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FRENCH ARCHAEOLOGICAL MISSION (continuation of the report of 15 October 1946)
2. My talks with the Director of the Services des Antiquités of Syria at Damascus.- On 23 September, I received at Famagusta from M. Serres, French Minister at Damascus, the following telegram: 'All archaeological excavations suspended for one year stop visit useless.' I immediately decided to bring forward my departure from Cyprus by a week and took the plane of 5 October for Beirut. Here I was able to have, on 7 October, an interview with M. Serres who let me know that the Syrian authorities had decided to forbid all excavations pending the enforcement of the new law on antiquities. Our minister did not conceal his doubts as to the reality of the danger. Thanks to his intervention, I immediately obtained from the Syrian authorities an authorisation to confer in Damascus with the Service des Antiquités.
M.S.Menaged, currently Director of the Service in the absence of M.Brown, received me on 14 October. During the first interview, M.Menaged made me understand that the new law on antiquities is about to be adopted by the Chamber and that there is no question of suspending all excavations for one year. He stated that the site of Ras Shamra is reserved for the French Mission which worked there before the war, and that the Syrian authorities wished for my return and the resumption of research as soon as circumstances allow. However, Ras Shamra is situated in the Mohafazat of Latakia, where operations against the separatists took place recently. Access to the region is currently forbidden to all foreigners, including the consuls of all European nations. It has been learnt that recently military operations in the mountains have led to the arrest of the separatist leader Sleman Murshid, nicknamed the god of the Alawites. On this occasion proofs were reportedly found of the supply of funds and arms to the Alawites by our intelligence officers before their departure from Syria. The incident has helped to complicate the efforts made by our minister to smooth over our difficulties with Damascus. M.Menaged told me that at present it is absolutely impossible for me to go to Ras Shamra. He added that the prohibition could be lifted soon.
M.Menaged then raised the question of the division of the cuneiform tablets from Ras Shamra. His administration would like half of the texts which fall to Syria under the former law on antiquities to be returned to Damascus, together with all the objects temporarily exported, either for study or for repair, notably those of the last campaign 1938/39. I pointed out to him that the study of the tablets is scarcely finished and that, for verification of readings, the presence of the original texts in PARIS would be desirable for some time yet. As for the objects of the 1938/39 campaign, they would have been returned this year if, at the time of my departure from Paris, the crates containing the objects evacuated during the war had been accessible.
During the interview M.Menaged constantly returned to the importance and considerable value of the Ras Shamra texts and of the objects found on the site. The full recovery of these documents and objects is the main concern of his department. M.Menaged made me understand very clearly that it would be difficult to obtain a new excavation concession before the earlier divisions had been settled.
He then broached the question of the concession at Mari from the same angle. Damascus above all wishes to obtain the return of half of the texts and of the objects temporarily exported to Paris. My feeling is that it is there
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