Antiquities, 106, June 1953, pp. 103–105 and pl. IV: An Inscribed Tablet from Enkomi, CyprusPorphyrios Dikaios

a new destruction accompanied by severe fires supervened. This second destruction was also marked by the presence of Mycenaean III, C: I pottery. Immediately after this destruction the fortifications were reorganized and a continuous City Wall incorporating the existing fortification walls, was built. At the same time the area previously occupied by the complex described above, was levelled up and abandoned. Indeed the later stages of the town, i.e. advanced twelfth century and early eleventh, noticed by us in the "Temple" area² are not represented. It was in the layer which was formed by the levelling up of this area at the beginning of the twelfth century that the tablet was discovered, near the top step of a staircase which must have given access to an upper storey. It is evident that the tablet was not in its original position and that it got mixed up with soil and debris including fragments of Mycenaean III, C: I pottery at the time of the levelling up of the area. It is naturally impossible to know where its original home was but it is possible that it is not far away; future campaigns may throw some light on this problem. The tablet, perhaps, together with others of similar kind may have lain on one of the floors of the complex at the time of the destruction and during the upheaval it was displaced, wandered then for some time and finally got mixed up with debris. This is confirmed by the condition of the tablet which shows some wear.

The importance of this fragmentary tablet lies in the fact that this is the first time that a document of this kind has been found in the soil of Cyprus. So far our knowledge of a script and in particular of the Cypro-Minoan or Cypro-Mycenaean script in the Late Cypriot period, come from short inscriptions mostly engraved on clay vases, clay balls, bronze

(2) Illustrated London News, Aug. 27, 1949, pp. 316-317. The pottery associated with the later stages is first the Late Cypriot III decorated ware and secondly that of the Mycenaean granary style.