Abstract

This volume is a history of mid-20th century research on Enkomi, a major settlement in eastern Cyprus which has long played a key part in our understanding of the island’s role in the Late Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean. It focuses on the scholarly and personal rivalry between the two excavators of the site, Claude F.A. Schaeffer and Porphyrios Dikaios, and the intervention of A.H.S. Megaw, Director of the Department of Antiquities of the island under British rule. It tells a story of how individuals and their particular biases and preconceptions, as well as their professional backgrounds, come to shape what we know about ancient societies. Their disagreements, which initially focused on stratigraphy, chronology and historical interpretation, quickly gave way to accusations of disrespect, a lack of academic ethics and hidden political agendas. Unpublished, archival documents are used to examine this important episode in Cypriot archaeology and to show how this quarrel was linked to political developments in the wider region, as well as to the evolution of archaeological thought and practice in a colonial and postcolonial world.