Five letters from Dikaios to Schaeffer about the excavations at EnkomiPorphyrios Dikaios

Enkomi Monastery of St. Barnabas 6/5/1949.

Dear friend,

I apologise for replying late to our letter of 8 April, which contained the communiqué on the joint Mission and a communication that you kindly read to the Academy. I wish first to thank you for having been so kind as to read my communication, which perhaps was too general. But the state of the work was such, and still is, that one cannot say too much. The excavation evolves slowly, and a theory put forward today is contradicted the next day. I think I shall be able to establish at the end of the present campaign, I shall be able to establish certain facts in a less provisional manner.

My last letter, or rather that of Mr Mugeu which accompanied it, gave you some news of the discoveries since the beginning of this campaign. And then, my article intended for the Illust. Lond. News, to make known the details of these discoveries although in a general manner.

So far we have been able to establish three levels (I - III) of L.C. III. The first is covered by the surface layer and the painted pottery, where we find ourselves in rooms of the "palace" or houses built in the northern part of the "palace". The second level is separated from the first by a deep layer which has no other explanation than a catastrophe. It is present as much in the "palace" as in the small houses. This layer is composed of the same earth as the pisé wall that we found, that is to say red earth mixed with small pebbles of limestone. Elsewhere it contains bricks … continues