This is the first of three articles dealing with the settlement pottery of post-Minoan Knossos, dating from the tenth to the second century B.C., and coming from the British School's excavations of 1951–61. The most prolific source of this pottery is the major excavation on both sides of the Royal Road, directed by M. S. F. Hood in 1957–61. Here the post-Minoan overlay was in places over five metres deep, and good house-deposits were recovered of the Protogeometric, late Classical, and Hellenistic periods; there is also an excellent well-deposit of late Archaic times. For the other periods, the site produced only thin and scrappy rubbish-deposits, not associated with any contemporary architecture, and therefore less well stratified. But many of the gaps in the Royal Road sequence are more effectively filled by a number of well-deposits from minor excavations on the periphery of the town. Consequently, with the sole exception of the sixth century B.C. (which is still very meagrely represented), it is now possible to get a reasonably clear picture of the domestic pottery at every stage in the life of Hellenic Knossos.

A tour round the churches of Volissos, made with Mr. J. Boardman in 1961, revealed a number of unpublished inscriptions which I am setting out here together with two known texts which we were able to review. With one exception (no. 6) they are of Roman date; with two exceptions (nos. 4 and 6) repulsive to look at. Some of them are, however, quite substantial texts and the concentration of so many documents of this same period at Volissos may be significant.

In a note on the Argive festival of the Hybristika I mentioned the diviners of Skythia as examples of that strange phenomenon familiar among many savage peoples, the magician who dresses as a woman. As the θήλεα νοῦσος has been somewhat of a crux to Herodotean scholars, I may perhaps be allowed to develop the point a little more at length.

It has usually been suggested that the θήλεα νοῦσος must be explained either as a vice, or as a bodily disease, or as a mental affliction. None of these theories, however, accounts for all the features of the evidence which we possess, and can only be tortured into conformity by the Procrustean ingenuity of the scholar. Those, for example, who explain the θήλεα νοῦσος as a vice, have further to show why those who are afflicted with it form a definite class, why they are connected especially with Askalon, and why they are magicians.

Tomb XVIII in the Gypsades cemetery, south of the Knossos Palace, was excavated by Sinclair Hood, George Huxley, and Nancy Sandars in 1955 and published in 1959.1

The main chamber contained at least 9 burials. Only a handful of objects were found associated with these burials: a small bronze bead with the skull of Skeleton II, 4 small, plain vessels with the skull of Skeleton III, silver ear-rings with Skeleton IV, a lentoid sealstone of hammered silver or meteorite with Burial VII, and a small bronze link with Burial VIII.

With the idea of drawing attention to the fact that the whole of Crete including the most westerly parts had been occupied during every phase of the Minoan Bronze Age, if not earlier in Neolithic times, I recently listed sites of those periods known to me or reported by others in the province of Khania. Between 27 and 30 April 1966, my wife and I visited two areas on the south-west coast of the island (Fig. 1) where no Bronze Age sites appear to have been noted. These were (A) west of Palaiokhora (Fig. 2), and (B) between Sfakia and Frangokastelli (Fig. 3). Two small Minoan settlements were identified near the sea in area (A), and scattered traces of Minoan occupation in (B). The pottery seemed to reflect occupation during the flourishing period of the Minoan civilization between Middle Minoan I and Late Minoan I rather than earlier or later. The most westerly site visited (A. 7) might yield to excavation an interesting picture of what a small Minoan settlement in a remote area was like. In addition to the Minoan, a number of later, Greek and Roman, sites were observed. The most important of the Roman sites is B. 7 in the middle of the plain by Frangokastelli with substantial remains of an early Christian basilica church.

Evidence for the Ptolemaic occupation of the Cycladic island of Keos in the 3rd century B.C. is both contentious and exiguous. A recent archaeological surface survey of both the territory and the polis-centre of Koressos (Ptolemaic Arsinoe, apparently the principal Egyptian foothold on the island) invites a review of relevant historical and epigraphical evidence, old and new. Contrary to some opinion, all the available evidence implies that the later Hellenistic period was not a time of material prosperity for Koressos. It is suggested that its incorporation into the Ptolemaic empire may have contributed to its demise as a city-state, and to its eventual transformation into a minor adjunct of the neighbouring polis of Ioulis.

The excavations of R. H. Lang at the Temple of Apollo in Idalion in 1868 produced the largest number of Cypro-Archaic anthropomorphic bronze statuettes so far known from a single site in Cyprus. These are published here, many for the first time, and set within the context of similar material from the island, the Levant, and the Greek world.

This article is a continuation of that published in BSA lvii. 46–74, and the same principles have been followed in editing the present series of fragments. The three sections deal with the tablets found during excavations at Knossos in 1961, two small fragments preserved in the British Museum but hitherto unrecorded, and a collection of pieces in Iraklion which had previously been overlooked or thought unworthy of publication. The new numbers assigned run from 8210 to 8332.

The system of transcription has been slightly modified to conform to the latest version of the ‘Wingspread Convention’ dated 1962 and published by Professor E. L. Bennett as a supplement to Nestor. The use of hyphens between groups of letters representing Mycenaean signs has been continued, as allowing in some cases a more accurate account to be given of the state of the text. The expansions of the abbreviated names of the ideograms will be found in the index of ideographic signs on p. 88. The comma has been used as the transcription of the word-divider, as it seems inadequate, especially in fragmentary texts, to leave it to be inferred merely from the spacing.

Located in west-central Crete, the ancient city of Eleutherna attracted considerable scholarly interest at the end of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. Drawing on largely unpublished archival information, this paper sheds light on the first archaeological explorations of the site, describing their aims, scope, vicissitudes, and results. Emphasis is given on the plans that the Italian School of Archaeology at Athens developed for Eleutherna and the excavations conducted there, first by the local ephor, E. Petrulakis, and then by the British School at Athens. The ‘discovery of Eleutherna’ is assessed with reference to the shifting scholarly agenda of Cretan archaeology in that period and its relation to major developments in the island's political history.

Η Ελεύθερνα, μια αρχαία πόλη ευρισκόμενη στο κεντρικό προς δυτικό τμήμα της Κρήτης, προσήλκυσε το έντονο ενδιαφέρον των αρχαιολόγων κατά τα τέλη του 19ου και τον πρώιμο 20ο αιώνα. Αντλώντας πληροφορίες από αδημοσίευτο κυρίως, αρχειακό υλικό, η παρούσα μελέτη επιχειρεί μια ανασύνθεση των πρώτων αρχαιολογικών ερευνών στην αρχαία πόλη, εξετάζοντας τα κίνητρα και τους στόχους τους αλλά και τις δυσκολίες και τα αποτελέσματά τους. Έμφαση δίδεται στα σχέδια της Ιταλικής Αρχαιολογικής Σχολής Αθηνών για την Ελεύθερνα, αλλά και στις ανασκαφές που διενέργησαν στη θέση πρώτα ο τοπικός έφορος αρχαιοτήτων, Ε. Πετρουλάκις, και αργότερα η Βρετανική Σχολή Αθηνών. Η «ανακάλυψη ιης Ηλεύθερνας» εξετάζεται σε σχέση με τις μεταβαλλόμενες ερευνητικές προτεραιότητες της κρητικής αρχαιολογίας της περιόδου αλλά κοα σημαντικές αλλαγές σιην πολιτική ιστορία του νησιού.

This article provides a short report on a survey of the region to the east of the ancient city of Butrint, in south-west Albania. Centred on the modern villages of Mursi and Xarra, the field survey provides information on over 80 sites (including standing monuments). Previous surveys close to Butrint have brought to light the impact of Roman Imperial colonisation on its hinterland. This new survey confirms that the density of Imperial Roman sites extends well to the east of Butrint. As in the previous surveys, pre-Roman and post-Roman sites are remarkably scarce. As a result, taking the results of the Butrint Foundation's archaeological excavations in Butrint to show the urban history of the place from the Bronze Age to the Ottoman period, the authors challenge the central theme of urban continuity and impact upon Mediterranean landscapes posited by Horden and Purcell, in The Corrupting Sea (2000). Instead, the hinterland of Butrint, on the evidence of this and previous field surveys, appears to have had intense engagement with the town in the Early Roman period following the creation of the Roman colony. Significant engagement with Butrint continued in Late Antiquity, but subsequently in the Byzantine period, as before the creation of the colony, the relationship between the town and its hinterland was limited and has left a modest impact upon the archaeological record.

The building at Toumba, Lefkandi, stands unique in its time and place. The remains of this monument are significant in terms of size and elaboration, and also on account of the way it has been reconstructed and interpreted as the ancestor of the Greek peripteral temple. The primary concern of this article is the structural evaluation of the architectural remains. In part due to the scant nature of the archaeological evidence behind the widely accepted reconstruction, the latter can be seen to have several structural shortcomings. In reassessing the structure several factors are considered, including the state of technology at the time of construction, the characteristics of the building materials employed, and the way they respond to the strains of load and the forces of nature. The process of reconciling such factors with the documented remnants of the building directs us towards a different reconstruction. It thus emerges that the building at Toumba is an implausible ancestor of Greek peripteroi, and an alternative solution without the iconic pre-peristasis is proposed here.

In 1964, in the agora at Sparta, Ch. Christou excavated part of a monumental building which is identified as the Persian Stoa. The most important find was a bronze female portrait statue, Roman in date, which is on display in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens (NM 23321). The identification of the statue as Julia Mamaea, suggested by Ch. Christou, is still prevalent, although several scholars see in the Sparta statue iconographical elements that link it with Caracalla's wife Plautilla or with Annia Faustina, Elagabalus' third wife. However, the rendering of the hairstyle provides evidence for the identification of the woman whom the statue depicts as the empress Julia Aquilia Severa, Elagabalus' second and fourth wife. The erection of a statue of Julia Aquilia Severa in the Persian Stoa is most likely connected with the imperial cult of Elagabalus and his empress in Sparta.

This methodological paper uses the measurements of the Early Iron Age Toumba building at Lefkandi to study whether a single design-unit can be detected in the data set. Cosine quantogram analysis is used in the initial analysis of the building dimensions and, in the second phase, the relevance of the obtained results is calculated by using Monte Carlo computer simulations. A statistically significant unit of c. 49 cm can be isolated, but because of the very limited number of precise dimensions, this result should only be accepted with caution. The case study demonstrates how the complex statistical problem of deriving the lengths of possibly used design-units in ancient architecture can be approached; metrological analyses can only gain from employing appropriate quantitative methods.

Recently discovered pottery from David Hogarth's 1899 excavation in the Psychro Cave is published in this study. The great majority of these vases can, on the basis of their fabric and decoration, be traced to Malia, Knossos and the Lasithi Plain. During the MM I-LM I A period most of the fine ware pottery dedicated at the Psychro came from Malia. The monumental size of the sanctuary and the large number (and the elite character) of the votives indicates that during MM I B-LM I A Psychro was the main extra-urban sanctuary for the polity centred at Malia. During LM I B-III A1/2 virtually all of the decorated vases from Psychro are Knossian. This change suggests that Mycenaean Knossos assumed control of the sanctuary during this time, and that some of these vases are those referred to in the Linear B tablet from Knossos KN. Fp 1 that lists dedications of oil sent to Dictaean Zeus.

One of a number of enigmatic depictions in the Aegean iconography of the second millennium bce is the structure painted on the south wall of the Miniature Frieze from the West House at Akrotiri, Thera. This structure covers the slope of a hill and consists of two vertical blue bands on its western edge and four horizontal blue bands, all with features indicating masonry construction. Five rows of black triangles alternate with the horizontal bands. Each triangle has a round opening in its base. Unique in Aegean iconography, it has been interpreted as a dovecote, a shipshed, a storage space, a rock-cut structure with triangular niches, a geological formation and even a stretch of land with terraces and a vineyard. In one very brief reference it has been identified with an apiary.

In line with contemporary rules of perspective, certain details suggest this structure could represent an apiary on a terraced area, protected on its western edge by a wall to windward. The triangular elements must depict the vertical-type fixed-comb woven beehives, which were in use until quite recently in Greece. A road leading from the apiary and connecting the settlement with the tripartite building at the top of the hill completes the elements needed for organised beekeeping. Similarly, there is a trapezoidal expanse of blue to the east of it which probably depicts a pond, another essential element of beekeeping. Both the extent of the area covered by the installation and the prominence of beekeeping products (indicated by chemical analysis and references on Linear B tablets) raise questions about the management of the apiary and the function of the building at the top of the hill.

This article examines Schliemann's own description of his journey through Greece and the Troad in 1868. It begins in Corfu and Kephalonia, and moves on quickly to Ithaca. The article examines Schliemann's concern with Homer in relation to his activities on these islands, as well as relating a Homeric narrative for his journey to concerns in his personal life, and picking out details emphasizing his increasing interest in archaeology. The scene moves on to Athens and Schliemann's view of modern Greece, then to the Peloponnese and his reaction to Mycenae, Tiryns and other Argolid sites. Part two concerns Schliemann's time in the Troad. It deals with the Homeric question and the location of Troy in scholarship up to 1868; an outline of Schliemann's itinerary in the Troad; Schliemann's search for Troy, including excavations at Bunarbashi; and the question of his acquaintance with Hissarlik. The views put forward differ significantly from those previously expressed in regard to the question of Hissarlik. The article concludes with two appendices, one offering extracts from Schliemann's Ithaca diary, the other extracts from his Troad diary.

The paper examines how the dromos emerged as an architectural feature in Mycenaean tombs and why it became the standard type of access device. It focuses on collective tombs with lateral entrances of LH I and transitional LH I/IIA date in mainland Greece, but considers also a number of MH tombs with side entrances. The first part discusses the architectural evidence. The second part examines permanent installations and evidence of possible ritual activities from dromoi. The third part explores the symbolic and performative aspects of dromoi. It is argued that the dromos was not an integral part of Mycenaean funerary architecture from the very beginning, but came about gradually out of a long process of experimentation, which originated in MH tumuli and was completed in late LH I or LH I/IIA tholoi and chamber tombs. This process merged different building traditions and combined practical considerations with new ritual needs arising at a period of intense social and cultural change.

The bibliography is intended as a tribute to Cook and his work, and as an aid to researchers in similar fields. Its main subdivisions reflect his interests—Asia Minor: archaeology, topography and history; Greece: archaeological and topographical studies; Attic Geometric and Protoattic pottery; Greek art (and other topics). Books, articles, and reviews are presented separately. The academic bibliography is preceded by references to material on the life of J. M. Cook, and succeeded by a list of obituary notices.

This article deals with the finds from a cist grave which is located in the bed of the River Xerias at Argos. The grave was in use during the fourth century bc for multiple burials, a usual practice for Argive cemeteries. The burials are presented in chronological order based on the interpretation of the excavation data and the chronology of the pottery. The finds from the grave reveal hitherto unknown burial practices at Argos; however, our limited knowledge on the cemeteries of the Late Classical period impedes assessment of them. The study of the vases from the tomb illuminates the otherwise unknown makeup of the local workshops in the fourth century bc, where influences from abroad coexist harmoniously alongside experimentation and novelty.