Report 'A new sanctuary of the end of the Bronze Age and beginning of the Iron Age at Enkomi in Cyprus', annotated by SchaefferJacques-Claude Courtois and Claude Frédéric-Armand Schaeffer

Handwritten: Cyprus file 1962 ; excavation journal

Handwritten: 1

A NEW SANCTUARY of the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Age of IRON at ENKOMI in the Island of Cyprus .

During the last excavation season (autumn 1962) [handwritten: in autumn 1962] [handwritten: Alasia] of the French Archaeological Mission directed by Monsieur Schaeffer , [handwritten: Inserted at the Collège de France] on the urban site of Enkomi-Alasia in the island of Cyprus, north of Famagusta, near Salamis, a new and very interesting place of [handwritten: important] worship, situated in a quarter of the centre town of the ancient city so flourishing in the Bronze Age and at the beginning of the Iron Age, has been uncovered immediately below the present surface of the site. This new place of worship had already been identified during the previous season in autumn 1961, following the discovery [handwritten: at the same place] of very numerous ex-votos , schematic figurines of men and women, worshippers, dancers and musicians, of roughly hand-modelled and painted terracotta. These figurines and idols closely resembled those of the small sanctuary or isolated chapel discovered by the Swedish mission near of the village of Ayios Jacovos, dating from the beginning of the Iron Age. [handwritten: cf. ] [handwritten: idols 1961 of the NB]

As the clearing of the new sanctuary at Enkomi only really began in November 1962 and could not, for this reason, be completed before the end of the season, we would kindly consider today's account as entirely provisional . But it seemed fitting, to present [handwritten: preliminary] [handwritten: the result of the excavations encouraged me] without further delay the main discoveries and the unpublished results obtained at Enkomi at the end of last year . These results concern indeed not only the chronology and history of this site but also the ancient Cypriot cults and their relations with those of the Aegean world pre-Hellenic , in the obscure times so poorly known , of the transitional period [handwritten: XIII-] between Mycenae and Homer , of the passage from the Bronze Age to that of Iron , from the XII e to the IX e centuries before our era.

Location of the new sanctuary at Enkomi :

Thanks to the gridded plan of the ancient city of the Bronze Age, one can readily locate the new sanctuary whose southern façade gave onto the Résidence street (or Building I8), the fifth of the oriented streets [handwritten: of the NB summary town plan]