The completion of work on this block consisted almost entirely or examining lower strata in the northern and eastern quarters. Whilst in one part of the block (26 on Plates XII. and XIII.) the rocky subsoil rises so high as to have led to the total destruction of all remains, in the immediately adjacent regions to the north and east it sinks so low as to leave some three or four metres of deposit with four clearly separate strata of walls. Plate XII. gives a plan shewing the two earlier sets, Middle Minoan and, above this, but on different lines, Late Minoan I., and Plate XIII.

The inscriptions discussed are: (i) that on the prytany monument Agora xv. 44, (ii) EM 13056, officials for the cult of Athene Pallenis, and (iii) some rock-cut horos inscriptions from the vicinity of Thiti and on Kaminia and Alepovouni. In (i) it is argued that the two additional lines calculated for the completion of column x (referring to Antiochis) were not for ‘missing’ demes but to mark off the trittyes from each other; (ii) presents a discussion of the parasitoi, identified as individuals of high status, and of the sets of archontes; (iii) are taken to refer to a new concern in Hellenistic times with the boundaries between areas of value for agriculture or grazing. The implication of these for the study of the Kleisthenic system of trittyes and demes is argued.

This article continues my observations on the temple of Poseidon published in BSA xlv (1950) 78 ff. I begin with what I have recently noticed of the architectural detailing and decoration of this temple. Zschietzschmann (AA 1929, 223 f.) noticed a painted pattern of a very unexpected design on the inner taenia of the architrave. It is a well-kept rule in Greek architecture that the decoration of a moulding should echo its profile. So a taenia of rectangular section, assuming that it needed decoration at all, should have had some sort of Greek fret (for which see below). At Sunium, however, it has the Oriental Coil, an ornament which, in any case, is oftener seen on Ionic buildings than on Doric. In Doric, indeed, it is known to have established itself in only one position, on a certain type of flat clay cornice-revetment, probably invented in Corinth, found in a primitive form, and not quite, perhaps, in its canonical position, on the temple of Artemis at Corcyra, and thereafter stereotyped on the monotonous, sub-Corinthian clay cornice-revetments churned out in Sicily during the century down to 480 B.C. At Sunium one can only suppose that the Oriental Coil brought the Doric architrave of the side ptera into greater harmony with the Ionic of the east pteron.

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.

The large find of terra-cottas made by the British School in 1901, and now in the Museum at Candia, having been handed over to me by Mr. Bosanquet for publication, I hope at some future date to give a more detailed and critical account of them. Meanwhile my object here is to give a short account of the find as a whole, dealing at greater length with only a few of the larger and more important discoveries.

This pottery was picked up by Mr. Blegen of the American School and myself on a low mound on the edge of the Bereketli marsh, which is the source of the Angista and other streams which water the plain of Drama. The mound is about one hundred yards south of the Drama-Kavalla road at the eighteenth kilometre, that is about two kilometres east of Philippi, nearly midway between Drama and Kavalla and at the spot where stands the great stone with the inscription to Caius Vibius, hence the name of the spot ‘Dikilitash,’ the ‘Upright Stone.’ It should be noted that all the pottery was picked up on the surface and no sort of excavation was made.

The cuneiform tablet from the Hittite capital Hattusa/Boğazköy, KUB XXIII. 13, reports Hittite warfare in western/north-western Asia Minor around 1240 BC, when the so-called Seha River Land fought against the Hittites and their king Tuthaliyas IV As the date of the war is contemporary with the sack of ‘Mycenaean’ Troy VI, there is a possibility that the conflict described in the tablet could have provided the historical background for the Iliad. Moreover, the etymology of the River Seha seems to be the same as that of the Scamander at Hisarlik, but the Dardanelles could also originally have had that name.

This article argues for a revision of the theories and assumed production methods used in Hellenistic and Roman mosaic glass. Knowing how glass behaved in different circumstances under differing heat processes allowed for the possibility of experimenting and demonstrating the inconsistencies in many of the accepted explanations of mosaic production. Experiments were run to test new production ideas, contrasting the findings with previously suggested production methods. The findings bring into question many of the accepted hypotheses for mosaic production. The evidence and hypotheses formed from the experiments challenge many of the traditionally held ideas for the production of this glass and reinforce the need for experimental and practice-based approaches to this type of work.

At the close of last year's Report (British School Annual, vol. ii., p. 76) it was stated that we had begun late in the season of 1896 an excavation on a site at Phylakopi, in the north-east of the island. The results then obtained were of so promising a character, that it was determined to constitute Phylakopi as the main objective of the campaign of 1897, and in fact to lay siege to the prehistoric fortress with all the forces at our disposition.

In an oracular tablet from Dodona dating to the mid-fourth century bc, a slave named Kittos inquires whether his master, Dionysios, will set him free. A roughly contemporary entry in the Athenian phialai inscriptions records Dionysios isotelēs manumitting Kittos the metalworker. This paper suggests that the individuals in both documents may be identical. Along the way, it also takes a position on a number of questions surrounding the phialai inscriptions. These inscriptions are not really inventories, I propose, nor can they be explained in terms of lawsuits unrelated to manumission. (The presence of families and children in the inscriptions is especially important in demonstrating this point.) Instead, they represent acts of manumission effectuated through dikē apostasiou prosecutions, an Athenian practice which, I believe, dates back to the 350s. It was not until the 330s, under the financial administration of Lycurgus, that the city imposed mandatory phialai dedications upon all manumissions in court, with the phialē serving as a manumission fee paid to the treasurers of Athena.

The Roman ‘Agora’ of Gytheum appears to be a large compound with an interior peristyle; its width is 52 m and its length at least 61 m. Excavations have revealed the remains of the north-east corner and a portion of the west wing. The extant architectural blocks allow the reconstruction of the colonnades. Column shafts were made of local red limestone and at least some of them were crowned with lotus-and-acanthus capitals. Three different interaxial column spacings are present. A single column must have stood on each corner of the peristyle. The style of the column capital suggests a date after the year ad 100. The entablature is almost identical, in both style and dimensions, to the one found on the Captives' Facade at Corinth. The inscription on two epistyles reveals the private dedication of an exedra to theoi Sebastoi and the city. Most probably the exedra was behind the colonnaded space; the mention of theoi Sebastoi might suggest imperial cult either in the exedra alone or both in the exedra and in the entire colonnaded compound. Quite possibly, and following A. Themos' suggestion, a large part of the colonnaded compound that is conventionally termed the ‘Agora’ can be identified with the Sebasteum/Caesareum of Gytheum; this latter structure is attested in other inscriptions from the city.

This article publishes the terracotta thymiateria (incense burners) from Olbia Pontica which represent busts of Aphrodite with Erotes on her shoulders. They were used probably in activities related to Aphrodite's cult for diffusing incense and as votives. They derive from excavations at houses, a stoa and the bothroi (sacrificial pits) at the central and western temene; they date to the period between the late third and the first half of the second centuries bc. The publication of such items coincides with ongoing research into the southern sacral precinct in Olbia dedicated to Aphrodite. This article explores the significance of the iconography of these objects and their use in cult activity related to the cult of Aphrodite at Olbia.

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.

Duncan Mackenzie's interpretation of the Phylakopi stratigraphy, which he presented in 1904 as the final chapter of the excavation report, continues to structure discussion of the site's history. Mackenzie proposed a sequence of three ‘Cities’, which are seen to correspond to EC III, MC, and LC periods of occupation respectively. This paper examines Mackenzie's interpretation in light of his own notes taken during excavation, and the results of subsequent excavations undertaken by Dawkins and Droop in 1911 and Renfrew from 1974 to 1977. It concludes that while the urban sequence at Phylakopi is probably more complex than Mackenzie appreciated, his suggestion of a three City succession is broadly correct, but that the Second City should be redated to MC–LC II, and the Third City to LC III.

Η ερμηνεία του Duncan Mackenzie για την στρωματογραφία της Φυλακωπής, που παρουσίασε το 1904 στο τελευταίο κεφάλαιο της σχετικής ανασκαφικής έκθεσης, εξακολουθεί να προκαλεί συζήτηση για θην ιστορία της τέσης. O Mackenzie πρότεινε τη διαδοχή τριών ‘Πόλεων’, οι οποίες φαίνεται ότι αντιστοιχούν στις IIK III, MK και YK περιόδους κατοίκησης. Το εν λόγω άρθρο εξετάζει την ερμηνεία του Mackenzie σύμφωνα με τις προσωπικές του σημειώσεις κατά την ανασκαφή και τα αποτελέσματα μεταγενέστερων ανασκαφικών ερευνών, που διεξήχτησαν το 1911 από τους Dawkins και Droop και την περίοδο 1974–1977 από τον Renfrew. Συμπεραίνεται ότι ενώ η διαδοχή των οικιστικών φάσεων στη Φυλακωπή είναι πιθανώς περισσότερο περίπλοκη από την αρχική εκτίμηση του Mackenzie, η πρότασή του για την ύπαρξη τριών διαδοχικών Πόλεων είναι γενικά σωστή. Ωστόσο, η Δεύτερη Πόλη θα πρέπει να επαναχρονολογηθεί στη MK–YK II και η Τρίτη στην YK III.

The first substantial corpus of developed and complex stone vases emerged on the Greek mainland in the shaft graves of Mycenae (Middle Helladic III – Late Helladic I) and was certainly, in large part, of Minoan origin. However, a Mycenaean industry appeared in the Late Helladic III period, which suggests a link with Minoan technology. Indeed, there is an extremely strong possibility that expatriate craftsmen had gradually transmitted their knowledge to local Mycenaean apprentices. A technological study of a corpus of 24 stone vases from Mycenae, dated to the Late Helladic I/II–III, enables the identification and reconstruction of the manufacturing processes and techniques involved in mainland production. It appears to be the case that a great part of the Mycenaean know-how derives from contact with Minoan craftsmanship. However, if a large number of technical elements (use of tubular drilling for the hollowing process, production of the vessels in several parts) may come from a Minoan heritage, the Mycenaeans seem to have quickly developed their own approach – with their own technological emphases, serving purely Mycenaean forms. The vase, based on separately made elements, was a Minoan approach but became properly a mainland concept, which appeared far less commonly in other regions of the eastern Mediterranean. Similarly, the single-tool approach developed for the drilling process (for hollowing the interior of the vessels and for cutting the inlay decoration of the exterior), entirely based on the use of the tubular drill, is purely a native one and is uncommon among eastern Mediterranean vessel traditions. A technological study indicates also the possible coexistence of different types of organisation in the Mycenaean workshops. Thus, the manufacturing processes used, as well as the organisation of the production, are distinct from those of other eastern Mediterranean centres, including Crete.

Excavations at the Sparta theatre were resumed in 1992: the objective was to survey it and clarify its history. Nine trenches were opened and a catalogue of architectural blocks compiled. A trench in the sw orchestra revealed two staircases; while the seats of honour, the walkway behind, and two or three rows of benches above are preserved, the remainder of the theatre was severely damaged in the 9th–13th centuries. The diazoma's foundations were revealed; below it were ten radial staircases, above seventeen. The lower cavea had thirty-one rows, the upper nineteen. At the top, rows 17–19 rested on concrete over an inner radial wall of concrete-bonded stones; there are traces of a Doric colonnade around the walkway here. The upper cavea yielded pottery suggesting an initial construction under Eurykles (c.30–20 BC); no certain evidence of an earlier theatre has been found. The stage building's architecture suggests Flavian and Severan reconstructions and later repairs. The site's use as a theatre ended c. AD 400, but finds indicate early Byzantine continuity and three later occupation phases (9th–13th centuries). Sculptures found include a statuette of Apollo or Dionysos, an Antonine female portrait (priestess?), and an important late Roman male portrait head.

This paper presents the collections history and typological characteristics of a small collection of Laconian lead figurines from the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia currently held in the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. The collection, which first belonged to Ramsay Traquair, serves as a case study for the applicability of the traditional lead figurine typology to decontextualised artefacts, demonstrating its limitations for assigning precise and accurate dates based on style without the benefit of stratigraphic and contextual evidence. The paper further attests to the value of comprehensively analysing small museum and gallery collections in order to gain more individualised understandings of the figurines within the large Laconian corpus than could be afforded upon excavation. Thus, this study helps to elucidate some of the limitations to the means by which we interpret Laconian material culture as well as to nuance our understanding of Laconian lead figurines by demonstrating the varied capability of the typology and published comparanda in dating and stylistic description.