Enkomi C.F.F Schaeffer Plates IV-VIIClaude Frédéric-Armand Schaeffer

Handwritten: 336

Handwritten: fig 1 near here

Period and a final one at the beginning of the Iron Age (fig. 1). Moreover, in a vast depression of the chalk bank forming the subsoil, we have brought to light, at a depth of about three meters, traces of a fourth city, separated from the three above by a sterile stratum. This latter constitutes a clean break in the stratigraphical sequence. It corresponds with the period between 1700 or 1650 and 1550 B.C., during which period the whole island was severely put to test, as was the case, moreover, for the neighboring countries of Western Asia and Egypt.

Judging from the pottery, bronzes, scarabs and other objects, the constructions situated below this sterile level can be attributed with certainty to the period 1900–1700 B.C. This is the period of the Egyptian Middle Empire, so splendid also at Ras Shamra–Ugarit and in all the Syro-Palestinian area.

Situated at a lower level than the plateau of Enkomi, the Bronze Age city was hidden from the view of those who approached it from the seacoast. For even more security, it was enclosed by a rampart of Cyclopaean type, of which we discovered and cleared some broken sections of the northern and southern periphery in 1946 (see pl. V, C).

This is a remarkable work of construction consisting of a row of enormous thick slabs, of one and a half meters tall, detached from the neighboring cliff. Set up on edge as orthostates, and carefully propped up by blocks of triangular section, these slabs some of which are four meters through, form the outer base of the circuit wall. The inner face is made up of lighter blocks, against which abut constructions the character of which has not yet been determined.

Enkomi was therefore an important city and certainly very populous, judging by the density of the sections which were located in the course of our excavations and soundings. This is not surprising if one considers the geographical … continues