The article provides a detailed summary of a large deposit, primarily of pottery, from the 1978–82 Stratigraphical Museum Excavations at Knossos. The deposit is assigned to the Middle Minoan III B – Late Minoan I A transition. The material is used as the basis of a re-examination of this difficult stage in the Minoan ceramic sequence and a wide range of deposits, notable among them the seismic destruction level at Akrotiri on Thera, is able to be linked to the Knossos material in order to define the phase more fully. The wide destruction level thus documented may then be set within the historical development of Minoan civilization.

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.

Among the most interesting discoveries of the post-war years in Attica are a Late Geometric amphora and an impressed gold head-band; they are reported to have been found, the band inside the amphora, near Koropi in the Mesogaia, and were acquired together by Mrs. Helen Stathatou, who has graciously consented to my making them more widely known in this tribute to the master of Greek archaeology for whom both she and I have so high a regard. Each is a first-rate piece in itself, and the discovery of the two in one burial gives an added interest to the pair.

Tomb XVIII in the Gypsades cemetery, south of the Knossos Palace, was excavated by Sinclair Hood, George Huxley, and Nancy Sandars in 1955 and published in 1959.1

The main chamber contained at least 9 burials. Only a handful of objects were found associated with these burials: a small bronze bead with the skull of Skeleton II, 4 small, plain vessels with the skull of Skeleton III, silver ear-rings with Skeleton IV, a lentoid sealstone of hammered silver or meteorite with Burial VII, and a small bronze link with Burial VIII.

This report presents the results of excavations in 1993 in the area of the Early Houses and Early Paving by the South Front of the palace at Knossos. It adds to and further clarifies the results of earlier excavations in this area, and provides much-needed new evidence for the history of the Prepalatial and Protopalatial settlements. Principal findings of the 1993 investigation include (1) an EM II B pit deposit, which has important implications for our understanding of this ceramic phase at Knossos; (2) no fewer than three building phases in EM III, comprising the Early Houses including the substantial South Front House; and (3) the dating of the Early Paving and associated structures to MM I B.

In 1964, in the agora at Sparta, Ch. Christou excavated part of a monumental building which is identified as the Persian Stoa. The most important find was a bronze female portrait statue, Roman in date, which is on display in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens (NM 23321). The identification of the statue as Julia Mamaea, suggested by Ch. Christou, is still prevalent, although several scholars see in the Sparta statue iconographical elements that link it with Caracalla's wife Plautilla or with Annia Faustina, Elagabalus' third wife. However, the rendering of the hairstyle provides evidence for the identification of the woman whom the statue depicts as the empress Julia Aquilia Severa, Elagabalus' second and fourth wife. The erection of a statue of Julia Aquilia Severa in the Persian Stoa is most likely connected with the imperial cult of Elagabalus and his empress in Sparta.

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.

I feel that first of all I owe you a word of explanation why I, who have never studied the history of the Greek War of Independence, should have ventured to speak to you to-day about two of the best known of the Britons who then offered their services to Greece against the Turks. Finlay was an intimate friend and the executor of Hastings, and had in his possession much of his friend's correspondence and other papers. Consequently, when many years after Finlay's death, his library was presented to the British School, among his private papers, manuscripts and journals were found, those of Hastings as well. I have therefore drawn largely on this still unpublished material to illustrate the lives and careers of these two British Philhellenes.

This methodological paper uses the measurements of the Early Iron Age Toumba building at Lefkandi to study whether a single design-unit can be detected in the data set. Cosine quantogram analysis is used in the initial analysis of the building dimensions and, in the second phase, the relevance of the obtained results is calculated by using Monte Carlo computer simulations. A statistically significant unit of c. 49 cm can be isolated, but because of the very limited number of precise dimensions, this result should only be accepted with caution. The case study demonstrates how the complex statistical problem of deriving the lengths of possibly used design-units in ancient architecture can be approached; metrological analyses can only gain from employing appropriate quantitative methods.

Two vessels reconstructed from fragments found at Semibratny in the Kuban are discussed, a pyxis with the base fitted into the walls, and a stemmed dish in profile closely related to the stemmed kantharos.

First, thanks to two kindly critics, some modifications have to be made in my discussion of Attic neuter plural demes (BSA 1 (1955) 13). I should have quoted Steph. Byz. s.v. Στειριὰ . . . θηλυκῶς καὶ οὐδετὲρως to illustrate the possibility of doubt between feminine singular and neuter plural. Note that the form Στειριὰνδε given in Meineke's text is an emendation for the MS. Στειριὰδε This last is clearly wrong, but Στειριὰδε is at least as possible an emendation. The other two τοπικὰ, Στειριᾶθεν and Στειριοὶ point different ways. Since we do not know where Stephanus found them, nothing useful can be said.

Recently discovered pottery from David Hogarth's 1899 excavation in the Psychro Cave is published in this study. The great majority of these vases can, on the basis of their fabric and decoration, be traced to Malia, Knossos and the Lasithi Plain. During the MM I-LM I A period most of the fine ware pottery dedicated at the Psychro came from Malia. The monumental size of the sanctuary and the large number (and the elite character) of the votives indicates that during MM I B-LM I A Psychro was the main extra-urban sanctuary for the polity centred at Malia. During LM I B-III A1/2 virtually all of the decorated vases from Psychro are Knossian. This change suggests that Mycenaean Knossos assumed control of the sanctuary during this time, and that some of these vases are those referred to in the Linear B tablet from Knossos KN. Fp 1 that lists dedications of oil sent to Dictaean Zeus.

Evidence for the Ptolemaic occupation of the Cycladic island of Keos in the 3rd century B.C. is both contentious and exiguous. A recent archaeological surface survey of both the territory and the polis-centre of Koressos (Ptolemaic Arsinoe, apparently the principal Egyptian foothold on the island) invites a review of relevant historical and epigraphical evidence, old and new. Contrary to some opinion, all the available evidence implies that the later Hellenistic period was not a time of material prosperity for Koressos. It is suggested that its incorporation into the Ptolemaic empire may have contributed to its demise as a city-state, and to its eventual transformation into a minor adjunct of the neighbouring polis of Ioulis.

The following notes were made by us on a short journey in Pamphylia during March 1911.It had been our intention on reaching Adalia about the middle of the month to go at once into Lycia, but the lateness of the season made the higher ground impossible, and it seemed better to spend a short time in examining the country in the immediate neighbourhood of Adalia, much of which was still imperfectly known (Fig. 1).

The best description of the Pamphylian plain is that given by Lanckoronski. From the Kestros to the Melas stretches a low-lying, swampy plain, traversed by three great rivers which come down from the Pisidian highlands, feverish in summer, and during the winter months impossible for wheeled traffic. To the west of the Kestros rises a rocky plateau of travertine some hundred feet above sea-level, on which stands the town of Adalia (Attaleia) on cliffs above the sea, which diminish towards the west. To the north of Adalia rises a third level, which viewed from the south, resembles a high raised beach, running roughly parallel with the present coast as far as the village of Barsak. To the east of that point the hills turn in a north-easterly direction and sink gradually down towards the Kestros. The western part of the plateau is crossed by two main roads, leading respectively to Istanoz and Buldur.

In November and December 1906 I travelled in the south of Italy in order to examine Messapian inscriptions. These inscriptions, believed by Mommsen to belong to the first and second centuries B.C., have been rather neglected of late, but rumours of forgeries, accepted and published with too little criticism, made some investigation desirable. Ten years ago Sig. Bartolomeo Nogara ascertained the number of these inscriptions then known to exist, but without, I think, any detailed criticism of them. I followed in his footsteps, and my enquiries, which were directed to everyone likely to be interested in such matters, covered the whole ground, so that I believe that I saw all still extant. Of course other inscriptions, of which nothing has yet been heard, may have been found lately in country places, but my time, unfortunately, was too limited to allow of my searching through every village in that crowded district, though I was fortunate enough to light on some as yet unpublished, and not widely known.

The pieces of fresco here described come from the so-called ‘Ramp House,’ the excavation of which was begun by Schliemann in 1876, and finished by ourselves in 1921. It lies south-east of the Grave Circle, immediately west of the Little Ramp, and east of the House of the Warrior Vase. In date it belongs to the Third Late Helladic period. Of the frescoes, many came from the ‘Megaron,’ where they were found below a floor level in a deposit dating from Late Helladic II. or earlier times; the details of the stratification will be given in a later section. Some fine fragments came from the narrow passage between the ‘Megaron’ and the Little Ramp, where they were found at approximately the same level and in a deposit of the same date and character; indeed, one or two pieces of pottery found there join pieces from the ‘Megaron.’The deposit seems to have extended to the north of the Ramp House, for it was found immediately outside the north wall, and also at the foot of the Little Ramp: both places produced fresco. That such variety and quantity of fresco should have decorated any of the buildings that preceded the Ramp House on this site seems improbable.

In the 1850s Captain T. A. B. Spratt, subsequently to become Admiral and Director of the Mediterranean Survey, was engaged on the charting of the Aegean. This work was interrupted by the Crimean War and later resumed. Captain Spratt had under his command the paddle frigate Spitfire and the tender Auxiliar, from which he necessarily made journeys ashore in Crete in order to complete the triangulation of the Aegean from the mountain summits to the adjacent islands. On these journeys he took a keen interest in the location of Classical sites. In this respect he followed some thirty years after Robert Pashley whose pioneering work Spratt is reported to have been able occasionally to supplement or correct.

Small pockets of neolithic levels were sampled during the 1987 investigation of the Throne Room System in the palace of Knossos. The limited stratigraphic evidence is here presented, as well as sections concerning the pottery, small finds, and animal bones. The most interesting point to emerge concerns the presence of Final Neolithic characteristics in the ceramic evidence that will help towards formulating an appreciation of that elusive period at Knossos.

The Cyclopean Terrace Building lies to the north-west of the Lion Gate on the northern end of the Panagia Ridge and faces almost due west across the valley of the Kephissos and modern main road from Corinth to Argos. It lies just below the 200 m. contour line, and one terrace below the houses excavated in 1950–51 by Dr. Papadimitriou and Mr. Petsas to the east at the same end of the ridge. The area contains a complex of buildings, both successive and contemporary, and in view of the discovery of structures both to the south-west and, by the Greek Archaeological Service, to the north-east it is likely that this whole slope was covered by a portion of the outer town of Mycenae. This report will deal only with the structure to which the name Cyclopean Terrace Building was originally given, the so-called‘North Megaron’, supported by the heavy main terrace wall.

The excavation of this structure was begun in 1923. The main terrace wall was cleared and two L.H. IIIC burials discovered in the top of the fill in the south room. In 1950 it was decided to attempt to clear this building entirely in an endeavour to find out its date and purpose. The clearing was not, however, substantially completed until the close of the 1953 excavation season, and this report presents the available evidence for the date as determined by the pottery found beneath the building; the purpose is still a matter for study, though various tentative conclusions can be put forward.

A series of inscriptions, most of which are unfortunately in a very fragmentary condition, records the victories won by teams of Spartan ballplayers. As two of these have not yet been published while the others have never been grouped together, my present object is to collect the texts in question, restoring them as far as possible, and to add a short statement of the main facts which we can gather from them regarding the contest referred to.