Report addressed to Mr Karageorghis on Enkomi 1962Jacques-Claude Courtois

Handwritten: Report addressed to MM. Dessenne and Karageorghis

Stamp: 18 JAN 1963

In the course of the months of November and December 1962, the archaeological mission French mission directed by Professor Claude F.-A. Schaeffer, member of the Institut of France, carried out its fifteenth season of excavations at the site of Enkomi- Alasia, near Famagusta. The excavations in which MM. R. Huss collaborate and J.-C. Courtois of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique de France, as well as Madame Huss, draughtswoman, MM. J. Lagarce and J.-P. Nicolaïdes, assistant architect and surveyors, were concerned with clearing three quarters of the ancient city, quarters of very different character: see the Chronique des fouilles à Chypre in 1961, BCH, 1962, p. 953. In the North quarter, the abundance of finds of tinacomané pottery and fired clay spindle whorls, as well as bronze objects, beads (and copper and iron moulds) confirmed the presence of establishments industrial and craft establishments specialised in metalworking on the one hand and textiles on the other. The stratigraphy of the North quarter varies from one zone to another, but generally the earliest phase, resting directly on the rock, covered at the middle level of phase I or 2 (Late Cypriote I - II). It is characterised by the vessels of the type "base-ring ware" and "white slip I-II" of this period. Above, are set fine thick white floors of Late Cypriote III, covered by a burnt layer, containing sherds of vessels of Mycenaean IIIB and IIIC style. These floors have also been cleared in some irregular places. The fine stone and ashlar architecture is reserved rather for the quarters of the centre of the town, where public, official or religious buildings stood (Reference ID, cf. Enkomi-Alasia I, pp. 259-390; Maybe, Dagmar, cf. Dikaios, Arch. Anzeiger, 1962, p. 35 ff.).

In an area particularly interesting for stratigraphy, it was possible to identify at the same time floors and superimposed layers, ranging from Late Bronze I (Late Cypriote I, XV s. av.) to the extreme end of Iron I (XI-X s. av.), which bears witness to a remarkable continuity of occupation. The layers richest in fine pottery painted (about 90 % of the total) are always those of Mycenaean Final III C1, layers heavy with ash whose thickness frequently reaches 0 m. 60, which has been observed already in the centre quarter, helping the distinction into tiqué and under the places of solire.

Handwritten: → for the Chroniques de BCH