During the excavations at Mycenae in 1953, a Protogeometric cist burial was discovered in the House of Shields, sunk into the floor of its west room. This burial, numbered Tomb PG 601, was published, with other burials, in BSA XLIX 258 ff. In the summer of 1954 Professor Wace uncovered three further burials in the House of Shields. These, at his most kind invitation, I publish here.

General situation (Fig. 1). Whereas tomb PG 601 was found at the southern end of the west room of the House of Shields, these three, here numbered 602, 603, and 604, appeared in the north-western corner of this same room. Only a few feet separate the one from the others, as will be clear from the plan, and 602 and 603 seem to have been placed under the shelter of the west wall. The area had been to a certain extent disturbed, but whether there may have been further burials between 601 and this group of three I cannot tell. None was found in the excavation.

The origin of the sealstones in the British School of Archaeology at Athens is rather obscure. Although they have sometimes been referred to as the Finlay collection, this is apparently incorrect. That collection is now in the museum of the University of Manchester. Numbers 1–18 below (M30–M47 in the School's museum inventory) consist of three Minoan gems of the ‘talismanic’ type and fifteen ‘Melian’ Island gems. The combination of Island with a small admixture of Minoan gems, especially ‘talismanics’, seems to have been characteristic of material derived from Geometric tombs in the cemeteries of Trypiti, Trion Vasallon, and elsewhere on Melos during the latter part of the nineteenth and the first years of this century, in particular during the period in which the British School was excavating on the island at Phylakopi.

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.

Approach.: The subject of this talk is in one sense a rather personal one. I am venturing to say something about my own approach to History. I had the good fortune to be born just not too late to come in for the old-fashioned ‘Early Modern Western’ education in the Greek and Latin languages and literatures; the first grown-up job that I did was to teach Greek and Roman history for the School of Literae Humaniores at Oxford; and, in afterwards exploring other provinces of history, I have always found my way into them through a Greek gate. Greek history has been, for me, the key to world history.

This inscription consists of two decrees, one of which gives a certain Sthorys the Athenian citizenship, the other of which provides for a simple amendment. Despite fairly numerous editions, a number of difficulties of detail remain which seem sufficient to warrant a further discussion. In the first place, the most recent editors, Wilhelm and Meritt, while agreeing on the general substance of the text, have a number of discrepancies in their readings, though neither has provided a detailed commentary on the readings adopted. In addition, the full implications of fragment (b) have not been taken into account hitherto. Secondly, Sthorys, the recipient, is a very shadowy figure, and the precise circumstances in which he received Athenian citizenship are not altogether clear. Thirdly, the formula employed for the grant of citizenship in this decree is somewhat unusual compared with that found in other such decrees of the fifth and early fourth centuries. The purpose of this article therefore is, firstly, to provide a new text with a full critical commentary, and also to consider the physical details of the stele; secondly, to consider fully the contents of the two decrees, and in particular the status of Sthorys and the possible reasons for his honours; and finally, to discuss the formula for the grant of citizenship in this decree and in the other preserved examples of the fifth and early fourth centuries.

In 1995, the authors carried out a geophysical survey (resistivity) within the lower part of the ancient city. This trial survey successfully identified buildings and streets (including the junction of the Via Egnatia with the ‘diagonal road’). It was confirmed that the city had been planned according to two different street-grids, one respecting the Via Egnatia and the other aligned upon the ‘diagonal road’. Included is a new plan of Philippi, taking into account the evidence provided by the latest excavations.

In 1956 the Greek Archaeological Council decided that there should be no excavations at Mycenae. The Anastelosis Department was still busy with the rebuilding of the Cyclopean walls of the Citadel along the western side and along the stretch of ashlar work in conglomerate from the Lion Gate to the north-western angle. At the actual north-western angle the Cyclopean work of the northern wall of the acropolis had originally met the conglomerate work in ashlar with a straight vertical joint. This has now been obscured in the rebuilding. The Archaeological Service was also planning and preparing to put into effect various measures to protect the site from damage by the large numbers of tourists who visit it every year.

Since we were thus not able to excavate, we devoted ourselves to studying and preparing for publication the finds from the excavations of previous years in the museums at Athens and Nauplia. In Athens the Director of the National Museum, Dr. Karouzos, and his wife, Mrs. Semne Karouzou, made us very welcome and afforded us every possible facility. Mrs. Sakellariou and Mr. Papathanasopoulos, assistant curators in the museum, also gave us much friendly help. At Nauplia Mr. N. Verdeles, the Inspector of Antiquities, and Miss Protonotariou, the Epimeletes, made special arrangements for our work and gave us every support.

One might give as sub-title ‘Attic Marble: Science and Common Sense’. The names by which Greek marbles are usually known have been gravely questioned in recent years. In a very important article in the Annual for 1968, Mr. Colin Renfrew and Mr. J. Springer Peacey emphasized the need for more scientific research and further development of new methods before one could safely attach the common labels—‘Pentelic’, ‘Hymettan,’ ‘Parian,’ ‘Naxian,’ or ‘Island’. ‘Most of the attributions hitherto made’, they said, ‘and hence the various observations based on them, are not well founded’; and later, ‘If “Hymettan” merely means “finegrained grey”, and “Naxian” simply “coarse-grained white” there seems little point in using the geographic terms. Such a usage denies the hope that the origin of the various marble used for Greek sculpture may one day be better understood.’

The season of 1910 closed the excavations of the School at Sparta which were begun in 1906 under the direction of Professor Bosanquet, and, although much work remains to be done in the Museum in preparing the finds for publication, especially those from the Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia, no further excavation is contemplated. The results achieved have been regularly reported each year, and the objects discovered at the various sites have been nearly all published, with the important exception of the great mass of objects from the Orthia Sanctuary, which are so numerous that their adequate publication will require a separate book. An important series of Byzantine painted pottery and some jewellery of the same period also await publication. The nature of these previous annual reports makes it unnecessary here to do more than give the usual short summary of the year's work which is more fully described in the following sections, and again to express the thanks of the School for the continual support of the Hellenic government, which was this year again ably represented by Doctor Rhomaios.

The six ‘Geometric’ tombs excavated by D. G. Hogarth at Knossos in April 1900 are hitherto known only from his brief report in BSA 6 (1899–1900), 82–5, with massed photographs of pottery from two rich tombs. This article offers a full publication of the fifty vases from these tombs, stored in the reserves of the Herakleion Museum. Although excavation records do not survive, all the extant pottery can be assigned with reasonable certainty to individual tombs by collating various sources, including Hogarth's own personal diary. By today's terminology, only tomb 3 contains truly Geometric material, all the others date from the Subminoan and Protogeometric periods. The tombs lie along a well-known ‘Via Appia’ of Minoan times, where Early Greek families, of at least moderate wealth, made much reuse of Minoan chamber tombs. With some evidence of continuity from the latest Minoan burials in this cemetery area, Hogarth's tombs seem to form a small nucleus with origins quite independent of the main North Cemetery under the Medical Faculty site.

From the 3rd till the 26th of May a series of trial excavations was made along the river bank, north of the precinct of Artemis Orthia. These resulted in the discovery of the Greek wall of the city and of traces of an, at present, nameless Heroön close to it. The following description begins from the south. (General Plan, Pl. VII.)

The part of the wall found south-east of the Artemisium is, as far as it has at present been uncovered, of a normal type (Plate VII.). It is three metres thick, built of hewn limestone blocks laid in courses with irregular jointing. Not more than two courses are preserved, and they rest on a foundation of small stones and rough blocks. Most remarkable is the deep drain running out through the wall, which here comes obliquely from the cliff to the south, between the Roman building and the river. Where the Eurotas has eaten into the bank and destroyed part of the Roman arena, the wall also has been carried away. On the cliff (General Plan, O 16) a few trial pits produced one tile-stamp (of type 17, see p. 348), and revealed a long block of hewn rock, but the line of the fortification has still to be found here.

About 100 metres south-east of the new bridge over the Eurotas a line of large blocks can be seen in the right bank of the river running out into its bed. These are the remains of the city-wall, which originally must have made a sharp bend to the south-west, as it reappears in the field of the Heroön. But this angle, and the land which it enclosed, have been carried away by a change in the course of the river. Close to the northern arm of the angle, and abutting on the present river-bank, lies the large structure illustrated in Figs. 1 and 2. Its eastern front has long been visible, but seems to have escaped the observation of travellers. Excavation revealed at a depth of 0·70 m. below the present surface, a great platform 23·60 m. long by 6·60 m. wide and 1·90 m. high. There are four foundation courses, averaging 0·34 m. in height, of a softish crumbly stone, and a sillcourse 0·55 m. high, projecting 0·10 m. beyond the foundations. This sillcourse consists of squared and dressed blocks, which extend all round the building with a uniform breadth of 0·90 m., and vary from 1·60 m. to 2·50 m. in length. Their surface is carefully smoothed, leaving an edge on the outside, raised 0·003 m. and 0·07 to 0·08 m. wide. This careful finish, combined with the regularity of the foundation-courses, and the absence of all trace of bonding-mortar, suggests Hellenic workmanship.

I Propose here to discuss briefly the topography of the triangular district which is bounded on the west by the range of Taygetus, on the east by the sea from the mouth of the Eurotas to the Bay of Skutari, and on the north by an imaginary line drawn from the mouth of the Eurotas due west to Taygetus.

The Greek Love-god of the fifth and fourth centuries before our era may perhaps be looked upon as an amalgamation of three distinct divine entities. Eros was Love, the creative desire of nature, and as such the soul within god and man; Eros was the love-child, son of Aphrodite-Cypris; Eros was the idealisation of human beauty beloved.

In the ancient cult centres of Thespiae and Parium the god was apparently not so much the personification of human love as a great physical and elemental force of nature. As such he ranks among the three primaeval Forces in the Theogony of Hesiod, who opens with these words his tale of creation (116 ff.): ‘Verily at the first Chaos came to be, but next wide-bosomed Earth, the ever-sure foundation of all the deathless ones who hold the peaks of snowy Olympos and dim Tartaros in the wide-pathed earth, and Eros, fairest among the deathless gods, who unnerves the limbs and overcomes the mind and counsels within them of all gods and all men.’ This is apparently the Eros who figured in the earliest Orphic Theogony, concerning which A. B. Cook has collected a wealth of material. He reconstructs partially the contents, which possibly told that in the beginning was Nyx. Black-winged Nyx laid an egg from which ‘sprang golden-winged Eros. Apparently heaven and earth were regarded as the upper and lower halves of the vast egg.’

The pottery described below was picked up by Mr. Cuttle and myself on mounds, many of which have been noted by Wace or Rey (locc. citt.). We have retained their numbering, so as to avoid confusion. Of the mounds mentioned by Rey, we visited his 2, 3, 4, 5, but not 1, 6, 7, 8. Of those noted and visited by Wace we re-examined A 3, B 8, B 9 and C 9. Of those noted but not visited by him, we visited B 12, B 13, B 15. We could not identify his B 14. On B 13 we found no sherds at all, and it may be a burial tumulus, like A 3. We also collected sherds from a site (not a mound) in the hills one hour north-east of Gerakiní, shewn us by Mr. Bliss of the Anglo-Hellenic Magnesite Company at Gerakiní, and from three mounds in the Ormylia valley, marked Ormylia 1,2 2, 3 on the map (Pl. VI, 1).

The year 1906 was marked by the inception of what seems likely to be the most extensive and productive piece of work yet undertaken by the British School at Athens. We take this opportunity of expressing our thanks to the Hellenic Government and the Ephor-General of Antiquities for the liberality with which permission to undertake the excavation of this important site was accorded to us, and for the constant support given to us in all the stages of the work. Among the officials of the Department of Antiquities we are particularly indebted to Dr. Soteriades, the Ephor appointed to reside at Sparta during the excavations, and among local officials, to the Demarch, the Treasurer and the Chief Engineer, thanks to whose co-operation many difficulties and obstacles were overcome, and to Mr. G. D. Kapsales, the efficient Curator of the Museum.

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.