Letter on the 1966 Enkomi excavations sent to Mr Karageorghis, with a photograph enclosedClaude Frédéric-Armand Schaeffer

report sent at his request to Mr Karageorghis, 22.1.67

EXCAVATIONS at ENKOMI 1966

The French archaeological mission directed by Mister Professor Claude F.A. Schaeffer conducted his XVIII e campaign of excavations at the site of Enkomi-Alasia from September to November 1966 (1).

Wells and formerly looted tombs of the northern quarter of the city. -

During the first part of the campaign, in September and at the beginning of October, one proceeded to the emptying and systematic clearing of a large number of what it is agreed to call locally "pits", i.e. all these numerous soundings made by the archaeological missions [handwritten: earlier] having explored the site considered then as a Late Bronze necropolis or old clandestine and irregular excavations by treasure hunters from before the establishment of the Department of Antiquities of the island. These works, on the whole thankless, proved relatively fruitful, notably resulting in the discovery of a very abundant and often rather remarkable ceramic material.

From a number of wells built in rubble at the end of the Mycenaean period and at the beginning of the so-called Cypriote Iron I (or Late Cypriote III or Mycénaean III C 1 and III C 2 ), a whole series of painted pottery was recovered which could be reconstructed. Among the finds, the following will be mentioned here: - deep-bowled bowls and other vessels with thin, very fired and resonant walls whose technique is not unlike that of "eggshell" pottery (egg-shell ware) of Cretan potters of the Middle Minoan, dating from the beginning of the Cypriote (called elsewhere Mycenaean III C 1); - a kalathos in greyish clay, decorated with a very interesting painted design: fishsons, birds and stylised palm, a vase in Dodecanese style (Cos and Rhodes) unique in Cyprus in the present state of our knowledge, of an already advanced phase of the beginning of Cypriote Iron I (XII e century BC); - several dozen deep-bowled bowls of the so-called 'Grenier' style with decoration of wavy bands (wavy-line, Mycenaean III C 2), of excellent workmanship nevertheless undeniably local, associated [handwritten: with] jugs with strainer spout and ovoid body painted with a geometric design whose bichromy relates to the ceramic productions called Philistine of Palestine. At the base of one of these wells was recovered the