Les travaux exécutés par le Service archéologique de l'Armée française en Macédoine ont déjà fait le sujet d'une communication adressée par M. G. Mendel à l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres.

Il a paru bon qu'un compte-rendu complété fût aussi publié par l'Annual of the British School at Athens, auprès des articles où sont exposés les résultats de même ordre obtenus par l'Armée britannique, dans les régions macédoniennes qu'elle occupait.

The allied forces landed at Salonika early in October 1915. For the first few months, which included the great retreat from Serbia, the military situation was too critical for much attention to be given to antiquities. But towards the end of the year the army of occupation settled down on its defensive lines in the neighbourhood of the town, which ran approximately from the river Galiko, near Naresh, to the sea at Stavros (PI. I.); and as trenches, gun emplacements, and dug-outs were constructed all along these lines, it soon became obvious that there were chances of interesting and valuable discoveries. In particular, the numerous mounds which are familiar to Macedonian archaeologists lent themselves readily to military purposes. I accordingly made a representation to Col. Cunliffe Owen, who was acting as Military Intelligence Officer, and a note was issued in General Orders about the end of December, ordering that all antiquities found should be reported to Headquarters, in order that they should, as soon as possible, be inspected, and, if necessary, taken over by me.

Pottery of the classical periods is poorly represented in the Salonika collection as compared with the wealth in incised and painted wares of early date. Attic red-figure is the fabric most frequently found, but always in a fragmentary or decayed condition; and where any design can be traced, it is of the roughest and latest phase of the style. There is one graceful early-Hellenistic jug, black with a gilded wreath on the shoulder; and a few indeterminate fragments represent the decorated fabrics of later date down to the glazed ware of Byzantine times.

This pottery was picked up by Mr. Blegen of the American School and myself on a low mound on the edge of the Bereketli marsh, which is the source of the Angista and other streams which water the plain of Drama. The mound is about one hundred yards south of the Drama-Kavalla road at the eighteenth kilometre, that is about two kilometres east of Philippi, nearly midway between Drama and Kavalla and at the spot where stands the great stone with the inscription to Caius Vibius, hence the name of the spot ‘Dikilitash,’ the ‘Upright Stone.’ It should be noted that all the pottery was picked up on the surface and no sort of excavation was made.

The Object of these notes is to draw attention to some ancient sites mostly within easy reach of Salonika which seem to have hitherto escaped the notice of travellers. It has been possible to make a few additions to the list of mounds published by Mr. Wace in 1915, and supplementary notes are added in a few cases-where further exploration has confirmed or modified his conclusions. A few of the mounds given in his list have been excavated with varying degrees of thoroughness, but it is to be feared that the results will not be published as a whole, and in many instances not at all.

I Here describe a few sites on the south side of the valley of the Strymon, which I noticed while stationed there in 1916–1918. All except No. 5 belong to the third type described by Wace and Thompson and consist of large, low flat-topped mounds covered with Hellenistic sherds. This part of the country was anciently inhabited by the Bisaltai.

1. At kilometre 70 on the Salonika-Serres road, about three kilometres south-west of Sakavcha, and two-and-a-half kilometres west of Makesh. Round the edges the remains of ancient walls can be easily traced; in places they are still three feet high and the same thickness with small towers at irregular intervals. Remains of house walls can be found everywhere a few feet down.

The following article owes its existence rather to the kindness of others than to any epigraphical work of my own during the period of my military service in Macedonia, and it is a pleasant duty to begin by acknowledging the courtesy and generosity with which Lieut. Commander E. A. Gardner, R.N.V.R., Captain S. Casson, General Staff, and Lieut. A. M. Woodward, Intelligence Corps, have handed over to me for publication their epigraphical materials. The extent of my indebtedness to these officers severally will be indicated below in connexion with the individual inscriptions: here I offer them a brief, but none the less sincere, assurance of my gratitude.

About eight miles south-west of Kilkish or Kukuš, on the right bank of the river Zensko, is the ruined village of Avret-Hissar. Facing the village, on the left bank of the stream, is a prominent rocky spur, rising steeply from the river and crowned by the remains of a remarkable mediaeval building.

This was correctly identified by Leake, who does not appear to have visited the site, as the castle of Γυναικόκαστρο which played a prominent part in the history of this region in the fourteenth century. As I know of no published description of it, these notes seem to be worth publication in the hopes that a fuller study of the site may be made now that exploration in this area is more feasible.

The following report is written as the result partly of observations made by individual British officers stationed at Bralo during the war, and partly of educational work on topography and archaeology undertaken by Y.M.C.A. workers who were for a time in those camps. It was drawn up at the request of the Archaeological Committee at G.H.Q., Salonika, and is now published as a possible guide in the choice of sites for further exploration for anyone who can give the time, money, and labour necessary for a more scholarly and scientific survey.

When I reached Bralo in September, 1918, I found that some four or five ancient fortified sites had been noted. Visits to these places confirmed the belief that the lines of masonry were of fourth century date and earlier; a few lectures on the topography and antiquities of ancient Doris elicited further information, while a visit paid to the camp by M. Papadakis, Ephor of Thebes, gave more precision to the investigations made by both officers and men in their spare time.

On the occasion of a journey by railway across the Caucasus and into Western Turkestan in March, 1919, I found the opportunity of making a few notes upon objects of archaeological and ethnological interest in these areas. Unfortunately it was impossible to obtain any very detailed information as to mounds and other sites; and these notes are, in consequence, hardly more than a record of things observed en route. I was not able to obtain specimens of pottery from any of the mounds here referred to.

The area dealt with is the ground in the Caucasus covered by the main railway line from Batum to Baku, and in Turkestan by the plains at the foothills of the Balkhan and Kopet Dagh ranges over which the Central Asiatic railway runs eastwards from Krasnovodsk, its Caspian terminus.

In the spring of 1917, during the blockade of Greece by the fleets of the Entente Powers, a pamphlet, of which a translation is given below, was published in Athens by one Georgios Papagiannakopoulos, describing the great miracle wrought by Saint Gerasimos on behalf of the island of Cephalonia, of which he is patron, at the expense of the admiral of a British fleet said to have then been anchored in the bay of Argostoli, the capital of the island.

Saint Gerasimos, who, like his brother Saint Dionysios of Zante, is of comparatively recent date, and Hosios (Beatus), not Hagios (Sanctus), was born of the great family of Notaras, at Trikala in the Morea, on August 15th, 1500. It is remarkable that two of the largest Ionian Islands should have chosen for their patrons modern saints sprung from great local families; for Saint Dionysios was a son of the house of Sygouros.

For over a year I had charge of a Labour Battalion of Turks in the Struma valley in Macedonia. They were chiefly recruited from two villages in the hills west of the river. In the course of conversation with them I naturally discovered a good many items of their beliefs, which I jotted down from time to time; this does not claim, however, to be a scientific record.

Most of the details were supplied to me by a young Turk named Ali Mustafa, from a small village called Cherkess Keui near the Struma. His grandfather, like so many other Circassians, had left the Caucasus after the Russo-Turkish war, and had been planted by the Government in one of the many new villages which were formed for these immigrants. This particular village was very unhealthy, and in consequence there were only three of the original families left.

The letters here published were written by Major John Finlay R.E. to his wife during his absence on active service in the Netherlands in 1799 and form part of the Finlay papers preserved with the library of his son George Finlay, the Philhellene and Historian, in the British School at Athens.

John Finlay was the eldest of the numerous family of James Finlay, merchant and manufacturer, of Argyle Street, Glasgow, and of Abigail Wharry his wife. He was born there in 1757 on September 18th, and entered Glasgow University as a student in 1770. Later he adopted the army as his profession and received his commission in the Royal Engineers on May 25th, 1790. He served in the West Indies, and among his papers are some sketches made there and dedicated to his patron the Duke of Richmond, then Master General of the Ordnance, as well as plans for attacking various places held by the enemy in America, including Buenos Ayres.

The sharp contrast which is apparent to-day between the fortunes of Smyrna and of her sister ‘Churches of Asia’ has long been brought into connection with the prophecies contained in the Revelation of S. John. While the apocalyptic messages to the other Churches are minatory or equivocal, Smyrna is favoured by the promise of a ‘crown of life’ on condition of ‘faithfulness to the end,’ a condition vaguely felt to have been fulfilled by the steadfastness under persecution of S. Polycarp and his companions in the second century of our era. Modern Smyrna is exuberantly prosperous: the other episcopal cities are either, like Ephesus, ruined and desolate, or, like Pergamus, reduced from international to purely local importance.

As a rule, it is extremely difficult to distinguish the boundary between legend and history. In the case of Lemnos, however, this difficulty does not arise chiefly owing to a lack of material, as very little is known about the early days of the island, and, as far as our knowledge goes at present, the first date in its history is B.C. 512. At this time it was still independent, and though, no doubt, Athenians lived in the island, there was no official connection between Lemnos and Athens. Athens was at war with Persia, and Darius sent Otanes, who was in command of the Persian forces on the sea coast of Asia Minor, on a punitive expedition. As a result of the invasion of Thrace and Macedonia by Megabazus, Lemnos with several of the other Aegaean islands came under the Persian rule; but the islanders did not surrender without a struggle and put up a very gallant fight.

From several passages in Herodotus it is possible to piece together a general description of the Caspian Sea which, apart from its claims to accuracy, is at least comprehensive when judged by the standards of Herodotean geography. The Caspian, says the historian, is a sea by itself without connexion with other seas. Its length is fifteen days' journey in a rowing boat, and its breadth at the broadest part is eight days' journey. Its western shores are bounded by the Caucasus and its eastern shores by vast deserts. Its southern shores form the boundary of Asia in the North.

The whole subject of Byzantine music deserves far more attention from musicians than it has yet received. The richest store-houses of Byzantine musical manuscripts are the great monastic libraries of Athos, Patmos, and Sinai. There the copying of liturgical books was an important industry in the Middle Ages, and the monasteries, being also the centres of musical study, produced standard works for their own use, besides distributing them among the leading Churches in the Christian East. Valuable collections are also kept in the National Library at Athens, the Vatican, at Grotta-Ferrata, Vienna and Paris. But there are many other libraries in different parts of Europe into which a few Byzantine musical MSS. have found their way, and in our own land a few specimens have been lying for years or centuries, neglected and unread.