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

Thus the recent discoveries at Enkomi bring a certain number of lessons new about the originality of cults in Cyprus at the beginning of the Iron Age, but at the same [handwritten: in accordance] time the vitality of Mycenaean and earlier traditions, which is expressed by the predominance of the bull cult, the sacred animal par excellence in Cyprus from the Bronze Early, and the symbol, if not the deity itself, of fertility and fecundity. The continuity of this cult, from Vounous to Ayia Irini, passing through the sanctuaries of Myrtou-Pighades, Ayios Jacovos and Enkomi, is quite remarkable.

On the other hand, the relations between sub-Mycenaean Greece, sub-Minoan Crete on one side and contemporary Cyprus appear to have been well closer than ne le dit généralement . Cette période obscure ne se résume pas [handwritten: dans] en un cloisonnement pur and simple division of the various provinces of what was the Mycenaean koine [handwritten: ?] [handwritten: ?] the imprint appears more and more marked in Cyprus, as excavations progress.

Recently the Department of Antiquities uncovered two chamber tombs in ashlar dating from the 9th, 8th and 7th centuries, in the necropolis of Salamis, whose foundation thus seems to have followed fairly closely the final ruin of Enkomi-Alasia, ruin which would be placed, in the light of the discoveries of the last campaign, around the middle ou la fin du X ème siècle avant notre ère , alors que la date généralement jusqu'alors gravitait autour du milieu du XI e siècle . [handwritten: admise]

By consequence, the chronological hiatus between the disappearance of Enkomi-Alasia and the foundation of the city of Salamis which succeeded it in the Cypro-Geometric, is [handwritten: ?] henceforth considerably reduced, to a century or a century and a half at most, from 950 to 850 or 800 in round figures, while a remarkable continuity of the occupation du site d'Enkomi-Alasia s'observe maintenant , du XVIII ème au X ème siècle before our era.