Press communiqué with a mapArthur Hubert Stanley Megaw

90/48/2

[handwritten: handwritten notes in blue ink, diagonal, top left, partly illegible: "[illegible] ... C.F. ... [illegible] ... Enk 1953 ... [illegible] ... pl. ... 10/X"]

Printed: DEPARTMENT OF ANTIQUITIES / NICOSIA.

Handwritten: "Enkomi pl. 5 M." and "10/X" in blue ink

Press Communiqué

24th August, 1953

ENKOMI EXCAVATIONS 1953

The Antiquities Department has just completed the sixth season of excavations at the Late Bronze Age town of Enkomi, near Salamis, Famagusta District. The excavations which were carried out under the direction of the Curator Cyprus Museum, Mr. Porphyrios Dikaios, form part of a joint expedition to Enkomi, the other parties being the French Mission under Dr. Claude F.A. Schaeffer.

The Department's work this year was concentrated on the Area adjoining the inside of the North sector of the city wall where a group of buildings was uncovered last year with important results concerning the history of the fortifications of the town. In the east part of this area a new group of buildings with exceptionally thick walls was brought to light giving the impression of a fortress. This was erected in the Late Cypriot I i.e. in the sixteenth century and structurally belongs to the the same group of buildings as that discovered last year. In the early part of the Late Cypriot II (i.e. early fourteenth century) these buildings were extended westwards but soon after a destruction occurred. Following this destruction the fortress was rearranged and continued to live when in the early thirteenth century a thick city wall was built extending westwards from the N.W. angle of the fortress. Later in the thirteenth century the thickness of this city wall was doubled to a total of about 4 m. and the fortress rearranged with new floors. It was on these floors that a severe destruction occurred during the closing quarters of the thirteenth century. Following this catastrophe the part of the fortifications comaning the fortress was strengthened by the placing against their external face of a row of large stone blocks while the fortress ceased to be used as such at about 1200 B.C.

Handwritten: marginal pencil notes at left: "(Sm). XVI^c", "end 1400-1350 BC", "1300-1250", "1275-1200", "c. 1200"

This year's work therefore throws a flood of light on the history of the Fortifications of Enkomi and on their successive stages which actually give a full account of the history of the town and eventually of the whole of Cyprus.

The finds collected include a complete series of pottery covering the various stages of the Fortress. In particular some fine examples of imported Syro-Palestinian and Mycenaean pottery as well as a number of cylinder seals of fine workmanship may be mentioned. But the crowning success of the season, as far as finds are concerned, is the discovery of an inscribed tablet of baked clay, of a type similar to that discovered last year by the Department again at Enkomi. This year's tablet, however, was found during supplementary work after the close of systematic digging in the area of the temple previously excavated by the Department. The script is clearly Cypro-Mycenaean and its preservation is almost perfect. This is the second example of tablet discovered on the soil of Enkomi and of Cyprus in general and if ever read (which may be quite possible).

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