Letter from Megaw to Schaeffer about his visit to EnkomiArthur Hubert Stanley Megaw

Printed: Telephone No. 61

No.57/50 — wait, handwritten number. Transcribing:

No. [handwritten: 57/50]

Printed: coat of arms

DEPARTMENT OF ANTIQUITIES, CYPRUS.

Nicosia, 21st July, 1950.

Dear Schaeffer,

Thank you for your letter of 12th July. The proposition you there make regarding the reservation of 50 per cent of the original floors for check excavations at a later date is one we can very easily conform with, for it is not our intention to go below "floor V" except in relatively small areas.

Subject to verification when I am next at Enkomi, the position is now approximately as follows. Over the whole area opened we have dug through the original floors in search of earlier remains only in about 15 per cent of the area; in the areas where floors V were reached last year in the north, main and south buildings, all but about 25 per cent remain in situ (and in this section the largest dig below the original floor is that in the South Building done last year).

While some more digging down to the rock may be done here and there, there is no likelihood that it will approach the 50 per cent mark you have in mind. My wish is to preserve as much as possible of the original floors of the ashlar building so as to leave it in a condition comprehensible to a visitor.

On my last visit to Enkomi the only new areas where Dikaios has gone below the original floor was a part of Room XII, which you will remember as the so-called "megaron". Here the depression in the rock surface noticed in the South Building continues, but instead of fillings here are rather substantial rubble walls, on some of which the walls of the compound rest whereas others were concealed by its floors. It seems to me possible that these are not really walls but the foundations for the (?ashlar) walls of an earlier building than the compound, with floors approximately at the same level, which is more or less the level of the rock outside the depression. Unfortunately there is no evidence yet of the relationship of this earlier building with the streets surrounding the compound, except that they are similarly orientated. As to the date of the earlier remains Dikaios does not yet venture an opinion.

Here and there in this area Dikaios has left some characteristic specimens of the stratification under floor V which are known to contain pottery. These will remain for us to excavate when you come, or later when you have seen them, according as we may arrange.

I am sorry there is delay about the bronze bowl, but hope the Embassy takes it to the British Museum for you in the end.

Yours sincerely,

Handwritten: signature

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