This study publishes pottery from ten Byzantine and post-Byzantine sites in eastern Phokis between Atalanti, Elateia and Orchomenos. The pottery reveals a Middle-Byzantine revival in the area, followed by a decline during the Tourkokratia and, by the nineteenth century, a concentration of settlement into fewer, larger sites.

The author publishes 82 coins from the 1971 and 1972 excavations at the Royal Road South, Knossos. As would be expected, most of the coins are bronze, and Cretan or late Roman. There are no particular surprises, except for an Alexandrian bronze of Augustus in a hitherto apparently unpublished denomination.

The results of a surface survey of the site are described. Mikre Vigla was a small coastal settlement, occupied from EC I or II until some time in LC III (perhaps the equivalent of mid-LHIIIC). There is a minimal amount of later material, of Geometric to Frankish date. The closest external relations in the Bronze Age, as indicated by the pottery, seem to have been with Melos, and Protopalatial Crete. Apart from building remains, pottery and some domestic and other objects (two fragments of marble artefacts, obsidian, painted plaster), the finds include an important series of small terracotta figurines, unique in the Cyclades. Some of these seem to be Early Cycladic, others related to Cretan pieces, mainly of the Protopalatial period.

Of over 1000 images of birds found in sanctuaries, approximately 300 may be interpreted as water birds: they are found in sanctuaries of female rather than male deities. The cult and ritual reasons for bird offerings and representation are discussed.

A preliminary account is given of a fragmentary terracotta model for a flat-roofed, rectangular building found in a context no later than LH IIIA1 in the terrace fill of Mansion 2, at the Menelaion.

Two vases, a cup and an oinochoe, from Arkesine in south-west Amorgos are published for the first time. It is argued that both are probably Middle Protogeometric, one an import from Euboia, the other from the south-east Aegean; chemical analysis supports both attributions. Their implications for the early history of Amorgos are discussed.

Fragments of a large Black-Glazed Cup with part of an incised inscription are published. A date c. 590—570 is suggested. A second, slightly earlier cup from the Menelaion is included. The inscription refers to the cult of Zeus Messapeus attested in the sources. Discussion centres on the location of the cult-place and the origin of the cult. It is suggested that it derives from the region of Messapia in South Italy where the Spartan colony of Taras was situated.

A fragment of Mycenaean pottery with pictorial decoration probably from a deep bowl krater, a chance find picked up at Berbati and previously in a Dutch private collection has been recently deposited in the Allard Pierson Museum, Amsterdam. It depicts, partly preserved, a bird in flight. No parallels for this can be cited from Berbati, Mycenae or Tiryns, but there are similar birds on shallow bowls from Cyprus and Ras Shamra. It is suggested that the new sherd demonstrates that these pots were all made in the North East Peloponnese.

In a rescue excavation in the Demetrokali plot in the Chora of Naxos, part of a building complex, with a paved road, was discovered. Characteristic vases are presented (local imitations, and imports of Minoan types) which date the unit to the LC II period and show that Naxos at that time formed part of the network of communications with Crete and the eastern Aegean.

Two joining sherds of an East Greek ‘proto-Bird Bowl’, found in Dr Andreiomenou's excavations at Eretria, bear a three-line graffito text very similar in structure, if not in content, to that on Nestor's cup from Pithekoussai. The piece must be of approximately the same date.

This paper, based on Schliemann's correspondence and on his travel diary of 1868, fills in an important gap regarding Schliemann's beginnings in archaeology. Schliemann's awakening interest in archaeological excavation is traced throughout his sojourn in Rome and Southern Italy, where Pompeii provided perhaps the decisive impetus for Schliemann's own first archaeological endeavours in Ithaca. Interesting differences between the diary and the published account of Schliemann's itinerary in Itaque, le Péloponnèse et Troie are analysed in the context of his subsequent studies in Paris that obliged him to revise many assumptions he had held uncritically during what was originally planned as a ‘pleasure trip’. The section dealing with the Troad (where the diary is summarised and excerpted at length) considers the allegations made by David Traill on Schliemann's having removed a page from the diary to hide what would have been embarrassing comments rejecting Hissarlik as the site of Troy. It will be shown that this section of the diary is complete and that Traill's account of Schliemann's movements must subsequently be rectified. Furthermore, the sources of Schliemann's information on the Troad at this specific juncture will be examined, together with his eventual adoption of the Hissarlik theory after meeting Frank Calvert at the Dardanelles. The charge of intellectual robbery leveled against Schliemann by Traill will be reconsidered.

Apsidal and elliptical buildings are characteristic of rural societies. In Greece their tradition goes back to the late Neolithic period. Apsidal houses become common in the EH and especially the MH periods, while oval buildings do not occur as often. It is generally acknowledged that curvilinear plans went out of fashion at the end of the MH period and that they reappeared in the beginning of the EIA. This statement is fundamentally correct for rectangular constructions prevail throughout the Mycenaean era. Yet an attentive survey of LBA sites in Greece proves that curvilinear buildings were still constructed in certain regions. A rapid review of these sites could be beneficial, for it might help in elucidating some of the reasons of the resurgence of these particular building plans shortly after the final collapse of the Mycenaean civilization.

In this article three unpublished inscriptions from Keos are presented. The first inscription is a fragmentary decree from Karthaia dated in the first half of the 3rd century B.C. According to this law free women and virgins were not permitted to walk alone around the island so they can be kept safe from attack and as a result, the city would be kept quiet and peaceful, possibly because of the presence of the Ptolemaic garrison in the island during the same period. The second inscription is a new fragment which joins precisely IG XII 5, 597 from Ioulis published by Hiller in 1903. This decree dated in the 3rd century B.C. is the first direct evidence for the existence of a theatre in Ioulis. The third inscription is a dedicatory inscription dated in the second half of the 5th century B.C. from Poieessa. The archon Διοφάνης ᾿Ετεοϰλείδου member of an important family of Poieessa and already known in the prosopography of Keos is the dedicator to Hermes Prytaneios. The new element from this inscription is the epithet πρυτανεῖος applied to the name of the god.

The archaeological record from the seventh century in Attica poses acute problems of interpretation. Burial conventions and burial numbers show a sharp change at the end of the eighth century; there is discontinuity in the settlement record; activity at cult sites increases quite markedly; and the manner of artistic expression changes. Simple hypotheses which connect these changes with the birth of the polis or with political and social crisis cannot explain all these changes. One way forward may be to make the change in artistic expression central to interpretation instead of marginal.

This paper examines the fragment of a life-size marble statue of a goddess in the storerooms of the Acropolis Museum (inv. no. 13641). Both technical and stylistic considerations show that it is an original work of the mid 5th century B.C., issuing from the artistic milieu of the Parthenon. The figure was dressed in a chiton under a himation pinned on the right shoulder (diplax), following a sub-Archaic fashion current throughout the 5th century and recurrent in Archaising works of later periods. This dress is familiar from Attic red-figure vase-paintings, where it is donned by a number of deities, mainly female but male too (Apollo and Dionysos) and mortal women on festive occasions.

Apart from the Acropolis fragment, three statuary types in chiton and diplax are known from the 5th century: the Corinth/Mocenigo ‘Kore’, the Athena Albani and the Athena Hope/Farnese. The Acropolis fragment is compared to all three and found to be an independent creation, perhaps reflecting yet another large-scale prototype of the period. There follows a discussion of the iconographical type of all four figures and of the possibility that they are all Athenas, inspired by a version of the Athena Polias on the Acropolis.

Names on the Rhamnous base IG II2 3105 (with new fragments added by Petrakos, A.E. 1979 68–9) are conjoined with those on IG II2 2401. 2401 is identified as an ephebe list of Erechtheis for 333/2. The attribution of the names to the various demes is discussed. The base itself goes with the fragmentary herm, NM 313, which is thus the earliest securely dated ephebic dedication at Rhamnous. The relationship of this to other monuments is discussed. It is suggested from this, that the ephebes of 333/2 were competing in the Nemesia.

Analysis of 26 oriented samples shows a clear, distinct, stable magnetic remanence in 25 of them. The magnetic carrier is probably 1 mm diameter magnetite and the remanence has thermal characteristics. On this basis, the direction of the geomagnetic field was 355.2°, 60.9° α95 = 1.7° and its intensity was 67 + 8 μT at the time when the kiln was last fired in Late Minoan IB (LMIB) times. The directional parameters are identical to those of LMIB destruction levels in central Crete and with the Minoan Plinian ash layer on Thera, but the mean direction differs from those of LMIB destruction sites in eastern Crete and those of the base surge and higher Minoan volcanic ash deposits on Thera. It is considered that the kiln was last fired at an almost identical time to the LMIB destruction levels of central Crete which appears to have occurred several years before the LMIB destruction levels in eastern Crete.

A photograph in the Alma Tadema Collection in the library of the University of Birmingham, captioned ‘A View near Athens’ is identified rather as a general view of Olympia, taken during the second season of the German excavations, in 1876–7.

An askos (BSA 49 [1954] 222, pl. 25:111) found by R.W. Hutchinson in Tomb 2 at Khaniale Tekke near Knossos is recognized as an export from nuragic Sardinia; similar askoi are common there in the same chronological range, c. 850–680 B.C., as that represented by the Cretan context. Although other good parallels have also been found outside Sardinia, notably at Vetulonia in Etruria, the Tekke piece is the first Sardinian artefact of the Early Iron Age to be identified in the Aegean. Its presence there is related to the Phoenician element in the complex pattern of long distance trade that preceded the arrival in Italy of the first Western Greeks.