In March 1905 I went to Skyros for a week, primarily to see and photograph the Carnival masquerade described in B.S.A. vi. p. 125, by Mr. Lawson. I was there for the last of the three Sundays of Carnival, and the following Monday, when, to the scandal of the Hegoumenos of St. George of Skyros, it being the first day of Lent, the festival is at its height. Although the village sounds with the clatter of the bells of these strange figures all through Carnival, on this last Sunday the masqueraders, of whom Mr. Lawson has given an account, appear in the greatest numbers. A full set consists of three young men, disguised, one as an Old Man (γέρος) one as a Maid (κορέλλα) and one as a Frank (Φράγκος). The Frank's attire differs, but his distinctive features are a sheep-bell tied on at the waist behind, and a conch-shell to blow. He either has a cloth tied over his face, or wears a modern pasteboard mask. The κορέλλα is a boy dressed as a girl, generally with a modern mask, in the festal attire of a Skyrian bride.

In this paper I propose, not to give the history of Lesbos, for which the curious may consult well-known books; nor to offer new geographical details, for which I am not qualified; but merely to recount my impressions of the island, its scenery, products, and people; to mention such remains of antiquity as can still be seen there; and, finally, a few interesting relics of ancient custom which the people to this day observe.

In shape, the island resembles the claw of a crab; the two ends of which enclose a wide gulf. The space enclosed would be contained by a triangle, whose S., N.E., and N.W. sides are about 45, 30, and 25 miles respectively. A backbone of rocks runs round the curve, broadening at the two points into wide stretches of hill country, and sinking into a low and fertile plain round the Gulf of Kalloni. The southern claw itself contains a smaller gulf, that of Hiera.

The following inscriptions, along with a number of others which have been already published, were copied by Mr. A. J. B. Wace in the course of a visit paid to Ishekli, the site of the ancient Eumeneia, in the spring of 1903. Mr. Wace kindly handed his manuscript over to me with leave to publish any inscriptions which were still unknown. My delay in doing so is due to the fact that I had hopes of getting a copy of the closing lines of No. 2, either on a visit which I intended myself to pay to Eumeneia or through the kindness of some friend travelling in Asia Minor. This hope has not hitherto been fulfilled, and I should not feel myself justified in waiting any longer.

Whereas the 1954 tombs belonged to the House of Shields, of the two uncovered in 1955 one was within the House of Sphinxes and the other lay immediately to the west of it.

This burial does not need any lengthy description. It was found at the east end of an otherwise unfruitful trial trench dug immediately to the west of the modern road which runs along the western side of the House of Sphinxes. It consisted of the skeleton (in very poor condition) of a small child, placed on the rock. Two bronze pins lay together over the chest, and a cup was found on the rock beside the body. There was no longer any indication as to how the skeleton and the associated objects were originally protected.

The study of mediaeval, Turkish and modern Greek history now attracts considerable attention in Athens. Important works upon these periods have been recently published by Greek scholars; lectures upon Byzantine history in particular are crowded not merely by students, but also by the general public, and several newspapers make a special feature of articles by specialists on social life in the reign of Otho. In these circumstances it is fortunate that the British School has possessed since 1899 the Finlay library, to which the adjacent library of M. Gennadios, opened in April, now provides a worthy counterpart.

The Finlay library, of which I speak from some two years' work among its shelves, consists, apart from general literature and travels, mainly of four divisions: (1) books used by Finlay for the Byzantine, Trapezuntine, Frankish and Turkish periods of his history; (2) books about the War of Independence and the reign of Otho; (3) a collection of Greek newspapers; and (4) Finlay's review articles, Times' correspondence, diaries and other documents. Of these the first section is nowadays the least important. Since Finlay's death much has been published about the Byzantine, Frankish and Turkish times, and the Empire of Trebizond, which renders some of his sources inadequate or obsolete.

Among the more elaborate pieces of purely military history written by Thucydides is the section (of fourteen chapters in the Fifth Book) devoted to that Arkadian campaign of King Agis by which, in the late summer of 418 B.C., he ruined the far-reaching schemes of Alkibiades and restored the tarnished prestige of Sparta. According, to Thucydides, this fortunate achievement was due more to good luck than to good management; not in any wise is it exhibited as the reasonably forecast outcome of cunningly contrived, if somewhat delicately articulated, machinery. Something less than justice is thereby done to one of the most remarkable personages of that time. Both by Thucydides himself, and, after his example, by most modern historians, the Spartan king, in his connexion with these operations at any rate, is pilloried without further question as a bungler, and, indeed, as little better than a fool. It would seem that the time has come to ask whether that verdict is justified.

The Byzantine coinage in the twelfth century was of three kinds. There were gold nomismata, with a purchasing power which must have been a good deal greater than that of a present-day five-pound note, and also nomismata of ‘pale gold’—gold alloyed with silver—of lower value; at the other extreme there were bronze coins, smaller than a modern farthing, which were the coinage of the market-place; intermediate, but still of low value, there were coins about the size of a halfpenny, normally made of copper lightly washed with silver. The silvered bronze and the gold were not flat, as are most coins, but saucer-shaped. The reason for their unusual form is not known. Numismatists describe them as scyphate, and refer to the middle denomination in the later Byzantine system of coinage as Scyphate Bronze, to distinguish it from the petty bronze coinage. Scyphate Bronze was first struck under Alexius I (1081–1118). Substantive issues were made by John II (1118–43), and such coinage became extremely plentiful under Manuel I (1143–80) and his successors Isaac II (1185–95) and Alexius III (1195–1203). After the capture of Constantinople in the course of the Fourth Crusade, the successor-states to the Byzantine Empire at Nicaea, Salonica, and in Epirus continued to issue scyphate bronze coinage, although in much smaller quantities, until after the middle of the thirteenth century.

We must bear in mind two fundamental facts, which are basic to the theme of this paper: first, that Egypt more than any other land has influenced the Minoan-Mycenaean civilisation, and second, that the free adaptation and fusion of Egyptian motives is a typical phenomenon of Aegean art and mentality.

Something has already been written about Egyptian influence in the art of the Shaft Graves of Mycenae. I hope to show, in a forthcoming paper, that this connection is even greater, extending its influence not only in art (in just that point the influence is not great), but also and especially in material matters and in deep religious and funerary ideas. Here we will discuss a very well known and ‘curious’ object of early Mycenaean art, the gold and silver pin from the Third Shaft Grave (Fig. 1).

There are several explanations current about the origin of the triglyph. First, that the frieze of triglyph and metope started from a decorative feature of Mycenaean art and survived—invisibly to us–until eventually Doric architecture emerged. Secondly, that triglyphs are the fossilised remains of barred wooden windows, which early Greeks needed but their successors did not. Thirdly, that triglyphs are the flattened vestiges of an upper row of columns, abandoned by the timid masons of the seventh century. Fourthly, that the triglyph represents the end or a facing of the end of a wooden beam, this though in all ascertainable early instances the beams run from the course above the triglyph. Fifthly, and liable to the same objection, that the metopes were originally the ends of beams and the triglyphs bars between them. To each of these explanations—and probably to any other that has been or can be devised—there are serious objections. But since the treatment and the prominence of the orthodox triglyph give it an appearance of being an important structural member and particularly one of wood, the most popular explanation is the fourth, which derives the triglyph from the wooden beam. If this is accepted, the argument may reasonably be pushed further.

In the course of a search for tombs in the Knossos area during the spring of 1951 I noticed some large blocks of limestone masonry with curved edges that had just been removed from a newly planted vineyard, the property of Georgios Kargatzes, near the top of the hill forming the southern end of the long ridge on the northern tip of which stands the Isopata Royal Tomb. The site is about 250 metres north-west of the Zafer Papoura cemetery of Late Minoan tombs dug by Evans in 1904, and at the bottom of the slope to the west is a high bank with important Geometric tombs (Knossos Survey 15), explored by Hogarth during the first year of the excavations at Knossos in 1900.

The curving blocks, together with the situation on the top of a hill less than half a kilometre south of the Kefala tholos tomb (Knossos Survey 8), excavated by Mr. R. W. Hutchinson in 1939, immediately raised hopes that another tholos tomb might await discovery here; and the fragments of Minoan pottery everywhere on and below the surface encouraged this belief. Dr. N. Platon, Ephor of Antiquities for Crete, visited the site and granted permission for the School to make trials to discover from what the blocks came. The Director of the School, Mr. J. M. Cook, gave his sanction for the work and asked me to undertake it. The plans were drawn by Mr. Piet de Jong, then the School's Curator at Knossos; the drawings of the vases are by Miss Susan Wood.

At one time it was generally assumed, even by distinguished Byzantinists, that the Turkish conquest of Constantinople in 1453 put a sudden stop to the production of all objects of quality in the East Christian world, and that after that date Byzantine art at once degenerated into a peasant art throughout the whole of the area touched by the Turks. Recent research has, however, led to some modification of this view, and though work of the same superb quality as that produced in the great middle period of Byzantine art was not executed, we now know that in addition to painted icons, such things as embroideries, carved reliquaries, crosses of chased metal work or champlevé enamel and objects in bone or even ivory, were produced, which were by no means negligible from the artistic standpoint. Their production continued, moreover, through the sixteenth and earlier seventeenth centuries; only after that date did Christian art in Greece and the Balkans assume an essentially ‘peasant’ character. It is indeed to the sixteenth century that the greater number of painted icons that are now to be found in museums and private collections in Greece are to be assigned, and though there was much hack-work, paintings of very high quality were also produced amongst them.

Perhaps the most popular vase shape in Euboea in the fourth century was the lidded lekanis. A number of specimens, decorated with floral motives on the lid and simple leaves or linear patterns on the receptacles, may be seen in BSA lv, pls. 54–57 passim. They show considerable variety in the shape of the knobs and in the treatment of the handles, but the receptacles remain fundamentally the same. Akin to these are little bowls of similar shape, lidded, but without handles. Such are the vases of a kernos of unknown provenience in Athens with a vaguely anthropomorphic central handle consisting of a long loop surmounted by a moulded head and with small arm-like projections recalling those of a herm (Plate 1, 1). The lids of three of the four little vases are preserved, the two nearest the handle having horizontal rims, while the two outer vases both had lids with rims turning vertically down, as is shown by the one extant lid and by the flanges on both the receptacles. The knobs of the two lids with horizontal rims are of a shape similar to the stemmed foot of a cup or dish; the surviving lid with down-turned rim has a ring like the footring of a stemless cup to serve as a knob. Each kind of knob, stemmed or stemless, functioned as a foot when the lid was set upside down on the table and became a dish. The low footring knobs were not unknown in Athens, but they were commoner in Euboea. One was noticed in BSA lv. 212, no. 8 on a lid, not figured, belonging to the Bonn group of floral black-figure, which is undoubtedly of Euboean, and very probably of Chalcidian manufacture. We shall see more of them later on.

This article originated from a suggestion by Dr. Chadwick, that it would be useful to those studying the Linear B archives from Knossos to have a list of sites which archaeologists believe to have been occupied at the time of the destruction of the Palace in whose ruins the tablets were found.

An opportunity to follow up this suggestion came when the author was invited to contribute to a volume of studies in honour of Professor Doro Levi. Unfortunately the study was not finished in time, but it remains, as intended, a small offering to a senior Italian colleague.

Stone vessels represent one of the rarest artifactual categories of Neolithic Greece. Only several dozen specimens (mostly fragmentary) have been recovered from 65 sites. These objects are also some of the least studied; with few exceptions, they are known only through superficial reports. Thus, their potential to shed light on social and economic aspects of Neolithic life remains unexploited. In this article, I address this problem in two ways. First, I focus on a specific stone vase assemblage: that from the well-known site of Franchthi in the north-eastern Peloponnese. This is one of the largest assemblages and is presented here in detail. Secondly, I use the Franchthi assemblage as a point of departure to attempt a synthesis of the available information on Greek Neolithic stone vases.

This article contains epigraphically based studies which aim to bring increased order to the chronology and prosopography of Roman Sparta. It is concluded that only one occurrence of the nomen Aurelius can be assigned with any confidence to the period before the Constitutio Antoniniana. A dedication for Septimius Severus and his family is discussed. Epigraphic evidence for M. Aurelius Aristocles of Taenarum and his family is presented. An epigraphic reference to the ‘Pitanate Lochos’ recruited by Caracalla is discussed. The dating of the occasions when the god Lycurgus is attested as eponymous patronomos is discussed, when it is argued that Woodward's dating for the fourth to eleventh patronomates (c. 180–90) is some fifty to sixty years too early. The career of the champion runner P. Aelius Alcandridas is elucidated. Texts referring to the sculptor Demetrius are discussed. An account is given of priests of the imperial cult at Sparta under the Severi, fifteen priests being identified. A list of Spartan patronomoi of the third century is compiled. In an appendix a revised text of IG v. 1. 168 + 603 is proposed.

The triglyph problem which arose at the corners of a Doric building, and was held by Vitruvius to be responsible for the disuse of the Doric order in Roman times, has for many years been discussed by archaeologists. The best short explanation of the difficulties involved is probably that by Robertson. The much more complex problems which are met at a re-entrant angle in the Doric order, have, on the other hand, received little attention, for such angles do not occur in temples, the type of building which has been studied most thoroughly. They do, however, appear fairly frequently in more utilitarian buildings such as stoas and palaistras, and various treatments of them were evolved.

Between the Acropolis hill of Sparta and the northern limits of the modern town lies a stretch of level ground, the greater part of which is covered with olive trees. In the middle of this area (General Plan, K 14 and 15) are a series of four tombs, of which two found undisturbed and one empty belong to the Hellenistic age, while one, now unfortunately almost totally destroyed, appears to have had a greater antiquity. This line of tombs lies along the southern limit of what we suppose to be the site of the Agora, and is thus in the heart of the ancient town. The conspicuous ancient building known as the Tomb of Leonidas lies a short distance away, and the discovery of tombs so close to it, and of a form not greatly dissimilar, opens once more the question of its purpose.

In the spring of 1962 workmen digging the foundation shafts for the construction of a house at Atsalenio hit upon two Geometric tombs. Atsalenio is a quarter outside Heraklion, midway between the city centre and Knossos. The site of the tombs, which is the property of the contractors, D. Ritsopoulos and D. Serdherakis, lies about 100 metres to the west of the road to Knossos and about 200 metres to the north of the modern graveyard of Atsalenio. As the tombs were just outside the Knossos area of the British School, although belonging to the Geometric cemeteries of Knossos, I undertook their excavation as Epimelete of the Archaeological Service.

The site of the tombs, like most of the adjacent area, was a vineyard before building began, and the soil was cultivated to a depth of c. 0·7 m. This had destroyed the roofs of the tombs. The digging of the foundation shafts for the building had also destroyed all but the beginning of the dromos of Tomb A and had just reached the upper level of its burials before work was halted. Nearly all Tomb B, too, had been destroyed; the sherds from it were recovered for the most part from the earth thrown out by the builders.

Two vases reputedly from the village of Vrondama, located some 7km. SW of Geraki in Central Laconia, add significantly to the corpus of Laconian Dark Age pottery, since they represent both ends of the chronological spectrum. The vases are an askos and oinochoe. The askos can be dated to the very early Dark Ages, perhaps even to the transition from LH IIIC to DA, and does much to narrow the gap in Laconia between the end of IIIC and the beginning of DA. The oinochoe, on the other hand, may serve as a transition between the end of DA and the beginning of Laconian LG, for parallels, primarily from Argos, provide a general chronological framework of MG II. The oinochoe is, therefore, as important a transtitional piece for the end of Laconian DA as the askos is for the beginning.