegible handwritten note at top right: "Ministry of ... "

- . The XXIst Campaign of Excavations of the French Archaeological Mission at Enkomi-Alasia (Cyprus). Preliminary report. 4 4 / 7 0

The excavations took place in October and November 1970, under the general direction of Mr C.F.A. Schaeffer, member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, honorary professor at the Collège de France.

Collaborating in the research: Mr O. Pelon, lecturer in Near Eastern archaeology at the University of Lyon, director of the French Archaeological Mission at Enkomi-Alasia, Mr J.-C. Courtois, research officer at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, deputy director of the French Archaeological Mission at Ras Shamra-Ugarit, as well as Mr and Mrs J. Lagarce, research attachés at the same body. Mr P. Garczynski, architect D.E.S.A., was in charge of topographic and architectural surveys. Mr D. Anson, graduate of the Institute of Archaeology of the University of London, took part in the excavations as an invited member.

In the centre of the town, Mr Pelon examined two vaulted tombs in the form of a dome, whose origin and supposed relationship with the dome tombs of the 2nd millennium in the Aegean (in Crete and at Mycenae in particular) remain to be established.

In the same sector of the town, Mr J. Lagarce resumed the exploration of the wells and cisterns used during the Mycenaean periods (14th–13th c.) and immediately post-Mycenaean periods (beginning of the Iron Age, 12th–11th c. BCE), cf. already J. Lagarce, in Ugaritica VI, 1969, p. 249 ff. and Schaeffer, Syria 1949, p. 267 ff. Among the stratified pottery deposits contained in these wells were also found haematite or bronze weights, one of which, fitted with a lead tare, represents a mouse-shaped weight.

Further on, at the end of the fifth east-west cross street, Mr and Mrs Lagarce were entrusted with the excavation of a sector of the town where the tomb houses had been abandoned after their successive reconstructions because of the depth of the archaeological layers. The constructions are ...