¹ We should like to thank several people involved in the excavation and its publication. Mr. P. Kalligas and members of the Ephorate for their interest, help, and co-operation throughout and for making the foreman Mr. M. Patrikas available; Nikos Daskalakis from Knossos for his skill and patience in excavating; Miss A. Lebessi for giving us every facility in the National Museum in Athens and the technicians there concerned with preservation; Professors J. Boardman and J. N. Coldstream, Dr. R. Higgins, Mrs. V. Hankey, Dr. R. Moorey, Dr. E. J. Peltenburg, Professor A. Snodgrass, and Dr. K. Wardle for their advice on the finds; Richard Catling for his recording of the tomb finds which formed the basis for the catalogue, and Miss S. Bird for many of the drawings. The tombs and pyres were surveyed by Mr. D. Smyth.

Funds for the excavation were given jointly by the Greek Archaeological Service and the British School in Athens, the latter providing the technician Mr. P. Petrakis, who restored the vases.

The publication has been prepared jointly by the excavators, though each initially drafted various sections; LHS the description of the tombs and pyres and their contents and the jewellery, ET the metal finds, and MRP the introduction, pottery, dating, and conclusions.

² Popham, Sackett, and Themelis (edd.), Lefkandi I, Plates (1979) and Text (1980), BSA Suppl. Vol. 11, here abbreviated to LK I. The plans of the Toumba cemetery are given there at pls. 76 b and 77; the main discussion is at p. 105.

Parallels to the earlier finds are only occasionally cited in the catalogue since they can be easily traced in the relevant chapters of the main publication. Where, however, new knowledge has been provided, references are given in the discussion, which we have organized under much the same headings as in LK I.

An almost complete coverage of the contents of the new tombs and pyres is provided by photographs: the tombs are arranged in arithmetic order followed by the pyres, PLATES 15–26. Reference is not made to these plates in discussion since they are easily found, but only to additional illustrations of individual finds. Only those objects which are new to the repertory of vases or metal objects have been drawn.

Ail dimensions are in centimetres, unless otherwise stated.

³ Skeat, T. C., in The Dorians in Archaeology (London 1934) 13–14Google Scholar, discusses both the lugged bowls and strutted cups with their parallels, and illustrates an Attic MG legged vase (pl. ii 9 repeated from AM 43 (1918) pl. 1. 2); he would trace both in an earlier form to Macedonian models.

⁴ Eye beads appear in Syria in the tenth century, F. Neuburg, Ancient Glass 51, but seem to be lacking in Egypt at this period. They are known in Geometric Boeotia (Cold-stream, Geometric Greece 39 and n. 18), but are not common in early Iron Age Greece. A fairly close parallel at Eretria (Mus. Inv. no. D 1173) came from the sandy stratum below the Apollo Temple there.

⁵ Cf. Roeder, Günther, Ägyplische Bronzewerke (1937) 70 § 296Google Scholar, fig. 164, pl. 39a c (Pelizaeus-Museum) and Halbherr, F., Museo italiano di anticuità classica 2 (Florence 1888) tav.Google Scholar xii 9 (from Crete).

⁶ Lichtheim, Miriam, JNKES 6 (1947) 174 pl.Google Scholar iv no. 10, Miss A. Lebessi has kindly informed us that a fragmentary sitularesembling ours is in Heraklion Museum, no. 78, from the 1884 finds in the Idaean Cave.

⁷ Calmeyer, Peter, Reliefbronzen in babylonischem Stil (Munich 1973) 134.Google Scholar

⁸ Eisenberg, J., A Catalogue of Luristan Bronzes and Early Islamic Pottery (1960) nos. 94Google Scholar, 96, cf. Lichtheim, op. cit. 175 type III.

⁹ Jantzen, Ulf, Samos viii (Bonn 1972) 71 pl.Google Scholar 73 B275.

¹⁰ Branigan, Keith, Aegean Metalwork of the Early and Middle Bronze Age (Oxford 1974) 50.Google Scholar

¹¹ Strommenger, Eva, Mesopotamia (Hirmer 1962) pl. 208.Google Scholar

¹² Cf. Iraq 8 (1946) 66 and Hamburger Beiträge zur Archäologie vii (1980) 7 fig. 1.

¹³ Strommenger, op. cit. 225.

¹⁴ Gehrig, U. L., Die geometrischen Bronzen aus dem Heraion von Samos (Diss. Hamburg 1964), 82 f.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Karageorghis, V., BCH 87 (1963) 281 fig.CrossRefGoogle Scholar 22 a, h and BCH 94 (1970) 42–3.

¹⁶ Bruns, G., ‘Küchenwesen und Mahlzeiten’, ArchHom ii 2, 32, 47, fig.Google Scholar 12 a, b.

¹⁷ Furtwängler, Andreas, Zur Deutung der Obeloi im Lichte samischer Neufunde, Festschrift Hampe (Mainz 1980) 81 fig. 4.Google Scholar

¹⁸ ArchHomn ii 300–23 pls. 127 32; Payne, Perachora i 71–2 and 175. Prosymna, , AJA 43 (1939) 439 fig.Google Scholar 26 and 421 fig. 9. Aetos, (Ithaka), BSA 43 (1948) 119 nos.Google Scholar 28–34 pl. 50E 28, 29. Olympia, Inv. B 17,5 and B 4527.

¹⁹ AAA 2 (1969) 436 (M. Oeconomides); Courbin, , Annalesécon. Soc. Civ. 14 (1959) 212.Google Scholar

²⁰ BCH 77 (1953) 260 and BCH 81 (1957) 367–8.

²¹ J. K. Brock, Fortetsa.

²² RDAC 1964, 71 fig. 24, 40, 68. AA 1963, 551. BCH 87 (1963) 277 9, and BCH 94 (1970) 38. See also Buchholz, , Historische Zeitschrift 200 (1965) 368.Google Scholar

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²⁴ Bruns, op. cit. 2, 15, 37, 61.

²⁵ Jacobstahl, , AM 57 (1932) 259 fig.Google Scholar 1f.

²⁶ Gehrig, op. cit. nos. 50–4.

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³⁵ See Snodgrass, Early Greek Armour and Weapons 132 on spear-butts.

³⁶ Snodgrass, op. cit. 166 mentions parallels and cites the later Panoply Tomb at Argos with its two double-axes of iron.

³⁷ The neck fragment of a faience vase was found in the SPG III tomb, S 59 no. 39 (LK I pl. 110), but it escaped notice in the comments on faience finds.

³⁸ Cooney, J. D., ‘Egyptian Art in the Collection of Albert Gallatin’, JNES 12 (1953), 13, 64Google Scholar, pl. xxxviia; D. Dunham, ElKurru 29 fig. 10 c.

³⁹ C. Watzinger, Tell el-Mutesellim ii. Die Funde 33 fig. 25; A. Murray, A. Smith, H. Walters, Excavations in Cyprus 115 fig. 166, 5.

⁴⁰ F. von Bissing, Catalogue génerál des antiquités égyptiennes du Musée du Caire, Fayencegefässe no. 3767.

⁴¹ D. Dunham, op. cit. 22 fig. 5b.

⁴² A. Murray, A. Smith, H. Walters, op. cit. 115 fig. 166, 1.

⁴³ V. Webb, Archaic Greek Faience 167 n. 9.

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⁴⁷ It would be premature, until the excavation is completed, to consider the various implications of the building's construction and destruction. However, the burials of man, woman, and horses in the centre of the building justify its being called a heroon. Apparently in use for only a short time, it was then deliberately filled in after a mud-brick ramp had been constructed against its outer walls to facilitate the operation.

As to the date, the few vases so far found on the floor correspond closely with the pottery in the fill, of which the E. end of the building contains a great quantity. Preliminary study of this indicates that it resembles the MPG stage at Lefkandi as defined by Desborough, though it could be the earliest phase of LPG, which was missing on the settlement.

The main characteristics of this pottery are as follows. There is a complete absence of the pendent semicircle skyphos and of any flat-based cups or skyphoi, all of which have conical feet. The cups, for the most part, are either monochrome with reserved bands on the lower body or have multiple or single zigzag on the rim, usually with a rather deep reserved band immediately below. The skyphoi (or deep bowls) are usually monochrome with a reserved foot, probably with reserved bands above it. The circles skyphos (in some cases at least with three on either side) is present, sometimes with Maltese-cross fill. Kraters are well represented with designs including concentric circles, fringed and plain, hatched lozenges, chequer-board, multiple boxes, dog-tooth, and cross-hatched rectangles. Amphoras are in general light ground with concentric circles or semicircles, fringed or plain, on the shoulder and with bands below; a few have a chequerboard panel. Black slip ware is present together with coarse handmade sherds.

Clearly this pottery must fall well before the advanced stage of LPG as represented by the earliest Iron Age deposits so far found on Xeropolis. The absence of the pendent semicircle skyphos is here conclusive. Clearly, too, considerable Attic influence was felt earlier than was indicated by previous evidence, though this was suspected by Desborough in LK I 286–7. But at what stage? MPG or early LPG? The reserved line cups and skyphoi are characteristic of the MPG stage as he defined it (LK I 294) and the light ground amphoras would suit this stage better. It is interesting that he commented on a group of sherds which we now know to be spill from the fill of the Heroon, Toumba Squares V and VI, in LK I 276–7. He observed that it was ‘a thoroughly early-looking collection of sherds’ and concluded, ‘Is it possible that the numerous monochrome cups … should be classed as MPG or earlier? At least, we have evidence of an earlier use of the cemetery than known from the tombs and pyres.’ Whatever definition is adopted after more detailed study, the material, and with it the Heroon, should belong early in the 10th c.

⁴⁸ It may be that some rich tombs without datable vases, such as T 36, have been placed too late, in SPG III, on the assumption that it was at that stage that Lefkandi became most prosperous.

⁴⁹ A view expounded in LK I 360–1.

⁵⁰ This is shown, among other things, by the Cypriot import in P 22 and by Cypriot influence on vases in P 3, both LPG, as well as on the flask in new T 40; there are, too, the two Euboean vases imported into Cyprus during the same period (LK I 358 and 361 with notes 20 and 29).

⁵¹ Apart from P 22, a burial even richer in Attic LPG imports than new T 39, nearly all the Attic vases were found in the Toumba cemetery, which also contained three urn burials of Attic type.