Report "Excavations at Enkomi, Famagusta"Claude Frédéric-Armand Schaeffer

Printed: FRENCH ARCHAEOLOGICAL MISSION

From the archaeological point of view, the result of the first excavations is most satisfactory. We immediately found the site of the Mycenaean town so long sought by successive missions and of which we had, in 1934, recovered the first indications.

As we had assumed, it is not in reality a necropolis at Enkomi, but a town where the tombs were installed in the basement of the houses, as was the custom in the íle millennium in many [illegible]

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Our excavations are uncovering the plans, but they are very well preserved, with walls of large ashlar and floors of pisé. In each house is arranged the family burial chamber cut into the soft limestone rock. Most of these chambers had been looted after the town was deserted; others have been excavated by the missions previously working at Enkomi, including ourselves. But at least one of them seems to be intact (and we found it yesterday at the end of the work) and others still contain part of the pottery.

The latter is very homogeneous, Late Bronze, and corresponds to the pottery removed from the houses. Here we encounter a certain number of Middle Bronze fragments, which indicates that there is an earlier level above the Late Bronze town that we are in the process of clearing.

Soundings await the extension of the town. In addition we found [illegible] remains of a cyclopean transport which will have to be explored. One of the houses uncovered is remarkable for the quality of its ashlar walls and for the dimensions of several blocks of stone of a plinth-like appearance. It is probably a public building. A few known scarabs and cylinders have been found so far. There are also traces of bronze workshops.

[illegible] we have only Décauville; we use carts drawn by oxen or mules for the transport of earth. The process is slow and long. Perhaps it would be possible to find second-hand Décauville, when the works for the camps currently in progress are finished, but we can no longer count on this for this campaign.

The temperature is still very high, around 40 degrees Cels. in the shade. During the day we work from 7 h to 11 h and from 1 h to 5; the labourers did not want to accept a longer interruption in the middle of the day in order to release the workmen earlier in the evening. It is not a matter of se m[illegible] ...

Owing to the difficulty of finding lodging, we had to take rooms at the hotel in Famagusta, unfortunately noisy and badly ventilated; a car takes us to the area in a quarter of an hour, morning and evening.

that the promises of its sub-committee to improve the output of work have not been realised.

The work was resumed the next day, but given the appreciable increase in wages, it had to bring the number of workmen down from 150 to 120 men.

For a whole series of [illegible] the recruitment of labour is systematic, constant, determined. I asked, in agreement with the authorities, that the government set up an organisation of primanotre German or of the labour force be. The question is under study, but there is fear of a hostile action by the population which would cause a general shortage and a rise in prices. In reality the firms have held the stagnant rents of the market, have been the activity, have for the war zones during which it was possible to develop with a minimum of activity. The pockets complaints, again, the population is worried and intended to impose its conditions. Everywhere, it is said, is the 'red' region of the island.