Letter from Megaw to Schaeffer on publications of the excavationsArthur Hubert Stanley Megaw

Printed: Department of Antiquities, Cyprus letterhead with royal coat of arms

No.....90/48

TELEPHONE No. ff

DEPARTMENT OF ANTIQUITIES, CYPRUS.

Nicosia, 8th February, 1949.

Dear Schaeffer,

Dikaios has now seen your letter of 27th January and has the following suggestions to make:

Preliminary publication in the "Illustrated London News". This should be a joint publication appearing under your name and his. First you would give an account of your discovery of the town, your excavations and the origin of the joint enterprise mentioning that our first campaign was undertaken this winter. Dikaios would append a brief account of this campaign and of the most important finds including the statue.

Enkomi I. This should, as proposed in your letter of 4th January, include contributions by him on his excavations of 1948/49 and on the Baal; but whereas the latter would aim at finality, the former could only be a preliminary report.

I should like to support these suggestions: the second because it conforms with your wishes so far as is possible in the circumstances; the first because, as I have previously explained, I feel a preliminary announcement may be to our mutual advantage. I have the further reason that the Governor, Lord Winster, expressed the hope that the statue would be made known as soon as possible and mentioned the "Illustrated London News" in this connection. Please let me know how far a compromise on these lines would meet with your approval.

On the assumption that we would collaborate in Enkomi I on the above lines, I have re-examined the draft title page and list of contents you sent; I think these drafts meet the case very well. Perhaps, rather than contribute a separate introduction myself, you and I might both sign a brief introduction. This would not of course justify my appearance on the title-page, where, however, you may wish to add Dussaud's name in view of his promised contribution. (Many thanks for sending the copy of Le Monde with the report of his communication).

I should like to leave the arrangements for Enkomi I generally in your hands - as initiator of the venture and the party whose work most of this volume will concern. But as you invited them here are my comments. I agree to printing whereever we are served best, but cost will have to be taken into account as well as speed. I have a fair idea of costs at Oxford as "Khirokitia" is being printed there. They are rather expensive; would Paris be cheaper? The Oxford Press Printer likes you to pay for the whole cost and then turn the books over to their publishing side, who give you the proceeds from sales, less their commission, as they come in. The alternative is to get a publisher to take over the whole business of printing and sales and pay him a subsidy amounting to the difference between cost of production and probable receipts from sales. I presume there would be some such difference. On what basis would a French publisher undertake it?

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

/I think