A Survey of the Marine Style shows that we may categorize octopods and argonauts into Types A and B, according to the drawing of the suckers in their tentacles. Type A suckers enclose a dot; Type B have no dot. All the instances of Type A and Type B are displayed against a crowded Marine background.

We may further distinguish a third class (Type C) of octopods and argonauts; small compact creatures whose suckers are reduced to knobs, while the argonaut shells are no more than sketchily drawn, the striations being placed haphazardly, either vertically or horizontally. These motifs are displayed against an open background.

This article gives a first publication of two late antique statues; it discusses their archaeological context suggesting an appropriate date and tries to place them in their historical and cultural environment.

The statues of Messene are important because they represent a rare instance of two late antique statues from Achaia for the study of which a precise archaeological context is available. They were the products of a local workshop and could be dated to the first quarter of the fourth century. The two late antique statues, of an emperor (perhaps Constantine I) and of Hermes, and a third earlier one showing Artemis Laphria, were part of a late Roman sculptural assemblage. It is here argued that they all stood together in niches, inside the reception room of a wealthy town mansion. They offer a vivid insight into the taste and self-representation of the owner of the house. It is suggested that they represent a mix of contemporary political reference and traditional values of the Greco-Roman aristocracy: loyalty to the Imperial House, social status and education, euergetism, and perhaps traditional religion.

This is a true cist burial, in that the skeleton, of an infant, was placed in a stone casket. The casket is a single block of poros, roughly hollowed out until the requisite depth was reached. Its dimensions are 0·60 m. × 0·50 m., but the block is not a perfect rectangle by any means. The depth is c. 0·30 m. Underneath the block a group of seven roughly circular shallow holes and two shallow rectangular depressions are to be seen; the only explanation I can suggest for these is that it was perhaps originally intended to hollow out the block from this side. Over the casket two blocks of sandstone were placed; both have a shallow depression underneath. At the west end of the casket and closely adjoining it lay a triangular block of poros about 0·48 m. wide and 0·35 m. high (only partially visible on Plate 43). This, from the similarity of material and workmanship, seems to have had some connection with the burial. Could it have been a small unsculptured stele? The unsculptured stelai from Schliemann's Grave Circle are triangular at the top.

The burial lies partially over a wall which may have been intended as a boundary for the Prehistoric Cemetery area, thus showing that the height of the wall mentioned can have been no higher at this point at the time of this burial, and suggesting that, if in fact this is an enclosure wall, it was not felt desirable to bury the dead outside the enclosure, either in the case of this burial or in that of the Geometric cist and pithos burials, and arguing some continuity in the cult of the dead. The wall itself, so far as has yet been ascertained, cannot be later than the L.H. IIIA period, and is probably considerably earlier.

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.

The following article embodies the results of researches made by the writer at the supposed site of the Sanctuary of Poseidon at the Isthmus and of the Isthmian games. Two short campaigns of excavation upon a very small scale were made in 1932 and 1933, in the course of which many areas were tested. Mr. H. Megaw has rendered invaluable assistance by making a revised and accurate plan of Justinian's fort (the so-called temenos) and a new plan of the district which includes all the areas in which trials were made; the section dealing with the fortifications (pp. 69–79) is also his work. The writer's thanks are also due to Mr. E. J. A. Kenny, who assisted in the preparation of the western section of the large plan; fig. 9 is based on a large-scale plan also by him. A short notice of the operations undertaken in 1932 appeared in J.H.S. 52, 244, but at least one suggestion made in it has now to be abandoned in the light of the fresh evidence secured in 1933.

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.

This article present and contextualises five new inscriptions from central Crete: one from the hinterland of Gortyn, two from Knossos, and two more in all likelihood from Knossos. Internal geographical mobility from Gortyn to Knossos is illustrated by a Greek inscription from the hinterland of Gortyn. The Knossian inscriptions add new evidence for the local affairs of the Roman colony. A funerary or honorary inscription and two religious dedications – all three in Latin – give rise to new points concerning the well-attested link between Knossos and Campania. The colony's population included people, many of Campanian origin, who were already established in Crete, as well as families displaced from southern Italy in the great post-Actium settlement. The two religious dedications shed light on the city's religious practice, including a newly revealed cult of Castor, and further evidence for worship of the Egyptian gods. Oddest of all, a Greek inscription on a Doric epistyle names Trajan or Hadrian. These four inscriptions are then set into the context of linguistic choice at the colony. Epigraphic and numismatic evidence for the use of Latin and Greek in the life of the colony is analyzed on the basis of the available inscriptions, listed by category and date in an appendix.

Archaic and Classical terracotta relief plaques discovered in votive deposits in Lakonia and representing three standing females raise two questions: firstly, whether their appearance in groups of three means that they are a defined triad or is just an indication of unlimited plurality; and secondly, whether they are divine or mortal.

It is concluded that no single interpretation can be ascribed to all cases. Most triads seem to represent mortal worshippers rather than a specific divine or semi-divine triad. However, an exceptional triad flanked by snakes may represent the Erinyes. Such an interpretation would harmonize with the nature of the cult at the sanctuary in which they were dedicated—that of Alexandra (Kassandra) and Agamemnon, both murdered in Lakonia, according to a local tradition. An offering with the representation of the avenging spirits would have been very appropriate for Agamemnon and especially Kassandra, who suffered a wrongful death that was never properly avenged.

Πήλινα ανάγλυφα πλακίδια των κλασικών και αρχαϊκών χρόνων, που βρέθηκαν σε αναθηματικούς αποτέθες στη Λακωνία και απεικονίζουν τρεις ιστάμενες θηλυκές μορφές, εγείρουν δύο ερωτήματα: πρώτον, εάν η εμφάνισή τους σε ομάδες των τριών υποδηλώνει μιία καθορισμένη τριάδα ή είναι απλώς μία ένδειςη απεριόριστης πληθωρικότητας. και δεύτερον, εάν αναπαριστούν θεϊκές ή θνητές μορφές.

Συμπεραίνεται ότι δεν υπάρχει μία ερμηνεία για όλες τις περιπτώσεις. Οι περισσότερες τριάδες φαίνεται πως αναπαριστούν θνητούς λάτρεις, παρά ένα συγκεκριμένο σύνολο θεϊκών μορφών ή ημίθεων. Ωστόσο μία εξαιρετική τριάδα περιστοιχιζόμενη από φίδια ίσως απεικονίζει τις Ερινύες. Αυτή η ερμηνεία θα μπορούσε να εναρμονιστεί με τη φύση της λατρείας του ιερού, όπου ήταν αφιερωμένα τα πλακίδια, δηλαδή με το ιερό της Αλεξάνδρας (Κασσάνδρας) και του Αγαμέμνονα, που σύμφωνα με την τοπική παράδοση είχαν και οι δύο δολοφονηθεί στη Λακωνία. Ένα ανάθημα με την αναπαράσταση των εκδικούμενων πνευμάτων θα ήταν πολύ ταιριαστό για τον Αγαμέμνονα και ιδιαίτερα για την Κασσάνδρα, η οποία υπέφερε έναν άδικο θάνατο, εκδίκηση για τον οποίο δεν έλαβε ποτέ.

Remains of a recently excavated small theatre at the foot of a fortified hill, identified with Aitolian Makyneia, were studied on the basis of electronic surveying, CAD, graphical and analytical approximation techniques. This theatre, of the 4th or 3rd century BC, partly excavated on the hillside and built of large sandstone slabs, has an unusual shape, with its koilon consisting of a curvilinear wing of 14 rows of seats and an adjacent linear wing of three rows of blocks forming a single-row proedria. Geometric modelling of the theatre remains on the basis of graphical, and especially of analytical techniques, indicates that the circular wing of the koilon consists of equidistant, concentric rows of seats based on a design arc of 90° for the 1st row, with the corresponding chord normal to the linear wing. Possible poor remains of a skene were found oblique (81°) to the linear wing.

The present paper examines the quantity and function of the pottery found at the Greek Early Neolithic sites. Review of the quantitative, technological, typological, functional and contextual data suggest that Early Neolithic pottery was most probably a regular component of material culture. Thus, in contrast with the highly favoured hypothesis that Early Neolithic pots were used mainly for cult-related or socially related prospects, it is argued that pottery had, since this early period, a variety of functions. It is very probable that some vessels were used in ceremonies or were high-status objects. The majority of vessels, however, had an active role in daily life concerning the storage and transportation of supplies, the preparation of food (most probably excluding cooking) and the treatment of other raw materials.

Scientific analysis of samples takes from metal objects and metallurgical products excavated during the 1960s at Kastri on Kythera provide new evidence concerning, variously, the Aegean metals trade and metallurgy on Kythera. The samples date to the Second Palace (Neopalatial), Classical and Late Roman periods. The Bronze Age material comprises fragments of copper ingots and silver cups, neither of which metal is locally available in Kythera, and the later material relates largely to local smelting and possibly smithing of iron, whose origin is uncertain. These activities are related to preliminary information concerning the distribution at each period of metallurgical activity across the island that has been generated by the intensive surface survey of the Kythera Island Project.

Analysis of 26 oriented samples shows a clear, distinct, stable magnetic remanence in 25 of them. The magnetic carrier is probably 1 mm diameter magnetite and the remanence has thermal characteristics. On this basis, the direction of the geomagnetic field was 355.2°, 60.9° α95 = 1.7° and its intensity was 67 + 8 μT at the time when the kiln was last fired in Late Minoan IB (LMIB) times. The directional parameters are identical to those of LMIB destruction levels in central Crete and with the Minoan Plinian ash layer on Thera, but the mean direction differs from those of LMIB destruction sites in eastern Crete and those of the base surge and higher Minoan volcanic ash deposits on Thera. It is considered that the kiln was last fired at an almost identical time to the LMIB destruction levels of central Crete which appears to have occurred several years before the LMIB destruction levels in eastern Crete.

The Hieron of Athena Chalkioikos was identified and to a large extent excavated in 1907, by the late Mr. Guy Dickins, who completed the task in the following year. Accounts of these campaigns, and of the principal finds, were published by him in the Annual (xiii. pp. 137–154, and xiv. pp. 142–146, respectively). This undertaking was practically limited to the thorough exploration of the area enclosed within the wall of the Hieron (B.S.A. xiii., l.c., Fig. 1), and except for the uncovering of the south face of the south wall, and for one trial trench about twenty metres in length, running southwards from the centre of this wall, no excavation took place to the south of the Precinct, in the area contained between it and the retaining-wall of the cavea of the theatre below. As this trench had yielded a large quantity of pottery, including fine fragments of the local Geometric style, a systematic exploration of this area seemed a duty, to be undertaken without delay, when operations were resumed in 1924.

Work commenced on April 7th, 1924, and lasted until the end of the season (May 31st); in 1925, from April 13th to May 30th. The number of men employed seldom exceeded ten, though about sixteen were at work in the second half of May 1924.

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.

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.

Among the more intriguing Minoan architectural forms is the so-called ‘Minoan Hall’. It consists, at its simplest, of a light well, a fore hall, and a room (polythyron) closed off by what are known as pier-and-door partitions. The Hall was located in the residential areas of the palaces, also in some Neopalatial houses, and was usually accompanied by a ‘lustral basin’, a square sunken room reached by steps often flanked by an elaborate balustrade. A window or a platform often enabled observation within the basin from ground level.

Examples of the Hall were once known only from the Neopalatial period, but two earlier, Protopalatial, examples have been identified at Malia. The later of the two occurs in Middle Minoan II Building A in Quartier Mu. It consists of the lustral basin, a large hall with a light well, and a polythyron. The earlier example, a Minoan Hall suite in the Middle Minoan I Crypte hypostyle, consists of a unique series of five basement rooms, the first bordered by a light well, then a polythyron, followed by a relatively small, square room with a large interior window (a lustral basin?), with a benched entrance room next door. South of these rooms was a large hall at ground level, probably for groups, from which one accessed separately the first and last of the rooms underground.

Comparison of the two room groups suggests that the Crypte hypostyle example is the forerunner of the Quartier Mu group. Specifically, the latter's polythyron was, for practical reasons, set at ground level while its lustral basin, which involved chthonic connections, remained at basement level and was approached by steps. The same arrangement, but with some adjustments, was to be adapted later, in Neopalatial times, completing a long history of a social and ceremonial architectural form that may have begun as early as the Early Minoan Period.

When the British School decided to bring to an end its excavations at Sparta in the year 1910, after five campaigns, it was fully aware that the possibilities of the site were by no means exhausted. Its varied activities before the war, at Phylakopi and in Crete, and after the war at Mycenae, have formed the subjects of full reports in various volumes of the Annual from XVII (1910–11) onwards, but when Mr. Wace's tenure of the Directorship came to an end, the decision of the Committee to resume work on a site of the Classical period led to the renewal of work at Sparta forming their first choice. The fact that the new Director had taken an active part in three of the five original campaigns was an additional reason for returning there, and it was accordingly resolved to resume operations in 1924, with the Theatre as the first objective; and in hopes, moreover, of carrying out a fuller exploration of the Acropolis, and also of gaining fresh information as to the topography of ancient Sparta by extensively testing portions of the ancient city previously unexamined. The principal results of the work of the two seasons, 1924 and 1925, form the subject of the present report.

The first stone ashlar blocks of Greek architecture, those of the mid-seventh-century temples at Isthmia and Corinth, pose a problem for understanding the beginnings of Greek stone construction.1 Their peculiar feature is the presence of grooves plausibly explained as a way to move the blocks with ropes. Yet scholars disagree about how these ropes would have been used, and during what stage of construction. The first excavators of the two temples suggested that the ropes would have served to lift each block into place, and were subsequently extracted from the grooves once the block had been set against its neighbour. Later scholars dismissed this theory as both inconsistent with the evidence and technically impracticable, questioning whether lifting machines were used in Greek construction as early as the mid-seventh century. Currently, the widely accepted view holds that the crane appeared in the Greek world only in the late sixth century. An alternative hypothesis is that the grooves were cut early in the construction process so that ropes could be used to manoeuvre the blocks within the quarry. However, the ‘lifting’ theory continues to have its adherents. Clarifying the significance of these parallel grooves is thus a matter of some importance to the history of Greek construction. This article reassesses the alternative theses on the basis of a new examination of the evidence, and demonstrates that the idea that the grooves served for lifting is the most plausible. Furthermore, it argues that forerunners of the crane appeared in Greece well before the late sixth century. Finally, by examining how the blocks would have been manoeuvred into place after lifting, it contends that the grooves also served the purpose of placement, with a method anticipating the Classical period's sophisticated lever technique.

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.

Writing in the year 1817 Sir William Gell says: ‘The southern district of Maina has never been thoroughly explored by any English traveller except Leake.’ After nearly a century has elapsed this remark is still practically true. Pouqueville, Boblaye, and Le Bas have, among others, given us accounts of their travels in French. German research is represented by such names as Bursian, Curtius, Weil and Philippson, but with a single exception no account of the district has appeared in English since Leake's. The work in question was published in 1869, and is an edition of a selection from the diary kept by Lord Carnarvon on his travels in Maina and other parts of Greece, in the year 1839. References to archaeology are, however, few and far between in its pages, and it does not profess to aim at completeness, since Lord Carnarvon, who penetrated, it is true, as far as Taenarum, returned, as he went, by the track on the west coast, leaving the east coast of the peninsula unvisited.