Letter from Megaw to Schaeffer about the excavations at Enkomi, loaned objects and other mattersArthur Hubert Stanley Megaw

Handwritten date top right: 28 december 1950

No.....57/50 •

[printed: DEPARTMENT OF ANTIQUITIES, CYPRUS.]

Stamp: embossed seal of the Government of Cyprus, centre top

Nicosia, 28th December, 1950.

Dear Schaeffer,

Thank you for your last letters from Ras Shamra (14th and 22nd November) and for that posted in Athens (12th December). I have also received the revised inventory of the furniture, etc. you left at Enkomi.

I enclose the enlargement of the air-photograph for which you asked. The cost of this and of those previously supplied is £3.18.6d., which has been paid from the money you deposited with us before your departure.

We have been thinking more about the projected preliminary report on Dikaios' area. The need for this arises mainly from our wish to correct what is now seen to be inaccurate in Dikaios' ILN article and in various news items which have appeared in the J.H.S., A.J.A. and "Esti Archaeologici". As far as ILN is concerned I do not think we need worry, and as regards the others it is open to us to correct what has been published when future items of archaeological news about Enkomi appear. If this is done, I think there will be no real need for any further publication until the full report can be put in hand after our next season. Dikaios' chief concern is that their final publication should be on an adequate scale and for this reason also I prefer not to spend time and money on any interim report. Dikaios accepts this conclusion.

For his annual review of archaeological discoveries, John Cook has again asked me for a contribution on Cyprus. I enclose an extract from what I have prepared which concerns Enkomi. This corrects what appeared about our area in J.H.S. LXX. As regards your 1950 season, I hope it correctly summarises your work, but if it does not, I should be grateful for any corrections you find necessary.

We have also lately given a note on Enkomi to Lapierre in connection with the preparation of literature for a French cruise next March, participants in which will be visiting the site. I suggested that if they wanted any photographs, the organisers in Paris should contact you, for these visitors will be more interested in what the French Mission has done.

I am sorry the visitors whom you met in Beirut left with wrong impressions about Enkomi. The typewritten guides which the guard has available make the position quite clear, but in addition I am arranging to have the notice-boards re-painted with the name of the joint expedition at the head.

The photographing and drawing of the few vases from your 1950 campaign, which Forrer was to have attended to, will be done by the Museum staff after the holidays. As we have had so little mending to do for you this year, we can undertake this work without payment as part of our contribution to the joint expedition.

I am sorry you took amiss my comment about some of the material you have exported on loan, which was inspected before sealing as is usual in such cases. No use is made of any archaeological information obtained in such circumstances, but as regards Enkomi it is arguable that only good would result if the two parties saw and discussed each others material as much as possible.

Dr. C.F.A.Schaeffer, M.A. D.Litt., Le Castel Blanc, 14 Rue Turgot, St.Germaine-en-Laye, (Seine et Oise).