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[handwritten: Enkomi] (underlined in red ink at top left)
Sir, Claude F.A. SCHAEFFER, Directeur de Recherches at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Conservateur of the Musées de France, has informed the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres (meeting of 28 March), of the results of archaeological research carried out under his direction in September and October last at ENKOMI on the island of Cyprus. The excavations uncovered the remains of an important maritime town of the Bronze Age, preceding the Greek Salamis and the present port of Famagusta. It drew its wealth mainly from the export of Cypriot copper to Asia and Egypt.
Remontant au temps du Moyen Empire Egyptien (XXº - XVIIIs.) the town, still anonymous, discovered by Mr Schaeffer was abandoned as early as 1700 before our era during a period of crisis characterised by extreme poverty among the decimated natives probably by an epidemic. During this period so still obscure in the History of the Ancient Orient, a general perturbation shook the whole of Western Asia, and caused major population movements. There occurred then the invasion of the Hyksos into the Delta, where their stay lasted about two centuries, contrary to a recent theory of M. R.Weill, who wished to reduce the Second Intermediate Period in Egypt to about 30 years.
After a hiatus lasting more than a century, the town of Enkomi was rebuilt around 1500; it retained its rôle de principal port de l'île jusqu'au XIII°s. avant notre ère.
65 figures hard to readstruck struck outadded written in above” jug ditto, and what it repeatsword reading not certain
