Letter from Schaeffer to Neumann on the Ras Shamra and Enkomi missions and the remaining excavation creditClaude Frédéric-Armand Schaeffer

Claude Schaeffer

Handwritten annotation, top right, partly illegible

Excavations of Enkomi-Alasia, 19 Sept. 1949.

Dear Mr Neumann,

In archaeological research, surprises are the rule. Sometimes unpleasant, sometimes happyones. This time luck seems set to smile on us on two fronts.

Mission at Enkomi. We have discovered a very large building facing the main entrance of the town, and which is a public building, perhaps the palace so long sought in the town of Enkomi, capital of Cyprus in the 3rd millennium. My daughter must have brought you a number of the Illustrated London News, of 20 Aug. reporting the discovery of the town. Beneath this building, we have just uncovered tombs cut in the limestone and filled with bones accompanied by numerous precious offerings, some are covered with plaques of gold reaching 20 cm. in diameter and having on their fingers rings of gold or solid gold engraved with Egyptian sphinxes. Are we in the royal necropolis? I have cleared 4 burial chambers so far and only know of the beginning of the exploration of this building. Now we must finish and exhaust the discovery before the arrival of the rains at the end of October, and also it would be too risky to leave the place alone in winter despite a watchman. The present watchman has already asked to be doubled at night and for a rifle, for fear that clandestine diggers may come at night to seek the treasures... . As soon as gold is found in quantities of interest, precautions are imposed.

I would therefore like to double the teams in order to speed up the clearance and to take in hand all the movable objects contained in the funerary chambers and in the building. I telephoned you as well as Monsieur Battlion to ask you to take from the remaining Ras Shamra credit planned for this year the equivalent value of 1000 pounds sterling and to have them sent to me as quickly as possible through the channel of the Consul of Malta, who will pass it to the Barclay's Bank at Famagusta where the Mission has its account. I would be very grateful to you, as well as to Mr Battlion, for apologising for the extra work I am causing you. Please tell me by telegram (reply paid) whether this transfer is possible and on what date I could receive the funds. Mr Dussaud, resident of the Commission Asie Antérieure, is aware and in agreement.

Mission at Ras Shamra. Thanks to an advance that your department sent me (thanks to Mr Bouchet acting in your absence), I was able to go by air to Damascus and negotiate the resumption of the excavations of R.S. Situation most delicate: provisional government not yet recognised, preparing declarative elections in November, nobody wants and nobody can take responsibilities in these conditions. I have obtained permission to begin my work at R.S. from the middle of October in the form of surveys and "ne-voyages" for the plans.