The following paper was for the most part written early in 1939 and embodies the results of studies in Greece during the preceding year. Professor A. J. B. Wace, who suggested the subject to me, and to whom I am continuously indebted for encouragement and criticism, has elsewhere pointed out (notably, in collaboration with Professor Carl Biegen, in an article in Klio, 1939, 131 ff.) the need for a systematic and regional study of L.H. III pottery. The term covers wares produced over a period of at least three centuries (as long as from the reign of Charles I to the present day), and distributed over the Eastern Mediterranean from Sicily to Palestine. Within this wide range the existence of considerable variety has long been recognised, but not to any extent the nature of the variations, produced in part by the passage of time, in part by locally differing materials and traditions. This paper is an examination of what L.H. III pottery has come to light in one geographically well-defined region, Attica, and an attempt to discern the influences at work in its production, and its relation to similar pottery elsewhere.

The adoption of hoplite tactics and equipment in nearly all the more important Greek lands can be roughly dated by archaeological evidence to the first half of the seventh century and in certain areas within somewhat narrower limits. The momentous change from the essentially long-range fighting of the eighth century involved a single structural alteration in the round shield slung on a telamon which was in vogue, an alteration designed to make it afford the maximum of protection to troops in close formation so long as they stood firm; in the case of flight it became a mere encumbrance and was fairly likely to be thrown away. The change consisted in the substitution for the single central hand-grip previously in use of a central arm-band of metal (πὁρπαξ), through which the bearer thrust his arm up to the elbow, and a hand-grip (ἀντιλαβἠ), at the end of the horizontal diameter and just within the rim, which he grasped with his left hand.

The form of these vases is precise. The uniform alternation of dark and light in the decoration (which is enhanced by the use of the chequer-pattern on at least one of each pair of bowls) is punctuated at intervals by panels; in them isolated motives appear, their dark silhouettes compelling attention in fields comparatively free of filling ornament (cf. Fig. 2, lid).

Sailing into Astakos Bay, which the Navy calls Dragomesti Bay, along the S.E. coast of the Krithote Peninsula, one passes the little Church of H. Nikolaos, and then a yawning black cave-mouth in the precipice of limestone 500 ft. above (Pl. 23a), about one hour's walk from Astakos. The lowest entrance is visible above a carob tree, and nothing was discovered in the lowest cave, tested at M (see section, Fig. 1a). We climbed up a ladder to a pleasant platform in the open where there was a terracotta or so. Another ladder, with a sheer drop below and a nice fig-tree alongside (Pl. 23b), led to the real entrance. I went first; the ladder broke, but I clutched the fig-tree. The foreman had hysterics, which was our only casualty, except one malingerer on the last day, who attributed his (alleged) fever to the miasma of the Neolithic dead.

Amari is the district of Crete which lies south-west of Mount Ida. It is a hill-district, consisting mainly of the slopes of Ida and Kedros, which with its craggy sides and hundred springs is no unworthy rival to Ida. Between the two mountains lies the valley of the river Platys. Amari forms an eparchy, with thirty-nine villages, but no large centre of population. The villagers, farmers and shepherds, are an old-fashioned folk; they still maintain many of their traditional customs, dispense an open-handed hospitality, and have more than their share of the war-like virtues of the Cretans.

In the definitive publication of the Sunion site by Stais in ᾿Αρχαιολογικὴ᾿Εφημερίς 1917, 168 ff., and again in τὸ Σούνιον scant reference is made to the remains of docks and shipsheds on the promontory. They are dismissed with a few words in the text, and indicated in the most summary fashion on the plan drawn by Orlandos. This is not altogether surprising in view of the overshadowing interest of the temples and fortifications. It might have been supposed, however, that a full treatment of the walls and defences of the site would include some descriptions of the docks, and some attempt to fit them into the chronology of the fortress.

In their preface to Vol. X of the Cambridge Ancient History the editors promise that in Vol. XI will be found a ‘survey of the several provinces during the two centuries that end with the Antonines.’ The student of Roman Cyprus cannot be advised to turn to this volume, because he will there find no mention of Cyprus whatsoever, even as a word in the index. This neglect—for such, indeed, it seems—is indicative not only of the quite literal insularity of this small and in general insignificant province, but also of a long-standing and unwarranted indifference to Cypriot epigraphy. Since the profitable visit of Waddington in 1862, few epigraphists have landed in Cyprus with any higher purpose than the enjoyment of a busman's holiday; and whereas prehistory, archaeology, sculpture, coinage and the literary sources have been the subject of specialised study, the historian of Cyprus under the Empire, when he takes up the only available collection of inscriptions for his period, that still indispensable work Inscriptiones Graecae ad res Romanas pertinentes, finds there sixty-nine inscriptions only, of which several have been poorly published and some again imperfectly edited.

In BSA xli (1940–5) 45 f. Mr. D. W. S. Hunt publishes without commentary the text of a Chian inscription removed from the wall of the Kastro of Chios and now in the courtyard of the Museum of Chios. I have been working for a long time on this inscription and shall publish it shortly, together with other unpublished inscriptions of Chios.