Letter from Schaeffer to Kendrick, Director of the British Museum, on the loan of the bowl for a temporary exhibition at the British MuseumClaude Frédéric-Armand Schaeffer

Institut Français d'Archéologie, B.P.14.24, Beyrouth (Liban) 9 septembre 1951.

Dear Kendrick,

Plenderleith has sent me before his departure for his vacation a splendid report on his remarcable restoration work of the silverbowl I have found in an intact tomb in 1949 at Enkomi. I am very grateful to you and the British Museum to have agreed of to t reat the fragile bowl in your laboratory. Nowhere, I am sure, such a splendid restoration could have been succeeded than with your equipment and Plenderleith skil, experience and I say enthou-siasme for his work.

I have written to him about your proposal to exhibit the bowl in the British Museum pending its return to Paris or Nicosia. When I see the director of the antiq.in Cyprus (the bowl, pending division, is still technically Cyprus Government property) I shall talk the matter through, in a short time, and write to you than. I think your idea is fine and should be accepted.

When I come next spring (?) over to London, perhaps to fetch the bowl if it has not to be returned earlier, I would propose you to make a short report to the Antiquaries of my latest discoveries in Cyrpus and the bowl if there would be an opportunity.

Meantime I am on my way for more excavations in Turquie, Cyprus and Syria.

Thank you again for your precious help in the matter. I hope more of those finds may come outof the soil of Enkomi....

Yours sincerely

Handwritten: signature

M.E.T.Kendrick Director of the British Museum London

Printed: FRANÇAISE / MISSION ARCHÉOLOGIQUE