Unnumbered pageScan 435 of 438
evidence that the statue was the centre of the cult in the same area at an earlier date. This cult began at the time of floor III, the floor on which [handwritten: ✓ ?] the bowl deposits were found in the same room where the statue had its last resting place. This floor is the first one after the re-arrangements carried out to the building, consequent upon the conflagration. Below floor III, in the fill which was placed to raise the level of rooms IX-X we found pottery which suggests that the fill was taken from some earlier deposit (probably a destroyed tomb) but also Mycenean IIIC:1 pottery. It also contained a scarab of Thutmosis III which agrees with the date of the earlier pottery, as well as the Philistine seal which together with the Mycenean IIIC:1 pottery give the date at which the fill was introduced into the room ie. 12th cent. If, as suggested, the statue was previously worshipped on floor III then it too should be dated/the middle stage of the middle stage of the compound ie. that which followed immediately the re- /arrangements
Note on the transcription: the handwritten annotation "!!!" with a circled mark above "found in" is rendered as [handwritten: annotation]. Corrected corrections as they appear are shown below.
Corrected version of the last lines, as typed:
be dated/the middle stage of the middle stage of the compound ie. that which followed immediately the re- /arrangements … continues
65 figures hard to readstruck struck outadded written in above” jug ditto, and what it repeatsword reading not certain