When Pandaros treacherously shoots at Menelaos (Δ 132 sq.), the arrow lights—

ὅθι ζωστῆρος ὀχῆες
χρύσειοι σύνεχον καὶ διπλόος ἤντετο θώρνξ·
ἐν δ᾿ ἔπεσε ζωστῆρι ἀρηρότι πικρὸς ὀιστός·
διὰ μὲν ἂρ ζωστῆρος ἐλήλατο δαιδαλέοιο,
καὶ διὰ θώρηκος πολυδαιδάλου ἠρήρειστο
μίτρης θ᾿ ἣν ἐφόρει ἔρυμα χροός, ἕρκος ἀκόντων,
ἥ οἱ πλεῖστον ἕρυτο· διαπρὸ δὲ εἴσατο καὶ τῆς.

A little later, Menelaos says of the same wound (Δ 185-187):

οὐκ ἐν καιρίῳ ὀξὺ πάγη βέλος, ἀλλὰ πάροιθεν
εἰρύσατο ζωστήρ τε παναίολος, ἠδ᾿ ὑπένερθεν
ζῶμά τε καὶ μίτρη τὴν χαλκῆες κάμον ἄνδρες

And Machaon, after drawing the arrow out (Δ 215-6),

λῦσε δέ οἱ ζωστῆρα παναίολον, ἠδ᾿ ὑπένερθεν
ζῶμά τε καὶ μίτρην τὴν χαλκῆες κάμον ἄνδρες.

The word ζῶμα occurs again only in ξ 482, a passage which we will postpone for the moment, and in Ψ 683 of the boxer's girdle, which does not require further consideration.

Comparing the second and third of the passages quoted with the first, it seems perfectly clear that the ζῶμα was a part of the θώρηξ, and not an appendage to it. The word, in fact, stands as a passive to the active correlative ζωστήρ, and means the part of the θώρηξ which was fastened down by the girdle. It is quite clear from the oldest vase paintings that the lower part of the θώρηξ was bent outwards into a sort of ridge all round, in order to make a hollow which should be capable of holding the ζωστηρ in its place. This is very well shown in the woodcut, which is taken from Conze's Melische Thongefässe, Leipzig, 1877. The is expressed by the parallel lines at the bottom of the thorax; this is clear from the Kameiros pinax, where the lines are diagonal, and therefore do not indicate anything in the nature of such a πτερύγιον as we shall presently have to discuss.

Last year was not remarkable for any sensational archaeological discovery in Greece, but much good work was done, and the amount that was accomplished by the Greek authorities in spite of the interruption of the Balkan War is very creditable to their zeal and enthusiasm. It is perhaps fitting to offer them the congratulations of all interested in Greek archaeology on the amount of new ground that is now available for scientific study.

In the minds of those who have known Athens in past years this season will perhaps be best remembered as the first after the definite retirement of Dr. Dörpfeld from his position as First Secretary of the Imperial German Institute in Athens. It is hard to estimate what his loss means not archaeologically only but also socially to Athens and to the students who go there, but happily through his work in Corfu his connexion with Greece is not yet severed.

[The Honorary Secretaries of the Egypt Exploration have handed us for publication the following summary, drawn up by Mr. Petrie, of the results of his year's excavation at Nebireh. It may serve as an acknowledgment by the Committee of the Fund of the aid already received from the Society of Hellenic Studies; and as an invitation to further co-operation in the future.—Ed.]

The season which is now drawing to a close has been one of great interest in the work here, though of an interest which would scarcely be expected, since not Egyptian but Greek antiquities claim our attention.

M. L. West has recently presented a magisterial account of the history of Greek epic in which Aeolic phases and other entities are assumed. His account is the more impressive because it combines linguistic features skilfully handled with an account of the thematic development of epic, and also specifies at what stages the various linguistic features entered the tradition. West assumes an Aeolic phase, or phases, of heroic epic composition, and accounts for the presence of Aeolic forms (162): ‘It has usually been inferred that they are just a residue left after Ionian poets had adapted an Aeolic poetic language into their own dialect as far as it would go. This is, I have no doubt, the correct interpretation.’ I think it is not.

During the excavations of Messrs. Hogarth Grenfell and Hunt for the Egypt Exploration Fund in the winter of 1895–6 on the site of Karanis (Kom Ushim) in the Fayum, a considerable number of clay-sealings were found, mainly in the cellars of the Roman houses. These were recently put in my hands for investigation and offer some interesting material.

The sealings have evidently come from various kinds of articles: in many instances the clay is too much broken for any determination of the shape which it had taken to be possible; but among the better preserved pieces are examples from the mouths of bottles, some of which have been squeezed down into the neck like a cork, others placed over a linen covering, sometimes tied down with cord: others are from the flat sides of wooden boxes, often showing the marks of cord: others again from parcels of irregular shape, in some cases seemingly wrapped in papyrus. The common points of all are that they consist of lumps of Nile-mud, and that they have been impressed, while the clay was damp, with signets, which were presumably those of the merchants who forwarded the goods upon which the sealings were placed.

The objects which form the subject of the present paper, and which may be easily identified by the accompanying cuts, Nos. 5—8, have for some time been a puzzle to students of Mycenaean archaeology. Certain specimens exhibited in the cases of the Mycenae Room in the Polytechnic Museum at Athens are described as ‘objects of unknown use’; and although some suggestions have been thrown out in various publications of isolated examples, I do not think any satisfactory explanation of them has yet been offered. The cause of this failure seems to be the impossibility of understanding properly any such specimen, apart from the whole class to which it belongs. I will therefore begin this paper with a list of instances which, while not pretending to be exhaustive, is at least representative, and so will give some notion of the character, size, shape, and material of the objects now before us.

The vase of which an illustration is given on Plate IV. is one that has lately been acquired by the British Museum, and is in many ways of exceptional interest. It is a specimen of a peculiar class of local vases, which first became known through excavations made in 1888 on the site of the Kabeirion at Thebes. A full account of these excavations and their results was given by Dr. Winnefeld and other writers in the Athenische Mittheilungen for 1888, Vol. xiii. pp. 81, 412 ff.

The vase under discussion is not the only one of this kind in the Museum; two similar vases were acquired in 1889, one of which is illustrated in the Museum Catalogue of Vases (1893), p. 75. These two vases (numbered B 77—8) are skyphoi of the same shape and technique as our present one, and bear designs of a very similar character, though not of such great interest.

The remains of pottery discovered in the Kabeirion are not confined to this local class; vases and fragments covered with plain black varnish were found, and a fair number of examples of Athenian pottery or imitations of the same, mostly with red figures.