Letter·34 CDF art. 168-3·7 February 1949

Letter from Schaeffer to Dikaios about the statuette of a Baal-type godClaude Frédéric-Armand Schaeffer

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Handwritten in French. Every line is transcribed and translated, and the English sits beside the scan.

Scan 2 of letter 34 CDF art. 168-3 (Letter from Schaeffer to Dikaios about the statuette of a Baal-type god), handwritten in French. The transcription and translation follow.

Scan: Collège de France, Paris, 34 CDF art. 168-3, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

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… had been in use for five centuries, if one believes the classification adopted by him.

From the whole of these observations we had concluded (1431) : the difficulty is resolved in this case, when as in many others, when one reduces the age and the period of use of the Red Lustrous Ware. Instead of placing its beginning around 3000, as the classics of Cypriot chronology do, and also most modern authors, we had f fixed it around 2600. On the other hand, as we had admitted that the pottery Red Lustrous Ware was no longer found at Middle Bronze sites in Cyprus except in the form of late specimens, and as it was then also lacking at Ras Shamra in the contemporary layers poraines /du Moyen Empire égyptien, il nous a avait semblé que vers 2000 before our era, this category of pottery had fallen into disfavour. Thus, the total duration of its use was placed between 2500 and 2100 or 2000 in round figures.

We have since had to note that this reduction has shocked surprised some of our colleagues, to the point of leading them to pass over our proposal in silence, while taking account of the other results of our Cypriot research (1432). We are obliged to return here to the question and regret having to aggravate the disagreement (1433). Indeed, new discoveries have since convinced us that the reduction proposed in 1936 was is still insufficient.

During our third campaign of excavations at Ras Shamra- Ugarit and on several occasions since, we have found at the surroundings of the temple of Dagon (1434) and at other spots on the tell, a number of fragments of vessels in red lustrous earthenware engraved and inlaid with a geometric decoration in white. These are not like, as in the case of the hemispherical bowls previously reported from Ras Shamra, vessels comparable to those of the Early Bronze of Cyprus. This time, they are identical to the latter and certainly imported from the island to Ugarit (1435). We were all the more sure of our identification since a few months before the discovery at Ras Shamra of the first samples of this

65 figures hard to readstruck struck outadded written in above” jug ditto, and what it repeatsword reading not certain

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