The cave of Cyclope is situated on the SW side of the island of Youra, 16 miles from Alonnessos. Systematic research in the cave lasted from 1992 to 1996. The upper layers, which date to the Roman period, contained mainly lamps. In the centre of the cave a Middle Neolithic stratum yielded a mass of pottery of exceptional red-on-white decoration. In cutting C, near the entrance, the upper layers belonged to Late Neolithic I (5th millennium BC) and were underlain by a thin Early and Middle Neolithic layer. Most of the deposits were Mesolithic. These layers consisted of faunal remains and thick-packed living floors in which there were ash hearths and scattered charcoal. Radiocarbon dates from these strata ranged from c. 6800 to 8500 BC. The quantity of fish bones and shells was immense in the Mesolithic levels, suggesting, in association with the variety of bone hooks, high dependance on sea resources. The presence of Mesolithic habitation on a small island in the northern Aegean demonstrates that the cave of Cyclope is the earliest site in the Aegean Sea.

The paper presents the results of an intensive survey of two upland basins in eastern Crete. Following a description of the geology and topography of the area, the methods of survey, data manipulation, and pottery analysis are described. There follow catalogues of ceramic type fabrics and other finds. The results of the survey are then presented in three chronological phases (Neolithic, Bronze Age, Graeco-Roman), interpretations are suggested, and a final section provides an overview of the development of human settlement in the region. It is suggested that initial colonisation took place in the Final Neolithic but was short-lived. The basins were only reoccupied during the Protopalatial period, when both nucleated and dispersed settlements were occupied. There is no certain evidence for continued occupation after LM IIIA and the third phase of occupation did not begin until the fourth century BC. Hellenistic and Roman occupation in both nucleated settlements and farmsteads seems to have prospered over a period of eight or nine centuries.

110 copper-based objects from various sites on Crete, covering the whole of the Bronze Age, were analysed for their chemical content (12 elements) by Atomic Absorption Spectrometry. The results indicate that during the Early Bronze Age arsenical copper was mainly used while in the Middle Bronze Age copper, arsenical copper, and arsenical bronze were in use with about equal frequency. During the Late Bronze Age normal bronze was used when required. The copper technology in each era was the same at all of the sites examined. Metallographic examination of four triangular daggers of the Early Bronze Age showed that they had been cast. In the case of three Late Bronze Age hydriae, the component sheets had been hammered and annealed.

A bone figurine of a standing naked woman was found in the SE part of the Kadmeia in 1995. It lay in an EH II–III layer. The head is missing and also the feet which were made separately and inserted. The figurine is on a miniature scale and can be associated with Cycladic prototypes. Evidence for the relations between Thebes and the Cyclades during the EBA is also briefly discussed.

The recent excavations at Akrotiri on Thera have brought to light 21 new EC figurines which, taken together with those already known or completely unknown, raise the number of EC figurines from the site of 37. The Akrotiri figurines comprise a wide range of types, both schematic and naturalistic, covering almost the whole of the known EC sculptural repertoire and also introduce types which are entirely new. Thus they constitute a significant body of evidence, for the following reasons: first, because they show unmistakably the importance of the settlement at Akrotiri already in the third millennium BC; second, because, by contrast with most EC figurines, they come from a systematic excavation; and third, because, including types and showing features up until now rarely seen or even completely unknown in the Cyclades and the Aegean, they enrich our knowledge of EC figurative sculpture and offer us the possibility of drawing a number of inferences.

This article is based on a set of notes written by Sir Arthur Evans on the objects retrieved from a pit found under the gypsum floor of the Vat Room, known as the ‘Vat Room Deposit’. Evans made annotated drawings of the most important objects, stressing notable features and often recording the total number of similar objects. Objects which were not published by Evans have now been identified through these notes and appear here for the first time.

This paper examines a set of the most characteristic decorated vases from the Temple Repositories at Knossos. The aim is to re-assess the date of the destruction of the shrine to which the Temple Repositories material belonged.

The excavations at Tell el-Dabca/Avaris have produced exciting finds for the past 30 years, but none more riveting than the so-called ‘Minoan’ frescoes of the past half-decade. The publication of these fragmentary wall paintings has been commendably fast, but has also involved dramatic changes in the hypotheses put forth by the excavators. The present article attempts to summarize the situation by charting the discoveries announced between 1992 and 1996, and relating these to the changes in opinion of the excavators over that same period of time. Given the bombshell dropped most recently by Bietak, namely that the wall paintings may not be associated with the Hyksos period at all, but rather with the early 18th Dynasty Egyptian reoccupation of the site, it is here suggested that the spate of literature published by secondary authors (i.e. those not immediately involved in the excavation and interpretation of the site) be brought to a temporary halt, until Bietak and his team have completed their exploration of the relevant areas of Tell el-Dabca and have published all of the pertinent data, to both their satisfaction and ours.

Work at Palaikastro in the 1994 and 1996 seasons was concentrated in Building 6 in the southern area adjacent to Main Street, where tests had previously been made in 1990–1. It was confirmed that the architectural history of the area ended before the Santorini eruption. Its later use as a walled open space was marked by the construction in LM IB of two wells. These were fully excavated and were very productive of useful stratified material. The principal building complex lay to the SE and comprised a propylon and a small central court with colonnade and surrounding rooms. The most important of these is a paved hall at the south entered by a pier and door system of Knossian type. All these features, as well as unusual decorative elements, including building materials of varying colour, frescoes and horns of consecration, distinguish this building from others at Palaikastro. The date of first construction seems to be MM IIIA (over an earlier MM II building), but this was followed by a destruction and major rebuild in MM IIIB, the period to which many of these decorative elements should belong. A violent destruction by earthquake later in MM IIIB left substantial pottery deposits in several areas of the building, which seems to have been only partially repaired before a final destruction took place. This was followed by deliberate dismantling (LM IA early?) which was far advanced when the tephra fell on an essentially abandoned plot.

This paper presents the results of brief investigations, carried out by C. Christou in 1957, in a Mycenaean cemetery at Palaiokastro in NW Arcadia. The pottery and bronzes collected from the chamber tombs mostly date to LH IIIC, a period hitherto scarcely documented in this part of Greece. The finds, which include some remarkable pots, a type II bronze sword and other weaponry, reveal links with other parts of mainland Greece and beyond.

Large quantities of imported Mycenaean pottery are found in Cyprus between the late fifteenth and mid-thirteenth centuries BC, usually in ceremonial or funerary contexts. This article examines the role and value of the Mycenaean imports in Late Cypriot contexts. It is suggested that the incorporation of certain elements of the Mycenaean ceramic repertoire within Late Cypriot funerary ritual had a dramatic impact on the indigenous pottery industry.

On the centenary of British Museum investigations at the site of Maroni Tsaroukkas in southern Cyprus, we present the findings of the re-excavation of funerary deposits at this Late Bronze Age site. We discuss the historical background to the discovery of tombs and artefacts at the site by the British Museum in an attempt to understand and tie in more recent discoveries. The results of excavation over the past five years are assessed in terms of the evolution of funerary practice at the site, and in the valley as a whole, and the role of locally produced and foreign objects within such contexts. In particular, we discuss the role of prestige imports and influence in conspicuous consumption and funerary display during the LC II period. With their obvious political and economic connotations, aspects of foreign trade and influence are linked to other investigations at the site; these are principally concerned with the role of Tsaroukkas as the principal port in the Maroni valley and the development of the urban centres at Tsaroukkas and nearby Maroni Vournes.

Recent work on the association between anthropological and archaeological interpretations has been of great value in the study of prehistoric social organisation. Health and dietary differences are an important aspect of the relationship between population and its environment. The present work investigates some forty skeletal remains from a partially excavated Early Iron Age (1100–700 BC) cemetery in northern Greece and attempts to trace aspects of the health status of the cemetery population concerned. Individuals of all ages and sexes have been recorded. Examination reveals a remarkable prevalence of dental disease, a few cases of cribra orbitalia (possibly related to some postcranial infectious manifestations), one typical case of osteoporosis, and a few arthritic spinal changes. The rarity of prehistoric skeletal material in northern Greece, as well as the noticeable lack of anthropological studies in the area, make the research significant for further interpretations considering issues of social structure and reconstruction of past human populations.

This paper draws attention to the potential for recognizing exported Attic Protogeometric pottery by macroscopic characteristics of its fabric, whose salient features are described. The utility of these criteria are tested on a group of pottery from Asine in the Argolis whose Attic origin was not recognized in the original publication. A brief survey of the distribution of exported Attic Protogeometric pottery shows it to occur mainly in the southern Aegean, with notable concentrations at Lefkandi, Aigina, Asine and Knossos. A list of exports is appended to this survey.

The only way to gain insight into ancient architectural planning is by converting the metric dimensions into the architect's foot unit, which must be calculated on the basis of measurements within the building. In the case of the Lefkandi ‘heroon’, a monumental building unique for its time, such an analysis is rewarding. When we try a foot length of 30 cms, the repartition becomes clear. The width (interior measurement 30 ft) consists of two equal naves of 15 ft. This bay determined the interior length of (10 × 15 ft =) 150 ft. This length was divided into a main room of (5 × 15 ft =) 75 ft, and the remaining half was divided into a front hall (30 ft), the north and south rooms (15 ft), and the apse room (30 ft). To these interior dimensions lengthwise were added a porch of 8 ft, a rear wall (2 ft) and a colonnade (6 ft), a total of 166 ft (11 × 15 + 1 ft). To the interior width (30 ft) were added two length walls (2 × 2 ft) and the colonnade (2 × 6 ft): a total of (30 ft + 2 × 2 ft + 2 × 6 ft =) 46 ft. Reduced to these foot measurements the Lefkandi ‘heroon’ appears to us as a simple construction, in which the interaxial or bay of 15 ft seems to be the planning unit for the ground plan.

Seventeen pottery sherds from the seventh century BC pottery kiln uncovered at Knossos in 1993 were analysed by neutron activation at N.C.S.R. Demokritos. Fifteen of the seventeen sherds form an extremely homogeneous chemical group whose composition parallels Late Minoan I and Classical/Hellenistic pottery from Knossos. The two chemically different samples are also physically different, being much coarser and more severely burned.

The publication of a partly preserved grave stele, built into a house on the island of Skiathos and assumed to be from ancient Skiathos. The inscription, in Ionic script of the late Archaic period, commemorates a Samian. The most likely reading shows that his name was Pelyessios, and that he is given a ‘tribal’ affiliation, Lykophronides; this is our earliest evidence for that system, in the earliest known Skiathian inscription.

Even the sites of the Eretrian colonies Methone, Dicaea and Mende in the area of the Thermaic Gulf were unknown ten years ago. Topographical research and excavation reports by Greek scholars have now provided much information on which this article is based.

The relationship of the metopes to the architecture of the peristasis of the Hephaisteion and the Parthenon is examined in order to ascertain the extent of planning which took place before the erection of a Classical Greek temple. All relevant published measurements are taken into consideration and critically compared. On the basis of the discrepancies of the corresponding architectural and sculptural members, it is argued that the working-out of the details of the plan was not the result of large-scale drawings, but was affected after the commencement of construction. While the Hephaisteion is built largely in accordance with the conventions of a Classical Doric temple, the Parthenon, due to its unique plan, provides indications of experimentation inferred from the extensive inconsistencies at its eastern end.