Letter from Schaeffer to Dikaios and Megaw on the joint mission, with analysis of Dikaios's excavation resultsClaude Frédéric-Armand Schaeffer

Continued from scan 35

… explained by mass arrival of newcomers, "who cannot be others than Achaeans pressed out of Mycenaean territory by the arrival of Dorians". The establishment of these Achaeans to which the introduction of this pottery bears witness (!) marks the final and definite phase of the Greek colonization of the island.²⁾ This theory may flatter philhellenic feelings, but the present state of our archaeological information at Enkomi and in Cyprus as a whole does not warrant it. We have certainly to wait here what the future finds tell us.

Achaeans pressed out of Greece by the Dorians (Dikaios refers to the traditional date of 1104) could emigrate to many nearer islands or the western Asia Minor before having to go as far as Cyprus. Look on a map. Besides, 1104 or later is in any case, and I think even for Dikaios, too late for a date for their arrival in the island and the building by them (as Dikaios admits) of the fine sepulchral compound excavated by [handwritten: Schaeffer?].

P.184, he refers to the discussions of these delicate problems of Gjerstad and Furumark who profess different view and he leaves out here what the late Daniel after his experience at Curium had to say, [handwritten: see] others. And he continues his Achaean crusade without proper regard to historical information and dates, and at the end brings Agapenor, Agamemnon and Teucer to Enkomi (p.185) from where they then settled over to Salamis and so on. All this after a campaign at Enkomi, after having made a stratigraphical misinterpretation followed by an obstinate struggle against contrary evidence and after having reversed without a word of explanation his former opinion.

Consequence of all these terribly adventurous conclusions: "It Alasia finally is proved to be the name of IO II Enkomi, we should have to suppose that Teucer re-named it Salamis" (p.187).

Some lines further Enkomi becomes according to Dikaios a reestablishment by the Teucrians, who "simply changed its name from Alasia to Salamis" and transferred it then to the shore on their abandoning Enkomi.

Dikaios does not exclude the historicity of the tradition according to which Teucer founded a new town at Salamis, but he says, judging from the important character of the XIIth c. remains at Enkomi, we are entitled to infer that it is unlikely that a second important town coexisted with it as such a short distance."

So ends on page 188 his "preliminary report by reaffirming his wrong dating of the erection of the earlier compound with floor V and by deducing from the attribution of this compound to the early Iron Age and the Achaeans colonization farreaching conclusions for the history of the major archaeological site of Cyprus.

Handwritten: signature

Handwritten: 22.VI.50