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

partially uncovered in 1961 .

The nature and chronology of these cult places could be clarified during the 1962 campaign . Alongside a new lot of schematic-style female figurines and idols resembling the statuettes of Ayios Iakovos (SCE, t.I, pl. LXVIII, nº 6,13,18,29,44), all found ritually broken, the remains of numerous vases in beige clay were found, crushed in place and spread over three superimposed floors, numbered from top to bottom I (the most recent) to III. Uncovered between 0 m 40 and 0 m 80 average depth below the present surface, these three floors of compressed brown clayey earth, difficult to identify, belong to a sanctuary comprising a vast quadrangular hall (or temenos) which measures ten metres thirty in length north-south over more than eight in width east-west. Off this hall, to the west, opened smaller rooms where vases and terracotta figurines were recovered. These objects lie in layers which cover entes the level of the Early Iron I, characterised by pottery of the 'Granary' style, cf. Enkomi-Alasia, I, p. 367, fig.114, and are therefore later than it. The walls with rubble foundations and brick superstructure of the main hall of this new sanctuary in the city of Enkomi-Alasia were apparently coated with some white lime rendering . In the hall, significant discoveries, hitherto unpublished at Enkomi, took place . They confirm the cultic character of the building . These are figured terracottas, representing a kind of centaur, with a schematised quadruped animal body (bull or horse ?) and two human heads. The geometric decoration painted on their cylindrical body recalls the Close Style . The two heads, also painted to better emphasise the facial features, show some differences of detail, intended to individualise them . The single head, preserved from a second of these hybrid and bicephalous beings, is distinguished by a large hooked nose, pellet eyes, a painted geometric decoration in red, and long straight modelled and applied locks descending from the nape , of the long cylindrical neck . The legs of these monsters are also stylised and end in circular swellings.

The ochre-red earth of the long-necked centaur is very poorly fired and friable, which explains its fragmentary state. These two centaurs lay together, against the north wall of the great hall, which yielded in addition 26 bull skulls, sometimes found … continues