Part 1 describes the Mycenaean weapons from Klauss (Antheia) in Achaea: a socketed spear head and a sword of Type II.

Part 2 describes Mycenaean objects from old, clandestine excavations now in the collection of the Ayia Lavra monastery, a jug of LH IIIB-C1 date, a stirrup-jar, either end of LH IIIA or LH IIIB, and a pair of bronze depilatory tweezers.

When the British School decided to bring to an end its excavations at Sparta in the year 1910, after five campaigns, it was fully aware that the possibilities of the site were by no means exhausted. Its varied activities before the war, at Phylakopi and in Crete, and after the war at Mycenae, have formed the subjects of full reports in various volumes of the Annual from XVII (1910–11) onwards, but when Mr. Wace's tenure of the Directorship came to an end, the decision of the Committee to resume work on a site of the Classical period led to the renewal of work at Sparta forming their first choice. The fact that the new Director had taken an active part in three of the five original campaigns was an additional reason for returning there, and it was accordingly resolved to resume operations in 1924, with the Theatre as the first objective; and in hopes, moreover, of carrying out a fuller exploration of the Acropolis, and also of gaining fresh information as to the topography of ancient Sparta by extensively testing portions of the ancient city previously unexamined. The principal results of the work of the two seasons, 1924 and 1925, form the subject of the present report.

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.

The birth and childhood of the Greek male gods and heroes are themes well documented in classical Athenian art and myth. By contrast, contemporary Athenian iconography and mythology are remarkably empty of references to the birth and infancy of the female heroes and female gods, or alternatively present the newborn goddesses as adult women. This article seeks to shed light on the apparently missing childhood phase of the goddesses and heroines, by examining the evidence of fifth-century Athenian iconography in its socio-historical context. Consequently, in the case of the goddesses, it is proposed that the female child figure represented a state of being incompatible with the nature and manifestation of divinity. It is further suggested that the mythological heroines enter classical Athenian art and myth only once they have attained puberty, because it is at this point that their potential for relations with the male gains significance. And just as was the case with their mortal female counterparts, it is this capacity for interaction with the male sex that makes them of interest to society.

The principal results of the work of the first two seasons on the Acropolis were described in the Annual two years ago (xxvi. pp. 240–76), and it remains to complete the account for the two following years (1926–27). The task is fairly simple, since the main features of the stratification of the area which yielded finds of predominantly Hellenic date have been already described, and the results obtained from the other parts of the Acropolis which we explored are of much less interest and importance, and can be dismissed briefly. The Byzantine church on the eastern spur of the main summit must be reserved for a separate report.

The sequence of styles in the evolution of Late Helladic pottery is now well recognized. A sequence dating of finds is thus archaeologically possible. Absolute dating of finds, however, is another and more difficult question. Nothing Late Helladic has any absolute date of its own. We can, however, arrive at approximate absolute dates from Late Helladic pottery found in datable contexts in Egypt or from Egyptian objects found in Late Helladic deposits in Greece. But we cannot always be sure that Egyptian objects found in Greece are contemporary with the Helladic objects with which they are associated. For instance, in Tomb 518 at Mycenae, which is of L.H. I–II date, was found part of an Egyptian porphyry bowl which dates from the First or Second Dynasty. No one would for a moment believe that this Egyptian bowl and the tomb could be contemporary. There are similar cases from Asine and Knossos. It is logical that an early object can be found in a late context, but no one could ever accept that a late object can be found in an early context, unless there has been much disturbance of the stratigraphy.

The three phases of Late Helladic III pottery A, B, and C can be distinguished among themselves with reasonable certainty, although there are always examples which stand on the borderlines. We know that the later Late Helladic IIIA pottery is contemporary with the Amarna Age, because it occurred in quantity in the ruins of Akhenaten's capital. Its latest absolute date is about 1375–1350 B.C., according to the dating placed by Egyptologists on the Amarna Age. There are even a few sherds from Amarna which, if found isolated, might possibly be called L.H. IIIB. Here again another possible difficulty can be glimpsed. A borderline sherd might be called by one archaeologist A and by another B.

In Turkish geographical nomenclature certain ‘round’ numbers are regularly employed in an arbitrary sense. Most important of these are ‘a thousand and one’ (bin bir), used to express the idea of ‘countless,’ and ‘forty’ (kirk), which is similarly used for ‘numerous.’ As examples of the first may be cited the well-known ‘thousand-and-one-column’ (Bin Bir Direk) cistern at Constantinople and the ‘Thousand and one Churches’ (Bin Bir Kilisse) in Lycaonia. For the second we may instance several rivers called Kirk Getchid (‘Forty Fords’, in Greek Sarandáporos), the town Kirk Agatch (‘Forty Trees’), springs called Kirk Gueuz (‘Forty Eyes’), districts called Kirk In, Kirk Er (‘Forty Caves’) and numerous others.

Side by side with names like the foregoing, which explain themselves if we read ‘numerous’ for ‘forty,’ we find certain localities denominated simply ‘the Forty’ (Tk. Kirklar, Gr. Saránda). They are especially common in Pontus but occur also elsewhere, as e.g. in Mysia, where there are at least two villages called Kirklar, and in Caria, where the name is applied to a site with ruins of a church near the ancient Loryma and to an ancient tomb east of Knidos. Similarly mysterious are names like Kirklar Dagh (‘Mountain of the Forty,’ not ‘Forty Mountains’) which like the foregoing, imply an association with forty persons. These ‘forties’ call for explanation.

While completing a study of an unusual group of Roman Corinthian capitals from Athens, I was led to reconsider the current attribution of two members of the group, an anta and a full capital, to an Augustan propylon said to have been built in the Asklepieion. The capitals shared the same source of design and traits of technique as the series made for Hadrian's Arch and for the interior of the Olympieion. It was difficult to accept their association with an inscribed epistyle block, indubitably Augustan in date, that was said to form part of the Asklepieion propylon. Furthermore, the epistyle was too narrow (0·41 m.) to fit over the bedding surfaces of the capitals (0·70 × 0·70 m.), and there was no indication that a backing block had been used.

The ridge known as the Kephala is the middle part of the long ridge that extends from Zafer Papoura on the south to Isopata on the north. The numerous Late Minoan and Protogeometric tombs uncovered on the west slopes of this ridge suggest that there was here in all probability a Minoan Appian Way connecting Knossos both with the harbour town at the mouth of the Kairatos and with the naval station at Amnisos. Years ago Professor Marinatos pointed out to me what appears to be a clear section of the same Minoan way where the modern road from the aerodrome dips to cut through into the Karteros valley.

In December 1938 the Ephor Dr. Platon informed me of the possible existence of a Minoan tomb on this ridge, and permission was granted for me to excavate it on behalf of the British School at Athens. I was assisted by two students of the school, Mr. Vincent Desborough and Miss Vronwy Fisher (now Mrs. Hankey). Miss Fisher kept the catalogue of small finds and is responsible for the published account of them. Mr. Desborough was responsible for the planning and surveying of the tomb, and also for most of the photographs taken during the excavations. Mr. Gerald Young, then Director of the School, kindly came over and took some photographs of the tomb and the inscription (Plate 10b). The foreman was my old friend the late Emmanuel Akoumianos.

This paper sets forth the chemical analysis of a number of copper objects from Greece of the Late Bronze and Early Iron ages. The majority of these objects were picked up by me during my wanderings, and so are not exactly stratified or datable, but nevertheless may be assigned with tolerable certainty within the limits described. The collection from the Argive Heraeum was found in the temple rubbish-heaps; the pieces of determinate form are paralleled from Geometric times, so it is highly probable that the whole of this deposit is of the same date.

The oldest domestic structures at Mallia are three houses lying at the southern border of the later palace. Among them is a building which clearly was not domestic, but may have been a tower. Certain indications in the architecture of Houses A and B suggest that there was a broad road flanked by a tower which crossed the southern limit of the later palace at a slight angle in the direction, but east of, the western block of palace magazines where traces of much older structures have been found. This paper tries to show the reasons for this assumption.

Death may be the great leveller, but some families can mark the event more spectacularly than others. In an attempt to set the royal burials at Vergina into some form of mortuary context, the cremated remains from three rich, non-royal 4th-century Macedonian tombs – Nea Mihaniona II and III and Derveni Beta – were studied with an eye on both biology and mortuary practices. This investigation showed that: (i) a neonate cremated and buried with its mother can survive both events remarkably well, with important consequences for the Vergina debate; (ii) the Derveni crater contained two individuals; (iii) the Nea Mihaniona, Derveni Beta, Vergina II antechamber, Vergina III and Phoinikas (report in preparation) cremations form a homogeneous group in terms of fragment size and weight. This sets them midway between (a) their far less substantial Dark Age forebears and (b) the unique whole cremated skeleton from the main chamber of Vergina Tomb II.

About a week after my arrival at Palaikastro, Mr Tod having made preliminary investigations resulting in the discovery of human crania associated with pottery of a very early period at Hagios Nikolaos, it was suggested that I should visit the locality. The present report contains an account of the results of my examination made in accordance with that suggestion. The date was April 3rd, 1903, and some final notes were added on April 8th, 1903. The simple building dignified by the title of Hagios Nikolaos is placed about five miles inland from the shore of Grandes Bay, hidden in a perfect labyrinth of intersecting valleys and ravines. The particular glen, on the southern slope of which the church is situated, runs, generally speaking, east and west, but turns at either extremity eastwards, running first to the south and then sharply resuming an eastward direction; while the western end, the head of the valley, trends slightly to the north.

A steep ascent across a couple of fields above the church brings one to the foot of the rocks forming the southern boundary of the valley, where the familiar local structure of an easily-weathered limestone is met with at once. Thence one must scramble up among great masses of lentisk and carob, with numerous thyme and sage bushes, in the interstices of fallen boulders, till, at about sixty feet above the foot of the scarp, one arrives at a cleft which gives access (cf. Fig. 1.A), to the ‘cave’ discovered by Mr Tod.

What was the nature of the revolution in the manner of laying out a new town associated with the name of Hippodamos of Miletus? Aristotle suggests that it was simply a matter of regularity. The old way was to build irregularly, the new way to build regularly after the manner invented by Hippodamos. If this is true, how came it that the regular manner was adopted, presumably, in the first half of the fifth century? What movement of ideas brought it into favour? To what special circumstances did it constitute a response? Why had it not developed earlier as an obvious consequence, for instance, of the founding of new cities in the great age of Greek colonisation? And if the new colonial cities of the eighth, seventh and sixth centuries were not planned in a regular fashion, how were they planned?

The number of fresh inscriptions found in 1909 compares unfavourably with those of 1906 and 1908. This is hardly surprising, for the sanctuary of Orthia, which had previously yielded about one hundred different inscriptions, was known to be almost worked out as far as this class of finds was concerned, and in fact only four new texts were discovered here as the results of this year's excavations. In addition to this, the examination of the foundations of the late-Roman walls, which had yielded a plentiful crop of inscribed marbles in the three previous campaigns, was practically finished as regards the southern side, which, as being nearest to the Agora, was more likely to reward our search than the other sides. It seemed advisable, however, to continue the exploration of these walls on the eastern and northern faces, and this work was not fruitless, for, somewhat contrary to expectation, a large number of inscribed statue-bases of the Imperial age were found within a small area along the northern side of the walls.

The historiography of Venetian Greece has paid little attention to the colonial experience of Ithaca. While historians are served by extensive published documentary evidence for the administrations of the larger possessions in the region, the uncatalogued Venetian records at the state archive of Ithaca remain unstudied. The recent reopening of this archive has finally made it possible to survey its large Venetian collection and to provide an account of the role of the governors of Ithaca under Venetian rule. The seat of the governor was filled by Cephalonian nobles rather than by Venetian appointees in the manner of the larger Ionian islands. Here for the first time is presented a comprehensive list of Ithacan governors compiled from the Ithacan documents, together with further aid from research in the archives of Cephalonia and Venice. The account of the Ithacan governorship offered here aims to promote interest in the Ithacan archive of the Venetian administration and serve as a guide for future research into this neglected corner of the empire.

Two museums in the city of Liverpool have material from the Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia, Sparta: the Garstang Museum of Archaeology in the Department of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology at the University of Liverpool, and World Museum, part of National Museums Liverpool.

The artefacts from the Artemis Orthia sanctuary which are now in the collections in Liverpool represent all periods of the use of the sanctuary, between the eighth century bc and the third century ad. They comprise lead figurines and miniature vessels, both characteristic of Laconian sites, as well as other types of pottery and terracotta figurines. Large and more extravagant offerings, such as items made from ivory or bronze, are not represented. However, the range of artefacts, particularly lead figurines, is impressive, and complements the material from the sanctuary which has already been published, primarily in the volume edited by Dawkins and published in 1929. In addition, the collections include a few objects of exceptional interest, mentioned in the article with further details in the Appendix. A full listing of votive offerings from the Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia in Liverpool collections complements the article.

The study of the history of the first excavations on prehistoric Therasia in the nineteenth century, which were carried out in the context of contemporary scientific interest in the volcanic eruptions of Santorini, has led to the systematic archaeological investigation of the island from 2007 onwards. The intensive archaeological surface survey, the geological survey of the geological structure and palaeotopography of Therasia, and geophysical investigations, undertaken in conjunction with the ongoing excavation of the prehistoric settlement at the site of Panaghia Koimisis at the southern end of modern Therasia, have created the conditions for a more comprehensive approach to the archaeological landscape of the island. Based on the results from the excavation trenches in the south and south-east terraces of the Koimisis hill, which have been excavated down to the virgin soil, we present findings on the organisation, architecture and habitation phases of the Koimisis settlement. The site emerges as an important settlement located on the imposing hilltop rising on the west side of the pre-eruption Santorini caldera in the Early Bronze Age, with a long period of habitation to the end of the Middle Cycladic period, when it was definitively abandoned. The excavation of the settlement provides new information on its architecture and spatial organisation during the Early and Middle Bronze Age, completing the picture from Akrotiri, whose early phases are preserved in a piecemeal fashion under the buildings of the Late Cycladic town.

In this paper, we present findings from a field inspection of the Knossos aqueduct undertaken in 2019. A key contribution of our fieldwork was the architectural identification of the Roman channel underlying the nineteenth-century wall of the Ottoman-Egyptian aqueduct supplying Iraklio. While reuse of the Roman aqueduct in the nineteenth century was known from historical reports, the structural overlap has never been identified in the field or documented archaeologically, until now. We recorded the Roman channel lined with opus signinum running along the base of the nineteenth-century aqueduct's wall between Fundana and Spilia. Through this realisation in the field, we were able to establish diagnostic styles of masonry for both periods. Our architectural distinction between the overlaid aqueducts allowed us to integrate previously disarticulated components of the later system, like the reused Roman tunnel at Skalani and the nineteenth-century bridge at Spilia, into an integrated Ottoman-Egyptian water supply for Iraklio. As we approached Knossos from Spilia, we were also able to identify the point at which the Venetian aqueduct supplying Iraklio converged with the Roman system. Consequently, our 2019 fieldwork not only mapped the length of the Roman aqueduct supplying the city of Knossos but also that section of the nineteenth-century Ottoman-Egyptian aqueduct of Iraklio built directly over it and a shorter tract of the Venetian aqueduct of Iraklio that either ran alongside it or was, in turn, itself partially overlaid by the nineteenth-century system.

A Minoan potter's wheel is published, with the peculiar element of appliqué relief sea-shells. The object was found by chance a few years before World War II near the village of Skhinias, in the Upper Mirabello region of NE Crete, and remained unknown until now. It is the first instance of real decoration on a potter's wheel. It can be dated between MM II and LM I and could have come from Malia.