In this much-mutilated fragment from near the top of a decree, which S. dates to the period 370–360 B.C. on the evidence of the lettering, only five letters survive from the text proper, in (apparently) line 7, namely λεφθη for which no restoration is offered. For these it seems impossible to find any alternative to [ἐκ]λὲφθη or -θη[σαν and it may be suggested that this allusion to a theft, important enough to be recorded in a decree, might well be a sequel to the theft of sacred objects from the Parthenon by Glauketes. We know from Demosthenes that this crime was committed while he was a Treasurer (of Athena), and we also have his name recorded as Secretary to that board in the incomplete heading of the Traditio of 374/3 B.C. It is possible, therefore, that this decree recorded a resolution that he should be prosecuted on this charge, and, if so, that it was passed either in his year of office or in the following year.

The present survey, based upon work carried out in the Cyclades in 1952 and 1953 and in museums in Greece and elsewhere, is intended to offer a more comprehensive view of Cycladic archaeology than has hitherto appeared. An attempt has been made to gather together both published and unpublished material from sites which flourished during this period; interpretations of the former have been revised in the light of recent knowledge of contemporary cultures in Greece and Crete. Unpublished pottery in museums has been studied, new sites recorded, and fresh evidence collected from the sites themselves.

In 412 B.C., when the Peloponnesian War had reached its most critical stage for Athens after her Sicilian losses, Chios and Erythrae revolted from the Athenian League and appealed to Sparta for armed assistance. This was sent, despite Athenian attempts at interception, and the revolt spread up and down the Asia Minor coast. The Athenians reacted quickly, sent ships to Samos, recaptured Lesbos, and opened operations against Chios by raiding the countryside near Chios town. A hostile Chios with her war fleet constituted the major threat to Athenian interests in the East, and stronger measures, which might also provide more permanent security, were needed. Thucydides tells (viii. 38, 2) how the Athenian ships ‘crossed from Lesbos to Chios with armed force, and, in command of land and sea, fortified Delphinion, a place strong on the landward side, served by harbours, and not far distant from Chios town’.

The fine white-slipped pottery decorated in a lively East Greek style which was first found in quantity at Naucratis in Egypt was soon dubbed ‘Naucratite’ and considered the local product of Greek craftsmen. Subsequent excavations on the island of Chios showed that the same pottery and the same techniques were known there from Late Geometric times, long before the Greek settlement at Naucratis, and more recent excavations there have made the Chian character of the pottery even clearer, and have carried the story on into Hellenistic times. The pottery was promptly therefore rechristened ‘Chian’. Dissenting voices have, however, been raised in support of the theory that Chian daughter-factories in Naucratis produced fine pottery for dedication there, particularly those vases embellished with inscriptions which had been painted before their firing and which named both dedicator and deity. This factor has complicated the issue far more than the Arkesilas Vase did the similar problem of ‘Cyrenaic’ and Laconian vases, which was neatly solved by the British excavations at Sparta. But there are also other complicating factors, some of which have not been openly discussed as yet, which it is my purpose to record here.

Among the Chian inscriptions collected by G. Zolotas and published by his daughter Mme Sarou in ᾿Αθηνᾶ xx (1908) 113–281 there are a few for which Zolotas relied on readings supplied by correspondents who were less careful epigraphists than himself. One of these has now appeared in Chios Museum and deserves republication.

Chios Museum (from Aplotaria in Chios town). No inv. no. Block of blue-grey Chian marble, broken off on right and bottom left. Inscribed on front face. On the top (left) a circular cavity, with raised rim, tapering downwards to a small drainage hole, and (right) a similar but larger cavity of which only a small section is preserved. The inner surface of both is carefully dressed.

During the course of agricultural operations on the vineyard of one Kosti Psilakis, south of the Temple Tomb and on the opposite side of the Herakleion-Arkhanes road, three vases in stone and two in pottery were uncovered by the cultivator and were appropriated by the Herakleion Museum.

On 24 April 1940 Miss Vronwy Fisher (now Mrs. Hankey) and I excavated the site on behalf of the British School at Athens and uncovered a very small chamber tomb, of which most of the chamber walls and all of the dromos walls had been cut away. One or possibly two L.M. III burials had suffered severely, but the earliest burial on the inmost or western side of the chamber seems to have remained undisturbed until 1940, when Psilakis began to lay out a vineyard here.

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.

Position. This tomb (Knossos Survey 5) lay about 130 metres east along the most southerly of the roads leading from the main Knossos-Herakleion road to Ayios Ioannis, and some 160 metres due south of the Late Minoan shaft-grave discovered in this area in 1950.

The tomb, although of modest size and mutilated before excavation, has more than ordinary interest from the presence in it of a gold cup, the first recorded from an excavation in Crete. The arms accompanying the single warrior buried in the part of the tomb preserved to us were by no means exceptional in point of decoration and adornment; but they represent the most complete and formidable armoury of Bronze Age weapons that has yet been found in Crete, standing comparison with such ‘royal’ collections of weapons as those from the Mycenae shaft-graves or the Dendra tholos tomb.

The British excavations at Mycenae were resumed in 1955 with research grants from the American Philosophical Society and Bollingen Foundation and contributions from the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, the British Academy, and the Seager Fund of the British School at Athens under whose aegis the excavations were conducted.

Work began on August 6th and ceased on September 7th. The next two days were spent in studying and photographing the objects found and in conveying them to the Nauplia Museum. There they were deposited in the room which Dr. Papademetriou has kindly placed at our disposal. We have taken the opportunity of equipping the room with wooden shelving to accommodate the vases and the other objects found and to store the wooden trays containing the boxes with the smaller finds.

In the excavations at Korakou in 1915 Blegen first noted Ephyraean Ware as a definite and well-marked style of Mycenaean pottery. Its stratigraphie position places it in Late Helladic II and it is easily recognized in the pottery of that period. The characteristic shape (Fig. 1) is a one- or two-handled goblet with a short stem. Other shapes painted in what may be termed the Ephyraean manner have not yet been distinguished. The one- or two-handled goblet with a short stem is clearly in its form imitated from vessels of metal. This has been well shown by Persson. It may thus be regarded as akin to the ring-stemmed Minyan goblet and its derivatives.

Whereas the 1954 tombs belonged to the House of Shields, of the two uncovered in 1955 one was within the House of Sphinxes and the other lay immediately to the west of it.

This burial does not need any lengthy description. It was found at the east end of an otherwise unfruitful trial trench dug immediately to the west of the modern road which runs along the western side of the House of Sphinxes. It consisted of the skeleton (in very poor condition) of a small child, placed on the rock. Two bronze pins lay together over the chest, and a cup was found on the rock beside the body. There was no longer any indication as to how the skeleton and the associated objects were originally protected.

Pendlebury's account (Aegyptiaca 56, nos. 92–94) of the three so-called Egyptian amphorae from chamber tombs at Mycenae in the National Museum at Athens contains a misprint. His number 4695 should read 4569. We may add that according to the inventory this vase is from Chamber Tomb 93. The other two, nos. 2924, 2925, one of which is inscribed, are from Chamber Tomb 58.

I discuss four Linear A axe-head inscriptions. Two of them have not previously been published, one is discussed (though without a photograph) in AE 1953–4 (ii), 64 by N. K. Boufides, and one, though published by Evans in his first article on Cretan script before his excavations at Knossos (JHS xiv (1894), 280), is referred to neither in S.M. i nor by Carratelli. Its attribution to Linear A is probable but not certain.

In the summer of 1952 I visited Cibyra and the other cities of the tetrapolis, Bubon, Balbura, and Oenoanda, crossing from the last by the high pass of Girdev Gölü into Lycia; in the following year I walked from Cibyra eastwards to Lake Caralitis, Lagbe, and the interesting site at Kozaǧaci. The combined results of these journeys are presented here.

The mutilated inscription generally called the ‘Constitution of Chios’ was first discovered in the village of Tholopotami and published in 1909 by Dr. Jacobsthal and Professor U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff. The examination of the stone and the photographs and squeezes were all made under very difficult conditions, and shortly afterwards the stone disappeared from sight and record. It found its way finally into the hands of the local authorities, and, Chios being then under Turkish rule, was sent to the Archaeological Museum at Istanbul, where it remained without attracting the notice of later travellers. The inscription has been included in several collections of Greek epigraphical texts, accompanied by the short commentaries of editors who were relying on the original description and readings. I examined the stone at Istanbul in 1949, and cannot suggest a full restoration of the text, any more than did the first editors in their short but admirably comprehensive account.

This paper contains a brief summary of the results of researches into the prehistory of Laconia which were conducted mainly during the years 1936–9. It is greatly regretted that a series of varied but compelling impediments has hitherto delayed a proper publication; this, however, will follow as soon as possible.

The map, Fig. 1, is taken from sheet G 13, Kalamai, of the 1/250,000 series dated June 1944. The chronological table lists the sites alphabetically under six regions. The nature of the evidence for each entry is briefly noted, entries without source reference being based on autopsy. Literary sources for the history of pre-Dorian Laconia will not be discussed here.

First, thanks to two kindly critics, some modifications have to be made in my discussion of Attic neuter plural demes (BSA 1 (1955) 13). I should have quoted Steph. Byz. s.v. Στειριὰ . . . θηλυκῶς καὶ οὐδετὲρως to illustrate the possibility of doubt between feminine singular and neuter plural. Note that the form Στειριὰνδε given in Meineke's text is an emendation for the MS. Στειριὰδε This last is clearly wrong, but Στειριὰδε is at least as possible an emendation. The other two τοπικὰ, Στειριᾶθεν and Στειριοὶ point different ways. Since we do not know where Stephanus found them, nothing useful can be said.