Letter·34 CDF art. 176·30 November 1957

Letter from Megaw to Dikaios on corrections to be made to a jointly annotated press releaseArthur Hubert Stanley Megaw and Claude Frédéric-Armand Schaeffer

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Typed in English. Every line is transcribed, and the text sits beside the scan.

Scan 4 of letter 34 CDF art. 176 (Letter from Megaw to Dikaios on corrections to be made to a jointly annotated press release), typed in English. The transcription follows.

Scan: Collège de France, Paris, 34 CDF art. 176, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

Unnumbered pageScan 4 of 8

The French Alasia Expedition has just accomplished its tenth season of excavation at the most renowned site of the ancient capital city north of Enkomi.

Dr. C.F.A. Schaeffer, member of the French Academy and Professor at College de France, Paris, accompanied by his wife and three assistants MM H. de Contenson R. Kuss and J. Willer have worked seven weeks in the central part of the town site. Mr. Michael Vatios, Custodian of the Department of Antiquities was in charge of the workmen and women mostly from the neighbouring villages of Enkomi, Stylloi and Tricomo. Their good will and interest in the research work was appreciated by the expedition.

Six superimposed town levels have been discovered, the oldest of which goes back to the late Middle Kingdom period of Egypt: XVIIIth XVIIth B.C. According to the material [handwritten: [illegible]] remains so far recovered in one intact and several partially looted tombs. These oldest settlers of Alasia -Enkomi seem to have been of Syrian origin. They already were trading in [handwritten: [illegible]] copper and copper or bronze utensils and arms. Their dwellings have not yet been identified, but it is apparent that they occupied the deepest level immediately upon the native rock, some 2 to 3 metres below the present surface. They buried their people in underground vaults hewn into the soft rock. No information is so far available as to the causes of the disappearance of these Middle Bronze Age settlers at Alasia - Enkomi.

65 figures hard to readstruck struck outadded written in above” jug ditto, and what it repeatsword reading not certain

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