Correspondence between Megaw and Schaeffer on the silver bowl, the Cypro-Minoan tablet and Dikaios's workArthur Hubert Stanley Megaw and Claude Frédéric-Armand Schaeffer

Printed: Tel. No.:

[printed: Our Ref.:] 90/48/2.

Printed: Your Ref.:

[printed: GOVERNMENT [crest] OF CYPRUS]

Printed: DEPARTMENT OF ANTIQUITIES

Printed: CYPRUS

[handwritten: 14th July] Nicosia, 26th June, 1953.

Dear Dr. Schaeffer,

Dikaios is back from America and has put in hand what is to be our last campaign at Enkomi. He is working in the area of the North Wall. At the West end an extension has clarified the rather obscure elements revealed in last year's excavation and an outlying trench has established the line of the continuation of the wall. To the East also he is squaring off the area before going down to the lower levels. Here unfortunately the road is still blocking us, for although we have arranged for its permanent diversion outside the town wall, the work has only just started and until it is complete we cannot excavate the crucial area where the existing road crosses the wall.

When Dikaios was in Europe and America he was continually pressed to publish some preliminary account of our tablet fragment with a photograph so that the various experts now working on the Bronze Age scripts could utilize it in advance of the full account of our work at Enkomi, which cannot appear for some considerable time. In the end, with my concurrence, he agreed and two photographs have now appeared in Antiquity with notes by Dikaios and Myres, the latter indicating the Cypro-Minoan character of the script. One result is that this document is now available to Masson. As reproductions are never quite as good as original photographs, I take the opportunity to enclose some prints and would be glad if you pass them on to Masson with our compliments.

Yours sincerely,

[handwritten: Dear Mr Megaw, / Your letter dated 14th July has been received [illegible] from when I wrote to you on the 9th. / I am glad to hear that your last campaign at Salt on the [illegible] areas is well in hand and I wish you every success. I would like, as already said, to recall the ruins as soon as this is possible. If the road is blocking your research at the centre end of the town wall I would like to finish here after its removal, that could be arranged between [illegible] Dept. and the French Mission after the combined [illegible]. / I have received Dikaios's [illegible] and will publish with the Note on the tablet fragment. I am grateful for the prints which I shall pass on to Masson.]

Dr. C.F.A. Schaeffer, M.A., D. Litt., Le Castel Blanc, 14, Rue Turgot, St. Germain-en-Laye.

Handwritten: A.H. Megaw signature

[handwritten: Unfortunately the reading seems very difficult. I am responsible. In a note sent to Arch. for Dikaios and ventured (?) I see that the [illegible] preservation of the [illegible] ... after this the road and ... the ... of the ... ]

[handwritten: I would like to add that I asked [illegible] ... all after the Cost RS camp ... I shall ... to Mr Forrer for new architects of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts of Paris, with Lowther and Mr. R. Rassi ... in London ... any arch. assistant also shall ... with Mr. Schaeffer ... [illegible] ... this time, I am glad to say, I am so ... Yours sincerely ... family obligations prevent him.]

[handwritten: P.S. There has been a delay in the printing of the photographs for which I apologise. Apologies again ... Dossin ... the Earth ... opposite the ... building 18, at Enkomi-Alasia, [illegible] P.S.]