More than 100,000 lead figurines are reported to have been found in the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia at Sparta. It has been suggested that these mass-produced votives were obtained from locally mined lead. Lead votives in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, were selected as representative of each ‘layer’ from the British excavations of the early twentieth century. Lead isotope analysis of the votives was conducted in the Oxford Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art and demonstrated that the lead was apparently derived from Lavrion as a by-product of silver extraction. There is a possibility that Attic silver, as well as lead, could have been used in Archaic Laconia.

Since 1950 widespread and important excavation has taken place in the Argolid. For Mycenae and Tiryns much of the post-excavation study has now been completed but has not yet reached final publication. The use of material from the preliminary reports has, however, led to conclusions which are not justified. The study teams at both sites, working in close collaboration, present here the detailed stratigraphie background to their work and the definitive assignments produced. The diagnostic pottery for the second half of the thirteenth century bc (LH III B2 Early and Late), which culminated in a major destruction at each site, is illustrated with its contextual background. The relationship between the two sites can thus be accurately assessed and the evidence will enable well-founded historical hypotheses.

Από το 1950 εκτεταμένες και σημαντικές ανασκαφικές έρευνες έχουν λάβει χώρα στην Αργολίδα. Για τις Μυκήνες και την Τίρυνθα ένα μεγάλο μέρος της μετα-ανασκαφικής μελέτης έχει πλέον ολοκληρωθεί δίχως ωστόσο να έχει φτάσει στο τελικό στάδιο της δημοσίευσης. Η χρήση υλικού από τις προκαταρκτικές εκθέσεις έχει ωστόσο οδηγήσει σε συμπεράσματα, τα οποία δεν μπορούν να τεκμηριωθούν. Οι ερευνητικές ομάδες των δύο θέσεων, στενά συνεργαζόμενες, παρουσιάζουν στο άρθρο αυτό το λεπτομερές στρωματογραφικό πλαίσιο της εργασίας τους και τις τελικές εκθέσεις. Η διαγνωστική κεραμική για το δεύτερο ήμισυ του δέκατου τρίτου αιώνα π.Χ. (YE III B2 Πρώιμη και Ύστερη), περίοδος που σημαδεύτηκε αηό μία μεγάλη καταστροφή και στις δύο θέσεις, επεξηγείται στο πλαίσιο των συνευρημάτων της. Η σχέση των δύο θέσεων μπορεί με αυτόν τον τρόπο να αξιολογηθεί με μεγαλύτερη ακρίβεια. Τα στονχεία αυτά θα επιτρέψουν τη διατύπωση καλά θεμελιωμένων ιστορικών υποθέσεων.

A final report is presented here on the excavation of four Areas at the prehistoric site of Kouphovouno, Sparta, Lakonia. Areas A and D were excavated as trials in 2001 and lie outside the land purchased by the BSA for the main campaigns, so they could not be excavated further, whilst Areas E and F had extensive deposits of historic date and were not further explored as being outside the remit of the main Kouphovouno Project. The excavations have yielded important Neolithic and Early Helladic II deposits, plus Bronze Age burials and later Roman remains. After summarising the aims of the Project and mentioning earlier work at the site, the report gives an account of the stratigraphy and finds and includes specialist reports on the human and animal bones, the ceramics, the chipped and ground stone and other finds. Also discussed is the relationship between the surface remains reported in BSA 99 and the excavated material.

The material for a study of Lakonian pottery may be roughly divided into two classes; first, the vases scattered through the museums of Europe, mostly found outside Greece, in tolerably good preservation, but covering a comparatively short period of time; secondly, the mass of pottery unearthed during the excavations of the British School at Athens in Lakonia itself. The latter consists mainly of fragments, but represents the continuous product of about four centuries, and in the sanctuary of Orthia we have the inestimable advantages offered by a well-stratified site.

An intensive archaeological survey covering the entire extent of the island of Antikythera has recently revealed a sequence of prehistoric activity spanning the later Neolithic to Late Bronze Age, with cultural affiliations that variously link its prehistoric communities with their neighbours to the north, south and east. Here we present and discuss the results of a programme of both macroscopic and petrographie study of the prehistoric ceramics from Antikythera that defines a considerably varied group of fabrics and explores their implications with regard to regional potting traditions, on-island production versus imports, and changing patterns of human activity on the island through time.

Μια εντατική επιφανειακή έρευνα που κάλυψε το σύνολο της έκτασης των Aντικυθήρων αποκάλυψε πρόσφατα μια ακολουθία προïστορικής δραστηριότητας που χρονολογείται από την προχωρημένη Nεολιθική μέχρι την ´Yστερη Eποχή του Xαλκού, και αντανακλά ποικίλες πολιτιστικές σχέσεις των προïστορικών κοινοτήτων του νησιού με γειτονικές περιοχές στα βόρεια, νότια καν ανατολικά. Eσώ παρουσιάςουμε και (τυςητάμε τα αποτελέσματα ενός προγράμματος μακροσκοπικής και πετρογραφικής μελέτης της προïστορικής κεραμικής από τα Aντικύθηρα, που προσδιορίςει μια σημαντική ποικνλία κεραμικών υλών και διερευνά τη σημασία τους σε σχέση με τις τοπικές παραδόσενς κεραμικής στην ευρύτερη περιοχή του Aιγαίου, την αντιδιαςτολή εγχώρνας παραγωγής καν ενσαγωγών, και τις δναχρονικές μεταβολές στο χαρακτήρα και την ένταση της ανθρώπινης δραστηριότητας στο νησί.

This paper deals with the cult and myths of the daughters of the mythical king of Athens, Erechtheus, who lived on the Acropolis. The myth, preserved in Euripides’ tragedy Erechtheus, establishes the deceased daughters as goddesses who are owed cult by the Athenians. It further equates them with the Hyades, a prominent star cluster in the constellation of Taurus, which they form after their deaths. We examine here the possibility that this myth not only narrates the placement of the girls after their death in the sky in the form of the Hyades, but also may have bound the constellation to certain festivals held on the Acropolis, which through their aetiological myths were connected to the daughters of Erechtheus and in which the participation of young girls (arrhēphoroi) was important. To explicate this cult, we explore its context on the Acropolis as fully as possible, through the visual arts, the literary myth, the festival calendar, and the natural landscape and night sky, so as to determine whether the movement of the Hyades was indeed visible from the Acropolis during the time when the young maiden cult rites were performed on the hill. This study investigates for the first time the role of the night sky and astronomical observations in the performance of the nocturnal festival of the Arrhēphoria.

Images of bears are found as dedications in only five sanctuaries. The article considers the circumstances of this; particularly the belief that this animal was an emblem and pattern of motherhood.

The excavations at Praesos undertaken by the British School in 1901 were begun on May 7th and continued until July 3rd. The Cretan Exploration Fund contributed £200, the Society of Dilettanti £50, and the Prendergast Fund of Cambridge University £40, towards the cost of the campaign. With me were two members of the School, Mr. J. H. Marshall, of King's College, Cambridge, and Mr. R. Douglas Wells, architect. Mr. Wells made a survey of the city-plateau and the adjoining ravines (Plate VII) and a large number of plans and drawings, many of which accompany this article. Mr. Marshall rendered valuable help in the work of supervision, and undertook a systematic exploration of the surrounding district. I much regret that it has been impossible for him to contribute to this report more than the section on the Megalithic House, printed below (§ 4). Soon after the close of the season he was appointed Director of the Archaeological Survey of India, and has necessarily been absorbed in the duties of that important post. I have had the use of his notes on some of the tombs.

The story of the borderline sanctuary of Artemis Limnatis forms an integral part of the history of ancient Laconia and Messenia. Since the discovery of the Volimnos inscriptions in 1835, many scholars have entered the still-continuing debate concerning the sanctuary's location, history and significance. In this article the available evidence for the Limnatis cult and history is presented and thoroughly discussed: the small finds, currently kept in the Kalamata Archaeological Museum, the inscriptions of the Kapsocherovoloussa chapel, the scattered spolia at Volimnos and their possible association with architectural structures of the sanctuary, the topography of the area in accordance with Inscriptiones Graecae V,1 1431 (Kolbe 1913, no. 1431) and the attested boundary stones discovered in an extensive survey along the ridge of Mount Taygetos, and finally the origin and nature of the Limnatis cult. This discussion is expected to further illuminate issues still unresolved, offering a chance to re-evaluate generally accepted arguments.

It has been suggested that the inscribed bronze sword found at Hattušas in 1991 is a Mycenaean type B sword which may be used as evidence for Hittites fighting in the Trojan war against the Mycenaeans and for a historical background to the Trojan war. The present independent investigation of the sword indicates that it may well be a variant of an Aegean type B sword, but might reflect Mycenaean influence rather than outright manufacture. Moreover, a variety of evidence suggests that the sword must be interpreted in the light of events occurring not during the Trojan war, but some two hundred years prior to that war. It is possible that Mycenaean involvement in the Aššuwa rebellion c.1430 BC was recorded in contemporary Hittite documents and remembered in later Greek tradition as the legendary pre-Trojan war exploits of Achilles and other Achaean heroes in NW Anatolia.

In May and June 1980 Dr K. Demakopoulou undertook exploratory excavations on behalf of the Greek Archaeological Service in the central square of the city of Thebes. Deposits of the Byzantine and later periods continued down for more than 5 metres. The finds, primarily from domestic habitation, are presented here.

110 copper-based objects from various sites on Crete, covering the whole of the Bronze Age, were analysed for their chemical content (12 elements) by Atomic Absorption Spectrometry. The results indicate that during the Early Bronze Age arsenical copper was mainly used while in the Middle Bronze Age copper, arsenical copper, and arsenical bronze were in use with about equal frequency. During the Late Bronze Age normal bronze was used when required. The copper technology in each era was the same at all of the sites examined. Metallographic examination of four triangular daggers of the Early Bronze Age showed that they had been cast. In the case of three Late Bronze Age hydriae, the component sheets had been hammered and annealed.

According to literary sources, the various products of vulcanicity were in great demand for both manufacturing and medicinal purposes in the ancient world, as they are today. These include pumice, fuller's earth (a form of calcium montmorillonite), sulphur, and the alumen of the Romans, which was probably aluminium sulphate, or a related substance. The island of Melos, in the Cyclades, was particularly noted in Antiquity for its mineral products, and in this brief article an attempt is made to summarize the references to these products by the various Greek and Roman authors, and to identify them and the people concerned with their mining and extraction in Antiquity, on the basis of recent geological and archaeological observations made by the author on the island.

The Hellenistic and Roman city of Knossos occupied a broad plateau extending northward of the Minoan Palace towards the sea. For nearly a mile from the Palace the fields are studded with the debris of occupation. One of the great Roman town houses was partly excavated before the War by Mr. R. W. Hutchinson and the work has been continued by Mr. and Mrs. Michael Gough, now of the British Institute in Ankara. A splendid series of second- to third-century mosaics has been discovered depicting the Dionysiac cult. The city, however, had a Christian community at least as early as about A.D. 170, for in that period Eusebius records the name of a Bishop Pinytus, who earned a reputation for being a zealous moral reformer, and was regarded as an influential figure among correspondents of Bishop Dionysius of Corinth. In the Patristic period Knossos continued to be an important Christian centre, its bishop being present at the Councils of Ephesus, 431, Chalcedon, 451, and Nicaea, 787. The see of Knossos is also mentioned in lists of sees drawn up in the reign of Justinian, and in the eighth century. Between 731 and 787 it seems to have ranked as Protothronos, or second senior bishop. On the Bulgarian episcopal list of 980 Knossos is still recorded among the Cretan bishoprics.

To judge from examples known from North Africa, such as Timgad, Djemila, and Tipasa, the main early Christian centre was likely to be outside the city walls where the cemeteries were located. There would be found the Christian area, and there, too, the earliest centre of worship. At Knossos it seems that a small stream which used to run in an east-westerly direction from the area of Fortetsa, until its course was altered to one slightly farther south when the new hospital was built, marked the boundary between the city and cemetery area.

The study of Medieval and Post-Medieval pottery in Greece has been much neglected until quite recently. Only in the last decade or so has interest in the historical and cultural information presented by the remains and artefacts of these periods grown. In the Cambridge-Durham Boeotia Project, based on intensive field survey, much attention has been paid to deserted village sites of the Post-Roman era. In this article a selection of the Medieval and Post-Medieval surface pottery samples at one Boeotian site will be described and discussed. The ceramic data from the field survey are combined with and interpreted in the light of information obtained from Ottoman tax registers and other written sources. Also an attempt is made to explore the possibilities of formulating conjectures about the change in pottery function during the period from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century.

A recent journey has given me the opportunity of verifying and supplementing the observations on the prehistoric sites of Macedonia made by Mr. M. S. Thompson and myself in 1909. The following remarks are to be considered merely as notes intended to assist in the future exploration of Macedonian prehistoric mounds, as they are based on observation and not on excavation.

In 1911 we noted a prehistoric settlement on a bluff on the right bank of the Haliakmon just above the Serfije end of the bridge over the river on the Kozane-Serfije road. The mound directly overlooks the bridge-head and is skirted on the west by the high road. The fields round are known as Emir Chaiir. In our previous examination of the mound Mr. Thompson and I found only plain hand-made prehistoric potsherds which possessed no sufficiently marked characteristics to enable us to determine to what group they belonged.

The site of Knossos was occupied more or less continuously from c. 6000 B.C. (earliest neolithic) until the Arab conquest in A.D. 828, a time-span which represents almost 70 per cent of the Holocene or post-glacial period. It therefore offers a rare opportunity for studying the longterm interaction between man and his environment at a single settlement site. At present there is insufficient data to allow comprehensive analysis of the evolution of settlement, economy, and environment at Knossos, and this paper is intended only as a preliminary step towards such a study. In part I aspects of the physical geography of the Knossos area are described, and in part II they are considered in terms of the site's resource base and location. The geomorphological history of the Kairatos valley is used to illustrate the changing relationships between man and environment during the last two millennia.

Considerable quantities of Mycenaean pottery were recovered by the late Sir Leonard Woolley from the site of Tell Atchana (Alalakh) in the Hatay province of Turkey, close to the Syrian border. This paper brings together the largely unpublished, Mycenaean pictorial pottery from the site. The Atchana material contributes examples both of standard chariot scenes and other less familiar themes to the corpus of pictorial pottery. The question of the dating of early pictorial pottery is briefly reconsidered. In addition to its artistic and chronological interest, the material from Tell Atchana also highlights the existence of not inconsiderable quantities of Mycenaean pictorial pottery in the Near East as well as in Cyprus.

Position. This tomb (Knossos Survey 5) lay about 130 metres east along the most southerly of the roads leading from the main Knossos-Herakleion road to Ayios Ioannis, and some 160 metres due south of the Late Minoan shaft-grave discovered in this area in 1950.

The tomb, although of modest size and mutilated before excavation, has more than ordinary interest from the presence in it of a gold cup, the first recorded from an excavation in Crete. The arms accompanying the single warrior buried in the part of the tomb preserved to us were by no means exceptional in point of decoration and adornment; but they represent the most complete and formidable armoury of Bronze Age weapons that has yet been found in Crete, standing comparison with such ‘royal’ collections of weapons as those from the Mycenae shaft-graves or the Dendra tholos tomb.

This paper contains a brief summary of the results of researches into the prehistory of Laconia which were conducted mainly during the years 1936–9. It is greatly regretted that a series of varied but compelling impediments has hitherto delayed a proper publication; this, however, will follow as soon as possible.

The map, Fig. 1, is taken from sheet G 13, Kalamai, of the 1/250,000 series dated June 1944. The chronological table lists the sites alphabetically under six regions. The nature of the evidence for each entry is briefly noted, entries without source reference being based on autopsy. Literary sources for the history of pre-Dorian Laconia will not be discussed here.