Contribution to Enkomi I, Text, Preliminary Report on the Cyprus Department of Antiquities excavations at Enkomi, The Bronze Statue of a Horned God, annotated and commented by SchaefferPorphyrios Dikaios and Claude Frédéric-Armand Schaeffer

Before describing our compound it is necessary to emphasize what was mentioned in the previous section, that the whole of the northern part as far as the line of the southernmost pillar of the central unit of the Main Building (16 in Pl.I) suffered severe damage through a conflagration at the time of floor V, which is the earliest floor. Following the destruction, most of the dressed blocks,(1) with the exception of a few which are still in position, were removed, evidently because they were so damaged by the conflagration that their re-use was considered impossible. The removal of the dressed blocks uncovered the course of slabs on which they rested; it was on this course that the new walls were rebuilt, this time of rubble and mudbricks. This explains why there is much less of the original dressed masonry preserved in the northern than in the southern part of the area excavated.

(1) As we shall see, the lower parts of the walls consist of a foundation of boulders topped by a single course of thin slabs. On this course rest the dressed blocks of the wall proper, which was usually thinner than the foundations and thus left visible on either side a narrow margin of the lower course of slabs. Above the dressed blocks the walls were presumably constructed of mudbricks.