In a joint Greek-British excavation in 1993–4 on the E slope of the hill of Xeropolis, an interesting tomb complex of MH date was revealed, consisting of two chambers covered by slabs. Above the slabs was a stone-mound. The tomb complex, which had been robbed, recalls the tombs in the tumuli that are either built or in cist form. The pottery collected dates it to the MH period, but the tomb had been built on top of an EH layer. EH or LH pottery was also found in the fill of the tomb, apparently fallen from the settlement on the hill.

The paper presents the results of an intensive survey of two upland basins in eastern Crete. Following a description of the geology and topography of the area, the methods of survey, data manipulation, and pottery analysis are described. There follow catalogues of ceramic type fabrics and other finds. The results of the survey are then presented in three chronological phases (Neolithic, Bronze Age, Graeco-Roman), interpretations are suggested, and a final section provides an overview of the development of human settlement in the region. It is suggested that initial colonisation took place in the Final Neolithic but was short-lived. The basins were only reoccupied during the Protopalatial period, when both nucleated and dispersed settlements were occupied. There is no certain evidence for continued occupation after LM IIIA and the third phase of occupation did not begin until the fourth century BC. Hellenistic and Roman occupation in both nucleated settlements and farmsteads seems to have prospered over a period of eight or nine centuries.

This paper investigates the transformative effects on technology of state collapse and related major cultural transitions in the period 1200–1000 BC (Late Bronze to Iron Age). It documents and assesses a notably large, preserved metal artefact assemblage (mainly bronze) from one of the best-known Mediterranean sites of the period. This is the large mountaintop town of Karphi, recently confirmed through excavation as occupied solely at the Bronze–Iron transition. Few other contemporary Aegean settlements sharing these characteristics of size, complexity and single-period occupation have been excavated, producing a lack of comparably informative metals assemblages. This contextual interpretative study considers in-depth knowledge of the archaeology of the site and its landscape alongside the results (published and discussed in Archaeometry in 2021) of surface HH-XRF testing on the whole assemblage. The latter is preserved in similar condition throughout, offering opportunities for broad internal alloy composition profiling by the latter method, as well as limited general compositional comparison with other assemblages from the contemporary Mediterranean. Comparisons of an interregional nature are attempted through typological, technological and contextual study of the Karphi material. In considering using this range of evidence, and considering how procurement, manufacturing technology and consumption processes around bulk metals and metal artefacts changed following state collapse, the analysis dwells on and highlights signs of locally centred, agent-driven shifts in contact, cultural and economic networks. On the basis of the full range of evidence addressed, it argues that Lasithian groups made specific, informed choices about manufacture and consumption without relying on specialised manufacture and supply from other points within Crete.

This article presents the Late Minoan II–III B and the Late Helladic I–III C pottery from the 1911 excavations of J. Dawkins and J. Droop at Phylakopi on Melos.

The material from the 1911 excavations fills gaps in the corpus of pottery provided by the 1896–9 excavations and the 1974–7 excavations. It fills out our knowledge of the LH III A2 pottery and adds a considerable amount of LH III A1 and LH III C material. A small group of vessels caught in a LM I B/LH II A destruction confirms the supposition that full Marine Style was circulating together with open ground Marine Style and Alternating Style vases. The LH III C pottery adds some more parallels to the pottery from Koukounaries on Paros and also has one or two parallels to pottery from the east Aegean and pottery exported from there to the Levant.

Σε αυτό το άρθρο παρουσιάζεται η Υστερομινωική II–III B και η Υστεροελλαδική I–III Γ κεραμική από τις ανασκαφές των J. Dawkins και J. Droop το 1911 στη Φυλακωπή της Μήλου.

Το υλικό από τις ανασκαφές του 1911 συμπληρώνει τα κενά των δημοσιεύσεων της κεραμικής από τις ανασκαφικές περιόδους 1896–99 και 1974–77. Συμπληρώνει τη γνώση μας για την YE III A2 κεραμική και προστέτει μία σημαντική ποσόθητα υλικού της YE III A1 και YE III Γ. Ένας μικρός αριθμός αγγείων, που εντοπίστηκε στην YM I B / YE II A καταστροφή, επιβεβαιώνει την υπόθεση ότι ο πλήρης θαλάσσιος ρυθμός ήταν διαδεδομένος συγχρόνως με το θαλάσσιο ρυθμό επί ανοικτού βάθους και με τα αγγεία του εναλλασόμενου στυλ. H YE III Γ κεραμική προσθέτει ορισμένα ακόμη παράλληλα στην κεραμική από τις Κουκουναριές της Πάρου. Επιπλέον παρουσιάζει ένα ή δύο παράλληλα με την κεραμική του ανατολικού Αιγαίου, όπως και με την εξαγόμενη από εκεί κεραμική προς τη Συροπαλαιστίνη.

Recently there has been a revival of interest in both the historical and archaeological dimensions of the destruction of cities. The destruction of the principal settlement of a polis is one thing, the effective eradication of the political community quite another. What did it take to destroy a political community? The historical record is full of references to destructions of one polis by another in late Classical to Hellenistic times in Crete. And though not all of these destructions led to the end of the political community in question, some did, and between the Classical period (where we know of 49 poleis) and the Roman conquest of Metellus (where we know of only 24) the numbers of Cretan poleis were drastically reduced. The destruction of Praisos by Hierapytna between 145 and 140 BC (Strabo 10.4.12) was one such case. This seems to form part of a horizon of destructions (of Dreros, Apollonia and Phaistos) that took place between 200 and 140 BC. Florence Gaignerot-Driessen has demonstrated that there is a clear ritual dimension to this in the case of Dreros, a dimension indicated elsewhere by the use of the verb κατέσκαψαν. Excavations at Praisos have shed light on this question. This paper argues that, while there is no evidence for a widespread destruction by fire, there is clear evidence for the ending of Praisian sanctuaries and the forced abandonment of houses and (most intriguingly) the abandonment of large storage vessels. A particular archaeological ‘signature’ of these abandonments, evident at Dreros, Phaistos and Praisos, is the abandonment of the ‘household pithos’, which in many cases seem to be older than the houses in which they have been found. The paper also argues that these archaeological signatures of what had to be destroyed in order to eradicate a political community in turn shed light on what made this particular form of ‘citizen state’ so resilient.

Professor Wace's brilliant services to archaeology have been diffused over so wide a field that it is not difficult to cite some notable work of his in connexion with almost anything that one may oneself offer to his Festschrift. As I wish to write of a famous fifth-century bronze statue, I may gratefully remember his illuminating article on the Chatsworth head, printed in JHS LVIII (1938), 90–95.

The scope and a summary of the results of the 1962–3 excavations at Palaikastro and their relation to the earlier work of 1902–6 were set out in Part I (BSA lx (1965) 249–52). There is no call to repeat those findings here, nor has further study made it necessary to make any significant revisions.

In this article we publish the Late Minoan IB and reoccupation pottery from Block N (excavation report in PK VI. 252) and from other tests, along with an account of work undertaken in the main area of the town at Palaikastro (Roussolakkos).

As before, the excavation report was written by L. H. Sackett, while M. R. Popham contributed the sections on the L.M. pottery. We are grateful to P. M. Warren for notes on the stone objects and to V. E. G. Kenna for a note on one sealstone.

The material still awaiting final study and publication consists principally of Early and Middle Minoan pottery from Kastri, tests in Block Χ, Block Γ, and Square H3.

The excavated part of the building known as the Villa Dionysos consists of a peristyle court with rooms on three sides. The rooms have fine mosaic floors, found in a remarkable state of preservation. The excavator, Michael Gough, believed that the building was an isolated structure intended for the practice of Dionysiac cult, and he interpreted his finds in the light of this conviction. After his last season of work in 1971, his views were expressed in a short report (Catling 1972, 21–2). Gough died in 1973 having published no further details of his four seasons of work on the site and, except for some diaries and photographs, many of the records are lost. The pottery from his excavations was, however, fully published in 1983 by John Hayes, and the mosaics were published by Rebecca Sweetman in 2013. Further study of the site, together with the pottery evidence, indicates that the peristyle and its associated rooms were the public reception area of an elaborately decorated Roman domus of the second century AD, and that adjacent buildings to the south may have been the private quarters of this house. A large cistern, connected to the aqueduct, provided a copious water supply. The Dionysiac imagery of the mosaics, together with the extraordinary range of imported wine amphorae found on the premises, suggest that the owner may have prospered through the wine trade.

The σύνοδος of the μύσται and τεχνῖται of Dionysos Breiseus at Smyrna has long been known to students from several series of inscriptions. These, although defective in themselves, can be supplemented by the inscriptions of analogous associations, so that the details of the society's organisation are tolerably familiar, and for the present require no further discussion. But certain questions have not so far been decided. Such concern the origin of the god, the meaning of the epithet, and the situation of his temple at Smyrna. The present paper is an attempt to answer these questions, some new evidence having recently come to hand.

The earliest certain home of Dionysos Breiseus seems to have been Lesbos, where the name of Brisa has been known for many centuries. Homer's heroine will be recalled: Androtion knew a Lesbian promontory called Βρῆσα: the Lesbos of to-day has a hill and a village called respectively Βρίσιον and Βρίσια.

Exacavations and study at the ancient theatre of Sparta in the area of the stage building and the west parodos have revealed new evidence for the original stage arrangements of the theatre as built under G. Julius Eurykles, c. 30-20 BC. A new trench laid across the west parodos, and the reopening of trials made by H. Bulle in 1935, have confirmed beyond doubt the existence of a scenery store building (skanotheke), from which three trackways, at least two of which were certainly fitted with continuous grooved blocks, allowed a moveable stage structure to be rolled out roughly into the position later occupied by the existing second phase stage building. Within the west parodos three contiguous channelled blocks have been revealed for the north line, the middle line and two poros bedding blocks for the south line. These indicate a gauge between the outer lines of c. 6 m, within a skanotheke 9 m in width and 36 m long, the walls of which have been confirmed on the north, south and west. Bulle's 1937 hypothesis concerning a rolling stage for Sparta, which was challenged by Buckler in 1986, is therefore largely confirmed. Numerous fragments of a marble Doric columned order reused within the walls and foundations of the Flavian stage building suggest that a colonnaded façade may have fronted the moving stage area, and possibly also enclosed it at the rear.

On the north-west side of the great central cone of Mount Ossa a wide fissure runs right across the mountain from Mega Keserlì to Tságezi. On the south side of this fissure and at the base of the central cone lies the village of Spiliá, which is to be distinguished from another village of the same name near Laspochori at the eastern entrance to Tempe. To the north of the fissure rises a peak known as Pláka, which is the part of Ossa that directly overhangs Tempe. A little below the bare rocky summit of this peak, which rises to a height of at least 3,500 feet, and on its south side about an hour's walk from Spiliá, is a cave, which, though long known to the inhabitants of the district, has never before been visited by archaeologists.

The small Ionic temple that once stood on the banks of the Ilissus has now all but disappeared. Converted into a Christian church during the Turkish occupation, it was completely dismantled in 1778 to provide material for the new fortification walls of Athens. Fortunately, before its final destruction the temple was visited by the English travellers J. Stuart and N. Revett and its appearance, plan (Fig. 1), and dimensions have been preserved by their careful drawings.

Scholars were immediately reminded of these drawings when, in 1834, the remains of the Temple of Nike on the Acropolis were discovered (Fig. 2). The close relationship between the two temples and the likelihood that both were the products of the same architect, Callicrates, have since then been generally acknowledged, and a detailed study of the points of similarity has been made more recently by I. M. Shear.

This is the third and concluding report on the survey and excavations carried out on the site of the Roman Stoa at Sparta in 1988–91, following on from earlier reports in BSA 88 (1993), 219–86 and BSA 89 (1994), 377–432. It presents a catalogue and description of the most significant small finds and fragments of Byzantine wall-paintings recovered, gives a full list of coins found and their identities, and offers a detailed discussion of the environmental programme and its preliminary results. An appendix publishes the results of analysis of concrete samples from the ancient theatre at Sparta, taken during the excavations of 1992–95 (BSA 90 [1995], 435–60).

The influence of the Aegean civilisation on South Palestine can hardly be said to be appreciably felt before the latter half of the Bronze Age. At this period the Mycenaean civilisation, though already decadent, was still flourishing very vigorously in the East Mediterranean, especially in places like Rhodes and Cyprus, the latter of which chiefly concerns us here. In the case of Cyprus this is natural, since, owing to its geographical position, the island served as an intermediary between East and West, and was peopled, partly at least, by representatives of the Mycenaean civilisation—though, of course, this says nothing as to the racial affinities of the area in question—and here seemingly this civilisation lasted on later than in the actual Aegean area.

In connection with the inscription from Geraki (No. 11) published above, and the parallel inscription from Mantinea, it seems worth while to discuss two obscure points. (1) The history ot Demetrius the Fair, the father of Antigonus Doson. (2) The worship of the earlier Diadochi.

The initial stages of the excavation of the prehistoric city near the hamlet of Phylákopi in north-west Melos have been reported in previous issues of the Annual (II. and III.). The development of this exploration in its second season (1897) made it imperative that its continuation should be the principal, indeed the sole, objective of the next campaign of the School; and to that end accordingly our funds and energies were exclusively directed in the spring of 1898.

My object in the following short study is to investigate the subject of honorary statues in Greek times.

Since Stenersen's treatise, written in 1877, I know of no published work dealing specially with this subject, which is interesting from the light it throws on Greek life and political action, and since that date excavation and the discovery of inscriptions have added considerably to the material available. His work is a valuable source for the literary evidence on the question, but his subject is portrait-statues, and he confines himself to those from Athens.

A preliminary report of this tomb, dug by Bosanquet in 1902, appeared in BSA viii. 303–5, where it was termed the ‘Beehive Tomb’. This was a misleading term for what was in fact a rock-cut chamber tomb with a dromos. The contents of the tomb listed in that report were not subsequently published in full, although individual items have since been considered of sufficient importance to merit especial attention by scholars. It seems, therefore, worth while to publish all the surviving items of this interesting tomb group, and to re-examine the L.M. IIIA 2 early date assigned to it by Furumark.