Politics and research agendas have had a major role in shaping the archaeology of Crete. This article focuses on the history of research on Lyktos, one of the most important ancient cities of the island, to explore the impact of academic and non-academic factors on archaeological fieldwork. Relying on wide-ranging archival research and extending from the Renaissance to the early twenty-first century, the analysis covers the fluctuation of international scholarly interest in Lyktos, the often abortive plans for excavations by numerous British, Italian, German and Greek archaeologists, and the ways in which fascination with the ancient city relates to broader political and disciplinary history. I also synthesise the small-scale fieldwork conducted at the site and reconstruct its archaeological landscape from the Bronze Age to the Medieval period, offering several new insights in local topography and material culture. This work challenges the characterisation of Lyktos as a ‘phantom city’ and highlights the significance of the site for the archaeology of Crete.

I. 1. Rhyton (Fig. 26, Plate 54c). Ht. 0·364. Ht. incl. handle 0·405. Diam. at tip 0·104. Diam. of spout 0·02. Broken but complete; the paint is slightly worn and the rim chipped. The painting is in orange and brown, with linear decoration on the lower part of the cone and interlocking zigzags above. The lip and the outer edges of the handle are outlined. The handle is of the raised metallic type and the lip overhangs slightly; the tip of the spout is offset a little to the rear. The buff clay without slip forms the ground for the decoration.

The shape of the vase corresponds with Furumark's Type 199 (MP 71–72). The rhyton may be compared with the example from Palaikastro (Palaikastro 104 fig. 87a) and belongs to the L.M. IIIA 1 phase. For the zigzags cf. MP 182.

I. 2. Piriform Jug (Fig. 26, Plate 54a, d). Ht. 0·29. Max. diam. 0·18. Diam. of base 0·06. Broken but complete, with well preserved black and brown decoration. The base is splaying and flat. A repeated S-pattern is incised at the base of the neck moulding. The lip is cut away above the handle. Argonauts are arranged in series around the shoulder, and a fish has been painted below the base of the handle. Bands around the neck join to form a chevron at the front. The edges of the handle are outlined. The argonaut is a development of the L.M. IA type and lacks tentacles.

The British excavations at Mycenae were resumed in 1955 with research grants from the American Philosophical Society and Bollingen Foundation and contributions from the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, the British Academy, and the Seager Fund of the British School at Athens under whose aegis the excavations were conducted.

Work began on August 6th and ceased on September 7th. The next two days were spent in studying and photographing the objects found and in conveying them to the Nauplia Museum. There they were deposited in the room which Dr. Papademetriou has kindly placed at our disposal. We have taken the opportunity of equipping the room with wooden shelving to accommodate the vases and the other objects found and to store the wooden trays containing the boxes with the smaller finds.

The coarse-ware stirrup-jars presented here come from two buildings at Mycenae excavated by Alan Wace from 1950 to 1952: the House of the Wine Merchant (HWM), and the House of the Oil Merchant (HOM). Over fifty examples were found in the HWM, and twenty-seven (plus three semi-fine ones) in the HOM, and as such they comprise the largest surviving deposits of the type apart from that of the Kadmeion at Thebes (where Keramopoullos found at least 120).

Although coarse stirrup-jars have received an increasing amount of attention in the last quarter-century, nearly all of the work has focused on those bearing painted Linear B inscriptions; results of philological studies, and of scientific analyses of the clay fabric, have provided fresh evidence for the debate concerning the political and economic relations between Post-Palatial Crete and the Greek mainland. With one possible exception, none of the jars from the two Mycenae deposits is inscribed, but the evidence indicates that, as is the case with inscribed jars, many were manufactured on Crete. Many of the jars fall into distinct typological groups, with parallels from other findspots at Mycenae, and other Aegean sites. The deposits are fairly well dated, and illustrate the diversity of coarse-ware stirrup-jars in use at Mycenae in the late fourteenth to the middle of the thirteenth century B.C.

Excavations carried out by The Helike Project in the Helike plain on the south-western coast of the Gulf of Corinth, north-west Peloponnese, since 2000, have brought to light the well-preserved remains of a coastal Early Helladic (EH) II–III settlement. The site developed as a densely organised settlement during the EH II period and underwent a major architectural transformation at the beginning of the following EH III. In addition to a reorganisation of the settlement on a rectangular town grid, the outstanding feature among the buildings discovered is that of a monumental Corridor House. The newly organised building plan of the settlement was most probably associated with the rise of a new socio-economic structure at the time, including advanced technological specialisation, and possibly the establishment of administrative control within the town supporting communal interests, together with a new emphasis on the status of the private individual.

Considering EH Helike in its broader geographical context, the site's prosperity marks an exception to the widespread decline attested in the mainland settlements of the time, and links it rather with centres across the Aegean Sea and further east. In addition to similarities at the level of settlement organisation, such overseas links and contacts are conspicuously evidenced at Helike through the presence of an array of exotic, prestigious items and commodities including an outstanding depas cup of Trojan/Anatolian type, ornaments of precious metal from the east or the north and Melian obsidian tools, and by the adoption of ‘international’ fashions of life such as the ‘serve and drink’ culture and ‘potter's marks’. In this paper, we present the range of material evidence from the EH III town of Helike illustrating its various spheres of foreign contact, and discuss possible insights into the social and economic conditions that generated the town's floruit and cosmopolitanism in EH III.

This article investigates the final episodes of a long-lasting potting tradition that developed on Aegina during the Bronze Age. From c. 1400 bc, cooking pottery constituted the only class of that tradition that was still manufactured and exported in quantity. Detailed study of several settlement contexts from sites scattered along the Euboean and up to the Pagasetic Gulf dating to c. 1200 bc shows that pottery imported from Aegina became increasingly less available, whereas similar cooking pots produced in various non-Aeginetan fabrics appear at the same time. Macroscopic analysis of traces related to manufacture of such pots reveals that it followed the typical chaîne opératoire of the Aeginetan tradition, strongly suggesting that their appearance reflects technological transfer and, thus, could not be explained without taking mobility of potters into account. Following a comprehensive presentation of available evidence, we argue that potters trained in the context of the Aeginetan potting tradition produced cooking pottery in several locations along the Euboean Gulf and up to the modern city of Volos. By considering the socio-economic and political context of their activity, as well as the development of Aegina and its pottery production during the later stages of the Late Bronze Age, we are able to shed more light on potters’ motivations to move, as well as on the population and the time scale of this mobility phenomenon. It appears that it had two stages, characterised by itinerant activity followed by permanent relocation, and that it was relatively short-lived, as by c. 1150 bc Aeginetan-tradition potters become invisible in the archaeological record.

Evidence of the Minoan Linear A script in the West Magazines at Knossos is surprisingly thin. Whereas at other important Minoan sites bookkeeping is fairly well attested, and at Hagia Triadha abundantly so, nothing has appeared from Knossos. Of the few graffiti and texts on pithoi published so far, only two are well documented. The others were published by Brice after drafts by Evans. As the latest publication (1982) still relies on Evans's drafts, it seemed reasonable to assume that the pithoi had not been examined for signs since their discovery in 1900–1. In this short article the first, and still tentative, results of such a study are published.

The village of Angelona lies amongst the hills surrounding the plain of Molai, midway between the latter and Monemvasia. About half an hour east of the village is a small plateau known as Kollýri; this plateau is bounded on its south-eastern side by a revma, tributary to the greater ravine which runs down to the sea south of the ruins of Epidaurus Limera. At the head of the revma is a perpetual spring of good water, and in its neighbourhood are many traces of former human occupation; roof tiles of slightly concave section with a rough red-to-black glaze, and sherds of black-glazed and coarse red pottery are common. A few hundred yards above (west of) the spring an anta capital of poros (Fig. 1) lies on the surface; the block measures 0·82 m. in length, 0·80 in breadth and 0·23 in thickness, and is remarkable because the profile is continuous on the long side but only extends for 0·33 m. on the other. On one end there are traces of an attempt to work the profile, and on the top a series of rough toolings (dowel holes?) parallel to the breadth.

This little pot—two and a half inches high, something less across—is said to have been found in Athens (Pls. III, IV, and Figs. 1-2). It is an oil-pot of the shape now known as a round aryballos. Whether an Athenian would have called our vase an aryballos is doubtful: he would have called it a lekythos or lekythion, for an Attic vase of the same shape and period, found in an Athenian grave, bears the legend A sōpodōrou hē lēkythos, ‘the lekythos belongs to Asopodoros.“ But lekythos is a wide term, covering not only that slender vase (in its numerous varieties) to which we usually confine the word; but also the squat, stable version of the same; and the so-called protocorinthian aryballos of the seventh century; and perhaps, at a pinch, even the alabastron.

Scholars since Lethaby have tended to see the hand of one architect in three famous buildings, the Hephaisteion at Athens, the Temple of Poseidon on Cape Sounion and the Temple of Nemesis at Rhamnous. All three belong to a very widespread type, the hexastyle temple with pronaos, cella and opisthodomos. But their similarity beyond this is held to necessitate a common authorship. It has proved impossible up to now to collect and review their points of resemblance; which is perhaps one reason for the long dispute on their dating and sequence. I hope to contribute towards this much needed collation, and I believe that, as things are, it would prove useful to compare the main lines and dimensions of all three buildings.

The area over which the Tsakonian dialect is spoken lies on the east coast of the Peloponnese between the Parnon range and the sea. Its northern boundary is roughly the torrent which, rising on Parnon above Kastánitsa, flows into the sea near Ayios Andréas, its southern the torrent which, also rising on Parnon, passes through Lenídhi to the sea. A mountain range stretches along the coast from end to end of the district, reaching its highest point (1114 metres) in Mt. Sevetíla above the village of Korakovúni. Between Tyrós and Pramateftí, the seaward slopes of this range are gentle and well covered with soil. Behind these coast hills there stretches a long highland plain, known as the Palaiókhora, which, in the north, is fairly well covered with soil, but gradually rises towards the south into a region of stony grazing land, and terminates abruptly in the heights above Lenídhi. The high hill of Oríonda rises out of the Palaiókhora to the west and forms a natural centre-point of the whole district. Behind it stretching up to the bare rock of Parnon, is rough hilly country, cut here and there by ravines and offering but rare patches of cultivable land.

The fragment which I publish here by the kind permission of Dr. J. Papademetriou lies in the courtyard of the Piraeus Museum. Of its origins nothing can be said. It does not appear in the Museum inventory, and all that can be affirmed for certain is that it was already in the Museum in January 1937, when Mr. J. G. Griffith made a squeeze which is now in the Ashmolean Museum. This squeeze besides its chronological value is also helpful, in that it shows rather more than can now be read on the stone.

Fragment of Pentelic marble with left-hand edge and original rough-picked back preserved. Height: 0·352 m.; width: 0·349 m.; thickness: 0·152 m. Uninscribed left margin of 0·026 m. Uninscribed space below last line of at least 0·110 m. Cut with two chisels of 10 mm. and 6 mm., the smaller being employed for the cross-bars of epsilon, alpha, and the aspirate, the horizontal and right vertical of pi, and all three strokes of upsilon and sigma. Horizontal chequer: 0·0137 m.; vertical chequer: 0·0194 m. (Plate 51a).

These notes are for the most part devoted to questions of phonetics, dealing more with Lautlehre than with Formenlehre, and do not pretend to give a complete account of the dialect. I have thought this side of the subject most worth developing, because it is that which native collectors, excellent from the sides of lexicography and literature, are apt to neglect.

The dialect of Karpathos belongs to the south-eastern or south-Sporadic group of modern Greek dialects, which extends over Cyprus, Rhodes, Kos, Kalymnos, and other islands as far north as Chios. Its connexion with Cretan has also been recognized.

In January 1959, when a trench was being dug in order to lay a water pipe in connection with the building of an orphanage (Κέντρον βρεφῶν “Ἤ Μητέρα”) on the south edge of Ayios Ioannis between Knossos and Herakleion a sinking of the ground suggested the presence of a collapsed tomb chamber. As the site lay within the Knossos area, Dr. St. Alexiou, Ephor of Antiquities for Crete, kindly invited the School to make trials there during the course of their excavations at Knossos in the summer of 1959.

The tomb which these trials revealed proved to be Minoan, and assignable to the L.M. II period, to judge from the remains of a couple of clay vases, a stemmed goblet (A.1) and an alabastron (A.2), which had evidently belonged with the original burial or burials. The deep-cut dromos, narrow with distinctly inward leaning sides, was of a type which it is often suggested may be of Mycenaean origin. But this is disputable, and the tomb at Ayios Ioannis appears to be as early as, if not earlier than, any of the tombs with this type of dromos on the Greek mainland. At Mycenae itself tombs with dromoi like this are not attested before L.H. III. On the other hand both at Mycenae and at Knossos there are tombs with shorter dromoi whose sides lean inwards, and some of these tombs may be earlier in date. Tomb 529 at Mycenae, with a short dromos whose sides lean markedly inwards, is assignable to L.H. I–II.

Of the six following inscriptions the first is new, the other five are already known. These five are here republished because they all have some features in common with the first and appear to be worthy of fresh study.

I.: Small stele of grey marble belonging to Athanasios Dürekoglu; photographed and copied by me at Kula in June 1914. Height 66 cm.; width at top 32 cm., at bottom 42 cm.; thickness 6 cm. A clean break runs across the middle. Above the following text, which is perfectly preserved, is a sunken panel, on which are represented a pair of eyes and below these a pair of pigeons in low relief. (Plate XV, 1.)

This is one of those propitiatory monuments, found almost exclusively in Maeonia and S.W. Phrygia, which were dedicated by penitents at various sanctuaries to commemorate specific sins and the penalties inflicted by the gods.

Debla is the name of a long east-west ridge forming one of the first foothills of the White Mountains of western Crete, above the great plain west of Khania (Plate 48a). The ridge attains a height of 542 m. and the Minoan settlement lies on the summit area (Figs. 1–2, Plate 48b).

The site was first investigated in 1968 by Messrs. E. Vardhinoyannis and J. Tsiphetakis during excavations of the Hellenistic and Roman town on the Kastellos, a hill north of and well below the Debla ridge. In 1968 the site was also explored by Professor P. Faure, who published a description and illustrations. P. Warren, Mrs. Warren, and Mr. Tsiphetakis subsequently made a visit on 19 May 1970.

This paper, based on Schliemann's correspondence and on his travel diary of 1868, fills in an important gap regarding Schliemann's beginnings in archaeology. Schliemann's awakening interest in archaeological excavation is traced throughout his sojourn in Rome and Southern Italy, where Pompeii provided perhaps the decisive impetus for Schliemann's own first archaeological endeavours in Ithaca. Interesting differences between the diary and the published account of Schliemann's itinerary in Itaque, le Péloponnèse et Troie are analysed in the context of his subsequent studies in Paris that obliged him to revise many assumptions he had held uncritically during what was originally planned as a ‘pleasure trip’. The section dealing with the Troad (where the diary is summarised and excerpted at length) considers the allegations made by David Traill on Schliemann's having removed a page from the diary to hide what would have been embarrassing comments rejecting Hissarlik as the site of Troy. It will be shown that this section of the diary is complete and that Traill's account of Schliemann's movements must subsequently be rectified. Furthermore, the sources of Schliemann's information on the Troad at this specific juncture will be examined, together with his eventual adoption of the Hissarlik theory after meeting Frank Calvert at the Dardanelles. The charge of intellectual robbery leveled against Schliemann by Traill will be reconsidered.

The new Rome inherited from the old a strategic situation in the Mediterranean world that was essentially similar at the beginning of the seventh century to what it had been in the first. Persia, vetus hostis, was still a threat in the east, while in the north there was the less organized but no less persistent threat of migratory peoples pressing across the Danube. By the middle of the seventh century the Byzantine supremacy in the east Mediterranean had been destroyed, and a profound reshaping of the state had been set in train. In discussing some coins and coin hoards from the reign of Heraclius (610–41), I wish to draw attention to the place of the Aegean coastlands in the regional economy of the Byzantine Empire as it was before the Arab expansion. The revival of commerce in the provinces in the ninth century seems to have begun in the coastal cities of the Aegean: this prompts an inquiry into their importance in the sixth and seventh centuries.

The second and third decades of the seventh century were a time of disaster for the Empire, when it was attacked from both the east and the north. The Persian armies conquered Syria in 611 and thereafter were able to make incursions into western Asia Minor, on occasion reaching as far as the shores of the Bosporus. Thomas Presbyter records that they carried captives away from Rhodes, while in the same year the Slavs invaded Crete. The Miracula S. Demetrii gives a graphic account of a naval blockade of Salonica by the Slavs and mentions sea raids on the whole of Thessaly and near-by places and the Greek islands which depopulated many cities and regions. The Avars, in alliance with Slavs, Bulgars, and Gepids, besieged Constantinople itself by land and sea, while the Persians occupied Chalcedon. The records of events in the first part of the reign of Heraclius are fragmentary in the extreme, and the chronology in particular has been the subject of much debate.

In Turkish geographical nomenclature certain ‘round’ numbers are regularly employed in an arbitrary sense. Most important of these are ‘a thousand and one’ (bin bir), used to express the idea of ‘countless,’ and ‘forty’ (kirk), which is similarly used for ‘numerous.’ As examples of the first may be cited the well-known ‘thousand-and-one-column’ (Bin Bir Direk) cistern at Constantinople and the ‘Thousand and one Churches’ (Bin Bir Kilisse) in Lycaonia. For the second we may instance several rivers called Kirk Getchid (‘Forty Fords’, in Greek Sarandáporos), the town Kirk Agatch (‘Forty Trees’), springs called Kirk Gueuz (‘Forty Eyes’), districts called Kirk In, Kirk Er (‘Forty Caves’) and numerous others.

Side by side with names like the foregoing, which explain themselves if we read ‘numerous’ for ‘forty,’ we find certain localities denominated simply ‘the Forty’ (Tk. Kirklar, Gr. Saránda). They are especially common in Pontus but occur also elsewhere, as e.g. in Mysia, where there are at least two villages called Kirklar, and in Caria, where the name is applied to a site with ruins of a church near the ancient Loryma and to an ancient tomb east of Knidos. Similarly mysterious are names like Kirklar Dagh (‘Mountain of the Forty,’ not ‘Forty Mountains’) which like the foregoing, imply an association with forty persons. These ‘forties’ call for explanation.

About A.D. 400 the historian Olympiodorus, surveying the contemporary state of culture with a perhaps conventional sigh of nostalgia for a vanished silver age, wrote that “Of the other liberal arts, such as arithmetic, geometry and astronomy, there are a few remains left to our time. But of music even its fame is not known to us. We have books on musical theory but we do not understand them”. Much the same had been said by Aristoxenus some seven centuries previously, which suggests that as far as the ancient world, at least, is concerned, any attempt at reconstructing the music of Greece can never be more than hypothetical and subjective. This does not mean that valuable information cannot be sifted from ancient texts and archaeological evidence, and the number of studies cited over a 25-year period by Winnington-Ingram testifies to the continuing interest of the subject despite its intrinsic limitations.