The first excavations at Palaikastro, undertaken in the years 1902–6 by Bosanquet, Dawkins, and others, coincided with the first great period of research and discovery in Minoan Crete. They ran concurrently with Evans's early seasons at Knossos and with Hogarth's work at Zakro, not far from Palaikastro, and were in a true sense pioneer work. The series of reports which appeared in the Annual from 1901/2–1905/6, together with the later supplementary volume of Unpublished Objects and two final articles prepared for publication by various hands, built up a systematic and clear picture of one of the largest and perhaps the best preserved Minoan settlement yet excavated in Crete.

The work was undertaken on a major scale, in the third season employing up to seventy workmen for nearly three months. It produced evidence for occupation in the area from the Neolithic to the end of the Late Minoan period, with a continuing cult of Dictaean Zeus from Geometric down to Hellenistic and Roman times. In addition some careful anthropological work was done, and the phases of occupation were tied in with those of the other Minoan sites known at the time.

The statuette of a centaur at Plates 8–9 was found during excavations at Lefkandi in Euboea, conducted by the British School at Athens during last summer. Standing 36 centimetres high, it is among the earliest representations of a centaur yet known from the Aegean area, and the largest of terracotta centaurs. Its outstanding interest seemed to the authors to call for a more detailed publication than the normal brief preliminary account of the excavation and its finds.

It has an unusual archaeological history, suggesting that it was a valued object before it was eventually buried in a cemetery at Lefkandi. This cemetery, which lies on a small hill called Toumba, overlooking the modern fishing village of Lefkandi, was an unexpected discovery. Trials were made during 1969 in this vicinity in the hope of finding the Submycenaean and Early Protogeometric settlement which went with the nearby cist graves. The virtual absence of remains of this period on the main town site of ‘Xeropolis’ had led to the belief that at this time the inhabitants may have temporarily moved to the Toumba area, a smaller and more easily defensible hill and one with a natural supply of water. However, our trial there found not the settlement we hoped for, but another cemetery.

By adopting the chaîne opératoire approach as a dynamic theoretical and methodological framework for studying ancient technologies, this paper investigates the modalities behind the appearance of the potter's wheel in the Aegean during the Early Bronze Age II (c. 2550–2200 bc). Based on the comparative examination of ceramic assemblages from different Aegean sites, an extended technological study has been carried out in order to track the earliest wheel-made pottery and reconstruct the craft behaviours perpetrated by the use of the potter's wheel across the Aegean. The paper presents the results of this multi-site study and aims to (a) trace out the wheel-based technological traditions, (b) explore the contexts of the learning and transmission of the new tool, (c) shed light on the connectivity among Aegean and western Anatolian communities that enabled the transfer of the new craft knowledge, and, finally, (d) bring into view the mechanisms behind its emergence and appropriation. By considering technologies as representing an entire social system of knowing, perceiving and acting on the material world, it will be argued that the spread of the potter's wheel in the Aegean does not reflect a moment of linear diffusion of a technological innovation, adopted thanks to certain techno-functional advantages. Instead, it discloses the resilience of social identities and values embedded through the practical engagement of individuals in the production of their material culture. The potter's wheel, in fact, emerges as a socially and culturally mediated practice, specific to small groups of potters trained within a technological tradition of Anatolian origin, performing their craft in the Aegean socio-cultural milieus. Furthermore, its transfer reveals a multidirectional and dynamic crossing of material cultures that designated a navigable world where traditions, objects and people travelled, mixed and merged in unpredictable ways.

It is some time since the development of Late Minoan pottery has been considered as a whole and adequately illustrated. In many respects, Mackeprang's account, published nearly thirty years ago, still remains the most concise, readable, and well-illustrated summary of the subject; but it is limited to the Late Minoan III period and, inevitably, is now in need of revision.

It seems worth while, therefore, despite the still serious gaps in our knowledge, to attempt to give a general outline of Late Minoan pottery, taking the opportunity both to include illustrations of new material where this is appropriate and to revise and augment the charts of characteristic motives given by Pendlebury. The purpose of this article does not go beyond giving a very broad account; it is not a detailed analysis though such a study is indeed required.

Should there be a discernible Knossian bias in this article, it may be due partly to the author's work having been largely centred there and partly to his belief that, in several stages of the pottery of the island, it was Knossos which set the standard.

The pottery of the end of the Middle Minoan period is, in general, dull and uninteresting. The impetus which led to the technical and artistic achievement of Middle Minoan II seems to have exhausted itself. At Knossos, the Palace suffered a catastrophe, the result of an earthquake as Evans thought, though the widespread signs of fire could well indicate attack and deliberate destruction. Large deposits of pottery of this period were found there: they are characterized by masses of ill-made table ware, mostly undecorated, and by badly proportioned large vases. Decoration consists for the most part of a roughly executed ripple pattern or a solid black glaze occasionally relieved by a spiral or other motive in white paint. Elsewhere in Crete the picture is much the same; the pottery is poor in standard and there is a suggestion of sterility.

This article should have been published in BSA xxxviii with the rest of the Karphi material. That it was not was due to the fact that in 1939 the pottery was insufficiently mended for drawing and photography. Most of the text was written by the beginning of 1940 and approved by John Pendlebury before his death. I can only apologize for subsequent delays and admit that I have forgotten much which might have been relevant.

Methods: The pottery from each room and each strosis was carefully collected and labelled. During the first two seasons it was then brought to Tzermiadho for study, but in 1939 arrangements were made for dealing with it on the site, which greatly simplified the work.

At first sherds were washed by women from the village, but the difficulties of washing were so great that it was soon decided that all those that were painted, or probably painted, would have to be washed by one of ourselves if their patterns were to be preserved. Even so there were many instances where no treatment which we could devise would remove the mud without also removing the colour, if not the entire surface. Eventually only such coarse sherds as seemed to be worth making up, or to represent new types, were washed at all, since brushing in plain water, which was all that these would stand, had so little effect that sorting was just as easy without it.

This article is the third in a series inspired by the rediscovery in 2003 of two skeletons excavated in 1877 in Shaft Grave VI in Circle A at Mycenae by Panayiotis Stamatakis. Having studied those two individuals and reconstructed their faces, and having conducted a study of strontium isotope analyses on all the individuals from Grave Circle A, we now move on to a reconsideration of the circumstances in which Shaft Graves III, IV, and V were excavated by Schliemann and Stamatakis, and place the human remains in the context of the other finds from the graves (no human remains from Graves I and II can be located at present). We then describe the first study of the skeletons themselves since Angel's work in 1937, and reassess them in the light of modern osteological techniques and theories.

To παρόν άρθρο είναν το τρίτο μιας σειράς άρθρων εμπνευσμένων από την εκ νέου ανακάλυψη, το 2003, σύο σκελετών που ανέσκαψε ο Παναγιώτης Σταματάκης το 1877 στο Λακκοεισή Tάφο VI του Tαφικού Kύκλου A των Μυκηνών. ´Eχοντας ήδη μελετήσει τα οστά αυτών των σύο ατόμων και αποκαταστήσει τα πρόσωπά τους, και έχοντας εφαρμόσει αναλύσεις για την ανίχνευση τησ ισοτοπικής αναλογίας του στροντίου σε δείγματα από την πλειοψηφία των ατόμων του Tαφικού Kύκλου A, προχωρούμε τώρα σε μια επαναδιερεύνηση των συνθηκών υπό τις οποίες ανασκάφηκαν οι Λακκοειδείς Tάφοι III, IV, και V από τους Schliemann και Σταματάκη, και συσχετίςουμε τα ανθρώπινα σκελετικά υπολείμματα με τα υπόλοιπα ευρήματα από τους τάφους (δεν έχουν ακόμη εντοπιστεί σκελετικά υπολείμματα από τους Tάφους I και II). Στη συνέχεια περιγράφουμε τα αποτελέσματα της πρώτης, μετά από εκείνη του Angel το 1937, μελέτης αυτών των ανθρωπίνων σκελετικών υπολείμμάτων, επανεξετάςοντάς τα σύμφωνα με ςύγχρονες οστεοαρχαιολογικές θεωρίες, μεθόδους και τεχνικές, με τελικό στόχο την ανασύνθεση του τρόπου ςωής των ατόμων που είχαν ταφεί στον Tαφικό Kύκλο Α.

This paper, which is in two parts, re-employs published evidence to shed new light on the Spartan senator C. Iulius Eurycles Herculanus L. Vibullius Pius. The first part presents a re-edition of the dedication from the heröon of Herculanus, the improved text revealing evidence for a link of kinship between the later Euryclids of Sparta and the dynasty of Commagene. The second part restudies two inscriptions from Mantineia and Corinth which, it is proposed, were originally part of posthumous memorials to Herculanus erected in those two cities.

Strzygowski, in his short account of the ninth-century church of the Dormition at Skripou-Orchomenos, made no mention of the evidence for a contemporary screen. Some of the fragments were visible in his time, for they had previously been recorded, though not published, by Barnsley. It was not until 1932 that the character of the screen was first made known by Maria Soteriou's study of the building, in which three of the marble fragments surviving from it were illustrated. The repertory of ornament used on these fragments was seen to be identical with that employed on the string-courses and cornices of the church itself, which left no doubt that the screen was an integral part of the building erected by the protospatharius Leo in 873/4. More recently, Professor Grabar has contributed an invaluable study of the style of ornament with which both church and screen were enriched.

The system is described in detail with reference to the first stone-by-stone plans and photographs of the interior. An analysis of function concludes that the main aim of the system when constructed in Middle Minoan IIA was to drain the Central Court; this remained its primary function until at least Late Minoan I. During the great building programme of Middle Minoan IIIA, the system was expanded to serve new Light Wells, with further additions before the south part of the drains was blocked sometime during Late Minoan I. Next, a stone U-shaped channel was installed to allow the north section to function; the destruction of Late Minoan IIIA:2 is likely to have caused the final blockage of the system.

The Ionic Black Figure pottery at Old Smyrna is a fragmentary body of material and it is of no very great bulk; so there is no certainty that it is fully representative of the wares current in North Ionia in the sixth century or that it gives a reliable indication of their relative frequency. It is worth remark that no Fikellura came to light. The material here published was divided into classes after the conclusion of the excavations and the photographs were taken. The classification then adopted was a subjective one and not entirely satisfactory. The isolation (in Section A) of what seemed to be conscious imitation of Attic Black Figure may be useful; it could be improved in detail, but at least it does not cut across other divisions. For the rest, the section (E) headed ‘Clazomenian’ ought on any count to have embraced more of the material, and the boundary between Sections B (‘North Ionic Styles’) and C (the North Ionic Column Kraters) is a rather arbitrary one. But there would have been obvious dangers in a rearrangement made without full recourse to the material itself; for due attention must be paid to the physical appearance of the wares. So the original classification has been retained.

The fifth excavation season at Palaikastro is reported. The principal discoveries are a floor deposit of the EM III/MM I A period, a well stratified sequence of levels from the MM II A to MM III B/LM I A periods, floor levels of the LM II and LM III AI periods, and a floor deposit of the LM III A2/B period with storage jars and a bull's head rhyton. Also noteworthy are the discovery of mason's marks on the N facade of Building 5, and fragments of the finest example of painted plaster found at Palaikastro. S. Hemingway reports an important group of metalworking artefacts from a LM III A2/B deposit.

The purpose of the present article, which forms one of a series of reports on the Knossos excavations of 1951–61, is to present a cross-section of pottery and other small finds of the early Roman period (first century B.C. to first century A.D.) from Knossos. Three good deposits of this period were found during the work in 1958–61; these, together with a fourth group of similar date found in 1951, are published here. Excluded from the present article is the stratified material of the period from the Royal Road site, which will be published shortly in a general report on the excavations there.

The decoration of Hellenistic houses can be understood in terms of hierarchies, which marked out the relative importance of the rooms and spaces in the house. In mosaics, the hierarchy is related to the materials used and the complexity of the design; wall painting is capable of expressing more subtle distinctions, through a combination of colours, motifs, decorative friezes, and architectural features in stucco relief. Surviving houses from Delos, Morgantina and Monte Iato are analysed in detail to explain how their decoration might have worked, and from these examples some conclusions are drawn about changes in the use of domestic space in the late Hellenistic period.

Ancient tradition, as recorded by Strabo and Pausanias, placed the Seven Cities offered by Agamemnon to Achilles in the area of the shores of the Messenian Gulf, between Kardamyle on the south-east and Methone on the south-west. The phrase πᾶσαι δ᾿ ἐγγὺς ἁλός roughly confines them to the coastal area, but it need not exclude identifications with sites farther inland, provided that these are not too far distant from the sea, and are connected with it by easy routes. For example, Kambos (?Ἐνόπη) and the site of the classical Thouria (?Ἄνθειαor Αἴπεια) lie 5 kilometres and 6 kilometres inland respectively, but their territory may have extended towards the coast, and the distance from the sea is not great. I have assumed as a working hypothesis that the Seven Cities actually existed in the Late Mycenaean Period, although possibly with slightly different names, and although they are not mentioned in the Achaean Catalogue of Ships in the Iliad; and I have taken the position of Mycenaean sites in the area to be the most relevant factor to the problem of locating the Seven Cities.

I have carried out surface exploration in south Messenia over a period of five to six weeks with the purpose of finding out the pattern of the Mycenaean and earlier occupation of the district on the shores of the Messenian Gulf, and I shall give an account of the results obtained at each site, together with a discussion of previous work carried out by others, and then compare the facts with the testimony of the ancient writers, in particular Strabo and Pausanias, before stating my conclusions as to the locations of the Seven Cities, and attempting to reconstruct their history. The relevant sites will be discussed in geographical order from south-east to south-west. (See the map of the area, Fig. 1.)

Thirty-nine copper-based objects from the Aegean region of Greece, covering the Late Neolithic, Early and Late Bronze Ages, but excluding the Middle Bronze Age, were analysed for their chemical content (twelve elements) by atomic absorption spectrometry. The results show that there was a gradual shift in copper metallurgy from pure copper (Late Neolithic), to arsenical copper (Early Bronze Age), to bronze (Late Bronze Age). The results tend to indicate that the same type of copper metallurgy existed throughout the Aegean in each period.

In the first chapter of Perachora i, Humfry Payne gave a brief survey of the Perachora peninsula, and of his own excavations. There he distinguished between the area of the town, situated in the plain that lies between Lake Vouliagmeni and the tip of the promontory, and the ‘Heraion Valley’ whose buildings were almost wholly of a public nature. His description of the town envisaged further excavation; but his own activities were concentrated in the area of public buildings, the two sanctuaries of Hera Akraia by the harbour and of Hera Limenia in the Heraion valley itself.

The two volumes of Perachora are concerned with the discoveries Payne made in these two sanctuaries. Omitted from them are the other public buildings in or adjacent to the sanctuaries. These consist of the angled stoa, the so-called ‘agora’, the double-apsidal cistern, and the hestiatorion or dining-hall. Also omitted is the detailed study of the town which he promised. The stoa and ‘agora’ (which is now to be renamed ‘the west court’, since, whatever its actual function, it was certainly not an agora) have now been published separately by Dr. J. J. Coulton. The present account gathers together the remaining public buildings in the vicinity of the sanctuaries, the apsidal cistern and the hestiatorion, together with the ancient remains in the area of the town.

The two categories of tomb are defined. Burial practice in Greece from MH onwards is discussed, chamber tombs being established as canonical in LH I, though these are not universal, and cist and pit burials continue. Chamber and tholos tombs occur over a wide area of the mainland in LH II; after LH II, except for children's burials, pits and cists are relatively rare, though they are found in chamber tombs. It is argued that chamber tombs were the general form of burial, and that cists and pits were not used, separately, for poor burials. Chamber tombs continue to be general in LH IIIC: simpler requirements and cremation lead to a revival of cists and pits, though chamber tombs do not totally die out, and in Crete continue to be the preferred form in Archaic times.

A Strange and unusual relic of ancient times in Crete is the tank cut in the rock near the sea for storing fish alive. Sinclair Hood and John L. Leatham some years ago made a detailed study of remains of fish tanks on the northern coast of Crete. These tanks belong to two groups, one at Chersonesos in central Crete, with a row of three tanks of various sizes, and one on the shore opposite the island of Mochlos in eastern Crete, with two adjacent and almost identical compartments. The authors date the tanks to Roman times and interpret them with the help of a rich documentation from ancient sources, mainly the two Roman agricultural writers Columella (viii. 16–17) and Varro (iii. 17).

The faces of seven skulls from Grave Circle B were reconstructed by the Manchester team, as an exercise in using the technique of facial reconstruction to look for family relationships on the basis of facial resemblances among the three or four burial groups within the circle. Similarities were noted between Ζ59 and Γ51, from early and late phases respectively; and between Γ55 (the man with the electrum mask) and his female tomb companion Γ58, both having a quite different facial structure from Γ51 but sharing features with A62, a late-phase burial from a different part of the circle. The skulls from the early burials Σ131 and Β52 showed only slight similarities to the others.

Trench V of the 1927 excavations of the British Academy in the Hippodrome of Constantinople was located just beyond the tomb of Ahmet I, in the direction of St. Sophia. With two extensions (VA and VE) it became a considerable excavation, which uncovered a series of massive piers of brick interrupted by occasional courses of stone. These the excavators identified as part of the Baths of Zeuxippus. In 1928 they uncovered more of the building and, to the south-east of it, part of a separate portico with a large exedra. This second building fitted the identification, as part of the connected gymnasium, particularly when two pedestals were found inscribed with the names of Hecuba and Aeschines, both of whom are known to have had statues there.

Objections to the identification have been raised; notably on the grounds that the excavators found no water-tanks or hypocausts. This particular objection was removed in 1952 by the discovery near by, during the laying of a sewer, of connected structures; for these included a plastered cistern and basins. In a recent review of the topography of the approaches to the Great Palace the identification is accepted; nor does it appear to be invalidated by any of the testimonia relating to the Baths of Zeuxippus which have lately been collected.