Letter from Schaeffer on Mr. V. Karageorghis's démarche at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Paris, August 1973Claude Frédéric-Armand Schaeffer

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As Discoverer and long time excavator of the town site of Enkomi-Alasia and as Honorary Citizen of Famagusta, I hope that freedom of research will continue to be granted to the French Archaeological Expedition under its present director, Mr. Pelon.

The areas to be excavated by priority would be sector 4 W of the published town plan (Alasia I, map IV) where further great buildings of ashlar architecture have been found by Mr. Pelon, section 4 E where more built tombs of Syrian origin belonging to members of the royal family of Ugarit exiled to Alasia according to texts found at Ras Shamra may be discovered, sections 6 E-W and 7 E-W, the geographical center of the city, where I have reason to believe that the Alasia palace was situated, according to finds of particularly important parts of a remarkable building, palace which is mentioned in the official archives of Egypt (Tell el Amarna) and Syria (Ugarit) and where new tablets may be expected and finally sections 11 E and 12 E where the southern wall and the south gate have further to be investigated as well as the connection with the ancient harbour town.

This minimum program of further excavations already constitutes an undertaking requiring several years of research. I therefore was very gratified when in 1969 at the occasion of my 20th season of excavations on the site, the Ministre of Communications and Works came to Alasia in company of the General Director of his Ministry and Mr. Karageorghis, Director of Antiquities to suggest to me that the Cyprus Government would be prepared to participate in the cost of the labour force needed to allow an acceleration of the excavations in the central part of the city. If I since have not submitted a definite plan for such a scheme, it was because the Director of Antiquities, in a letter to me dated December 1969, asked me "not to yield to any suggestion " with regard to the accelerated rythm of the Enkomi-Alasia excavations.

I hope to be allowed here to thank respectfully His Beatitude Monseigneur Makarios and his Government for the encouragement and support given to the French Enkomi-Alasia Expedition during now forty years of activity in Cyprus.

Handwritten: signature

Member of the French Academy of Inscriptions Professeur Honoraire au Collège de France

Enkomi-Alasia, October 29th. 1973