The two white lekythoi illustrated in Plate 40 a–b and Figs. 1–2 were found together in a basement of the National Museum in Athens. The provenience is unknown. They are restored, and have necks, mouths, and handles belonging to other lekythoi. The height of the ancient parts is 0·33 m. The outlines of the drawing are a mixture of matt red and brown; the added colours are mauve, green, and light brown. No vent-hole is visible in either of them.

The subject of the composition on no. 19272 (Plate 40 a and Fig. 1) is a visit to the grave. There is a grave stele in the middle, projecting on to the shoulder of the vase; it rests on a step and has three shafts, one rising from the other. The lowest shaft is the broadest, the middle one the highest. The two lower shafts are crowned by a plinth. From each plinth two tiers of acanthus leaves rise, in outline, or painted mauve, green, or light brown. These enrich the stele, diminish the excessive elevation, and add balance. From the lowest leaves of the upper acanthus group two woollen sashes hang, the left-hand one green, the other mauve. A third sash, green, hangs from the upper border band to left of the stele. Behind the stele, a trapeza, resting on a couple of steps, gives more stability to the general aspect of the monument.

The date of the final destruction of Late Bronze Age Miletos is examined in the light of new evidence from Ugarit, which has allowed the date of the destruction at that site to be more accurately assessed. A comparison of the pottery in the destruction layer at Miletos with that in the destruction layer at Ugarit suggests that Miletos might have been destroyed at an earlier date than usually thought.

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).

It may well be that in the idea of Herodotus and his contemporaries, that the gods of Greece came originally from Egypt, there lies a consciousness of a fact, and that there was latent in the Greek mind a vague idea that their civilization had, far back in the mists of time, come into contact with that of Egypt, and even that some of its characteristics were of Egyptian origin. Leaving out of account the question of the possible African origin of ‘Mycenaean’ culture, and so ultimately of much of the civilization which we know as ‘Greek,’ we can now say with certainty that we know that Greek culture had, a thousand years before Herodotus, been brought into contact with the already three thousand year old civilization of Egypt, and that this contact was a comparatively close one, and one which cannot fail to have resulted in a perceptible modification of the less-developed and younger culture. We now know that this contact was closest in the sixteenth and fifteenth centuries B.C., when the kings of the XVIIIth Dynasty reigned over Egypt.

The coarse-ware stirrup-jars presented here come from two buildings at Mycenae excavated by Alan Wace from 1950 to 1952: the House of the Wine Merchant (HWM), and the House of the Oil Merchant (HOM). Over fifty examples were found in the HWM, and twenty-seven (plus three semi-fine ones) in the HOM, and as such they comprise the largest surviving deposits of the type apart from that of the Kadmeion at Thebes (where Keramopoullos found at least 120).

Although coarse stirrup-jars have received an increasing amount of attention in the last quarter-century, nearly all of the work has focused on those bearing painted Linear B inscriptions; results of philological studies, and of scientific analyses of the clay fabric, have provided fresh evidence for the debate concerning the political and economic relations between Post-Palatial Crete and the Greek mainland. With one possible exception, none of the jars from the two Mycenae deposits is inscribed, but the evidence indicates that, as is the case with inscribed jars, many were manufactured on Crete. Many of the jars fall into distinct typological groups, with parallels from other findspots at Mycenae, and other Aegean sites. The deposits are fairly well dated, and illustrate the diversity of coarse-ware stirrup-jars in use at Mycenae in the late fourteenth to the middle of the thirteenth century B.C.

Recent years have seen the publication of two demotic Greek craft-manuals from the Middle Ages; or perhaps we might say from the Renaissance, for in both books the connections with Western European ideas and practices are clear. The first is a Portolano, a mariner's guide in the tradition stretching back at least to Hellenistic times, and brought up to date by successive generations of sea-captains until its form was crystallized in sixteenth-century Venetian editions. The other is a Shipwright's Manual dealing with the rigging of a sailing-ship, with the names and measures of all its sails and cordage.

To these is now added a third, a Gunner's Manual, shorter than the other texts, but in some ways more interesting. For although, as in the others, the material forces it to be repetitive and tabular, it is not so forbiddingly technical; and the beginning and the end have a greater freedom of matter which brings the language very close to the style and cadences of ordinary speech—a rarity in Renaissance Greek.

The manuscript in which it is found is catalogued as number 23 of the collection once formed by Archbishop Laud, and now in the Bodleian Library. The paper is uniform throughout, and the contents are as follows:

(i) foll. 1r–26r, A Shipwright's Manual. I hope to deal on another occasion with its relationship to the texts used by Delatte. The work is very corrupt and presents great difficulties. At the beginning are the words: ‘κύριε κατευόδωνε τὸν δοῦλόν σου Νικόλαον Σκούρα’.

I. 1. Rhyton (Fig. 26, Plate 54c). Ht. 0·364. Ht. incl. handle 0·405. Diam. at tip 0·104. Diam. of spout 0·02. Broken but complete; the paint is slightly worn and the rim chipped. The painting is in orange and brown, with linear decoration on the lower part of the cone and interlocking zigzags above. The lip and the outer edges of the handle are outlined. The handle is of the raised metallic type and the lip overhangs slightly; the tip of the spout is offset a little to the rear. The buff clay without slip forms the ground for the decoration.

The shape of the vase corresponds with Furumark's Type 199 (MP 71–72). The rhyton may be compared with the example from Palaikastro (Palaikastro 104 fig. 87a) and belongs to the L.M. IIIA 1 phase. For the zigzags cf. MP 182.

I. 2. Piriform Jug (Fig. 26, Plate 54a, d). Ht. 0·29. Max. diam. 0·18. Diam. of base 0·06. Broken but complete, with well preserved black and brown decoration. The base is splaying and flat. A repeated S-pattern is incised at the base of the neck moulding. The lip is cut away above the handle. Argonauts are arranged in series around the shoulder, and a fish has been painted below the base of the handle. Bands around the neck join to form a chevron at the front. The edges of the handle are outlined. The argonaut is a development of the L.M. IA type and lacks tentacles.

Towards the end of Schliemann's excavations at Mycenae in 1877 a small group of gold objects was found, in the region just south of the Grave Circle, by his engineer Drosinos and the Greek archaeologist Stamatakis. Owing to the circumstances of its discovery, this find received less mention than its importance deserved, and, while individual objects from it have been frequently referred to and illustrated, its existence as a closed group has been obscured, and is not even recognised in the inventory or arrangement of the Athens National Museum. Consequently its exact nature and chronological place at Mycenae have never been defined; Schliemann himself, Tsountas and Wace thought it the remains of a Shaft Grave that was partially plundered and destroyed when a drain was built across it in LH III (see BSA XXV p. 119 and plan, Pl. I). Schuchhardt, followed by Stais in the Museum Catalogue, thought it a hoard, and Karo considers it a parallel to the Tiryns Treasure. It has been suggested to me by Professor Wace that a further study and more adequate illustration of these objects might decide this point and also discover some grounds for assigning them to a definite place in the chronological order of Mycenae finds.

Of the considerable epigraphic harvest gathered by W. Kubitschek and W. Reichel in Geyre (Aphrodisias) in 1893, during their stay of sixteen days, only a few inscriptions were published in the Anzeiger der kaiserl. Akademie der Wissensch. zu Wien 1893, 100–3. Some of the inscriptions recorded in Kubitschek and Reichel's notebooks were published independently by Th. Reinach from Gaudin's squeezes, in REG xix (1906), 79–150, 205–98. Reinach's nos. 13, 17, 127, 7, 70, 77, 50, 146 bis, 32, and 62 (all published as new) are respectively nos. 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 14 of Kubitschek and Reichel's article cited above.

Hoards of metalwork are a common feature of the Bronze Age cultures of Europe and some of them have received a detailed treatment in recent years. Such hoards are relatively rare in the Aegean Early Bronze Age however, and in publishing the Kythnos hoard Dr. Renfrew could only point to three other hoards of third millennium date from the Aegean. Two of these indeed are still unpublished, so that the publication of the complete hoard from Kythnos is an invaluable addition to our previous knowledge. The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to four groups of metal objects which the writer believes to represent metal hoards of this period, and to discuss the composition and nature of these and the four hoards which Renfrew described.

The two most important Fikellura vase painters are here studied and their works catalogued. The earlier of the two, the Altenburg Painter, was recognized first by R. M. Cook (BSA 34 (1933–4) 1–98), but the number of vases attributed to this painter has greatly increased and now includes some of the earliest Fikellura vases with figure decoration. His career covers most of the third quarter of the sixth century. The second painter, named the Painter of the Running Satyrs, is studied for the first time here. His production spans most of the fourth quarter of the century. Although not very numerous, his vases have novel themes and show a vigorous figure style. The study of these two painters' careers helps in dating some of Cook's various groups of Fikellura vases and clarifies their relationship with the work of these painters. The source of most Fikellura is now seen to be Miletus, but the question of the origin or antecedents of Fikellura pottery is still not entirely settled. Some explanation is, however, offered for the sudden appearance of this ware about the mid sixth century.

The course of the Scamander is divided into three well marked sections—valley basins divided by defiles. Beginning from the mouth we have first the Plain of Troy, of which nothing need be said here; enough has been written about it already. It is bounded on the south by the Bally Dagh and south of this again by the Kara Dagh. Into the bay between these two runs on the east a spur of the Kayaly Dagh. These hills descend in steep slopes to the river banks, and form a gorge of limestone cliffs some four miles long, nearly as far as Sarimsak Köprü (Garlic Bridge). The path from the north mounts the slopes of the Bally Dagh to a height of over 500 feet, then descends to the river where in the middle of the gorge there lies a small secluded plain—a spot of idyllic charm—and again rises to a height of over 600 feet in order to cross the southern barrier of the Kara Dagh and reach the high road from the Dardanelles to Ezine close to Sarimsak Köprü.

Drawing upon the mapping of ceramic distribution patterns, this article analyses the dynamics of the settlement pattern of the Late Roman hinterland of the Skouriotissa copper mine, the largest in Cyprus, and its relationship to the nearest city, Soli. This article contextualises the hinterland in relation to the copper-producing landscapes of Cyprus to the east and south, and supra-regionally in relation to the cities on the south coast of Asia Minor as well as chronologically and geographically in relation to the Early Roman ceramic zones defined by previous research. Although the regional coherence of the Hellenistic to Early Roman period is to some extent intact in the Late Roman period, the analysis suggests that the Late Roman hinterland of Skouriotissa demonstrates some organisational peculiarities for which an explanation is sought in the extraordinary resources of the region.

After a brief account of the life and personality of R.M. Dawkins (Director of the British School at Athens, 1906–1914), based partly on unpublished material, the author summarizes Dawkins's career as an archaeologist, philologist, and folklorist. There follows a critical account of his work on the Greek dialects of Cappadocia and of other regions in central Asia Minor; Dawkins's magnum opus, Modern Greek in Asia Minor (1916) was the most thorough study ever made of this topic. Mention is made of Dawkins's contribution to the study of Pontic, which he was prevented by events from exploring thoroughly in situ. Apart from his work on individual dialects, his reputation as a dialectologist rests on his accumulation of evidence in support of his hypothesis that there is a fundamental east-west division in the Modern Greek dialects. The limitations of Dawkins's accumulative method are alluded to; he described a corpus rather than formulating rules for the generation of utterances. His contribution to the collection and classification of Greek folk tales – his second most important achievement – is also assessed. Finally mention is made of developments in Modern Greek studies since Dawkins's time.

This paper publishes the results of excavations of the Kephala Tholos tomb and its immediate vicinity, north of the palace of Knossos, carried out by R. W. Hutchinson in 1938–9. It presents the ceramic and osteological data from the excavations and an architectural study of the tomb structure. The analysis addresses the contentious issue of the dating of the construction of the Tholos, arguing for an LM II date on the basis of the material evidence. It also discusses the equally interesting subsequent history of reuse of the tomb, during phases of LM III and as late as the Protogeometric period, and sets this within the broader context of changing burial practices at Knossos. It considers especially possible motivations for periodic reuse of the Kephala site in terms of strategic appeals to the past, within different political and cultural contexts, from LM II onwards.

The fifth campaign on the Palace Site of Knossos had a twofold objective:—(I) The continued exploration of the Palace itself, with the special object of ascertaining its original elements, on which the Cists and Repositories found in 1903 had already thrown so much light; (2) the further investigation of dependencies lying beyond what may be called the inner enceinte. In addition to this, the discovery of an extensive Minoan Cemetery and of a Royal Tomb went greatly to swell the volume of the year's excavation.

From the 1997 excavations at a Lavrion silver-mine ore washery, Agrileza Compound B, datable to the fourth century BC, came a fragmentary black gloss ram head rhyton of the so-called von Mercklin Class. The rhyton from Agrileza is at present the only known example of this group with a well-defined archaeological context, and is therefore taken as the basis for a review of the regional and chronological attributions of von Mercklin rhyta in several European museums. A discussion of the relationship of these rhyta to the much more common and better known Attic red-figure animal-head vases sketches the background against which the rare occurrence of pouring vessels with animal foreparts in the repertoire of mainland Greek potters has to be seen.

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.

The development in the Classical period of washeries where the crude ores were processed for smelting marked a big step forward in Athenian silver production, since they made it possible to exploit the hitherto unusable poorest argentiferous deposits. The discovery and excavation of the washeries and ergasteria have illuminated the technological advance from the pre-Classical two-phase to the Classical three-phase system. The earliest washeries were located perforce close to natural water sources, but when these became inadequate for the growing needs of the industry, ergasteria were built which, in addition to a washery, had a cistern to collect recyclable rainwater, and could thus be located close to the ore sources. Small communities in which the personnel lived and died grew up around them.