Letter from Dikaios to Schaeffer about his work at EnkomiPorphyrios Dikaios

Stamp: Cyprus government seal, embossed

Nicosia, 1 February, 1949.

Dear friend,

I regret infinitely having replied so late to your letter of 5 January, which had reached me through Mr Megaw. You know what the end of a campaign is like, with a heap of occupations of every sort, and on top of that the bad weather. I have just returned, although a heap of things are still to be done at Enkomi, notes to take, etc., but the weather has suddenly seemed to worsen and now the rains must stop so that I can go again to Enkomi and take up the results of the campaign.

Before I give you some news about the first results I would like to thank you most heartily for your congratulations. The success of the campaign is obviously a shared success and the congratulations are due as much to you as to me. Consequently I am glad to have had the opportunity of offering interesting results to our joint researches.

Although the plans of the building that we have begun to uncover are not yet finished, and obviously a number of details escape me, it is clear that it is a construction fairly important. I do not think that we have uncovered all the parts which belong to us, but the parts uncovered will allow us, I think, at least for the moment, to understand what it is about. The clearing is still at its beginning: in fact when the bad weather began we were only at the first floors which, according to the pottery, may be dated to L.C. III (your Iron I). But the vases are still in place and I am waiting for fine weather so that I can go to Enkomi to remove them and thus be able to reconstruct them. It seems to me, however, that apart from the known L.C. III vases there are a number of vases, certainly foreign (Syrian?).

The building uncovered is well built with blocks carefully worked. When the plans are ready and when I can go back to Enkomi I can prepare a preliminary report for the Academy as you kindly suggested. The bronze statue of which I enclose a first photograph was found in a small room of the building in question. It was standing in a corner of the room (I have marked the spot on the back of the photo general of the excavations enclosed). It belongs to the first floor of the room, which may be dated, like the other first floors, to the end of the 13th or the 12th century. But as you yourself say the study of the style will determine its age with more precision. On this point your comments will certainly be very valuable.

As you see, the god wears a tiara (of animal skin) having bull's horns. Indeed in the room to the north of that where the god was found, we have found skulls of young bulls. We will have them examined by a specialist.

/The