Of over 1000 images of birds found in sanctuaries, approximately 300 may be interpreted as water birds: they are found in sanctuaries of female rather than male deities. The cult and ritual reasons for bird offerings and representation are discussed.

The following inscriptions, along with a number of others which have been already published, were copied by Mr. A. J. B. Wace in the course of a visit paid to Ishekli, the site of the ancient Eumeneia, in the spring of 1903. Mr. Wace kindly handed his manuscript over to me with leave to publish any inscriptions which were still unknown. My delay in doing so is due to the fact that I had hopes of getting a copy of the closing lines of No. 2, either on a visit which I intended myself to pay to Eumeneia or through the kindness of some friend travelling in Asia Minor. This hope has not hitherto been fulfilled, and I should not feel myself justified in waiting any longer.

The names of Athenian warships are a valuable source for cultural history, but scholars have long laboured without a sense of how these names were chosen. In a recent article, the present author has suggested that naval architects (master craftsmen elected by the Athenian Assembly) were responsible for naming each vessel they built. This explanation applies to the great majority of Athenian warship names known to us, but exceptions to the rule remain. Naval architects cannot have named vessels they did not build, and we know of several foreign-built ships (e.g., captured or donated ships) in the Athenian fleet. Vessels with the special status of ‘sacred triremes’ must also have followed their own unique naming procedure. Such exceptional cases are the subject of this paper.

During the archaeological survey research project ‘Island Cultures in a Diachronic Perspective: the case of Therasia’, large amounts of pottery were recorded throughout the island of Therasia, ranging in date from the Bronze Age to modern times. Focusing on the prehistoric period, pottery of the Early Cycladic and late Middle Cycladic periods was recovered at Panaghia Koimisis, which is situated on the southern part of the island. This paper presents the petrographic data and results of the analysis carried out on pottery samples which are representative of variable surface treatments and different macro-fabrics of these two prehistoric periods. Tackling issues of provenance and technology, the current scientific analysis attests the coexistence of Theran and off-Theran pottery fabrics already at Panaghia Koimisis in the Early Cycladic period. The majority of the pottery fabrics at Panaghia Koimisis were identified as Theran and the analysis demonstrates intensive contacts between the southern parts of Thera and Therasia throughout the Early and late Middle Cycladic phases. Moreover, adding support to previous studies, this research indicates a wide Cycladic pottery network, in which the site participated as a consumer. During the late Middle Cycladic period major changes in the Theran production are documented, including the disappearance of the earlier pottery recipe, which had been prevalent at Panaghia Koimisis.

Two inscriptions commemorating the battle of Marathon and set up soon after 490 have come down to us. Both are epigrams and both have profited by recent discovery and research. The one, IG I2 763, has had its left-hand portion added by a fortunate find in the Agora, giving the beginnings of four hexameters: the other, IG I2 609, an inscribed column formerly carrying a statue, has now, as a result of recent study, been reunited with the dedication it once bore, a winged woman, a Nike, it is thought. The group is one of the more spectacular fruits of the long-sustained and still continuing attempt to reunite the scattered pieces of the ‘Perserschutt’. The reasons for dealing again with this latter dedication are new readings offered as a result of an examination of the inscription in the Epigraphical Museum in Athens.

A peculiarity of the class of Greek pottery which used to be called Naucratite but is now generally recognised as Chiot is the frequency of dedicatory inscriptions painted before firing. All told, we have parts of about two hundred specimens, from the sanctuaries of various deities at Naucratis, of Apollo Phanaios in Chios, and of Aphaia in Aegina. Though most are very short, they form the only compact collection of early East Greek writing, and it is surprising that no comprehensive study of them has yet been published.

I. The Pots: The shapes on which these inscriptions occur are with very few exceptions the so-called chalice and the phiale, the two Chiot shapes which were most often dedicated. Regrettably the chronology of Chiot vase-painting is not yet closely fixed, and the inscribed sherds—partly because the finds have been very fragmentary—rarely preserve any elaborate decoration. But some general remarks may be hazarded. (1) The dark inside of most of the inscribed sherds, whether from chalices or phialae, is decorated with vegetable or abstract patterns in purple and white: this decoration seems to develop in the early sixth century.

The following is the first instalment of the report of the excavations at Mycenae in the summer of 1939, undertaken by an expedition, largely from Cambridge, under the aegis of the British School at Athens. A preliminary account of the main results appeared in the Journal of Hellenic Studies for 1939, 210 ff. The following students of the British School at Athens took part in the work at Mycenae: Miss Helen Thomas and Miss Vronwy Fisher of Girton College, Mr. F. H. Stubbings, Fellow of Emmanuel College, and Mr. Arnold Silcock, F.R.I.B.A. Other members of the expedition who undertook various parts of the work were Mrs. Alan Wace, Mr. Joseph Last, Mr. Michael Fuller and Mr. Colin Kraay of Oxford, and Dr. and Mrs. F. W. Goethert of Berlin. Miss Elizabeth Wace was actively present throughout. Orestes Dasis was foreman and Ioannis Katsarakis was mender.

By the death of Sir Charles Newton, England has lost the greatest of her archæologists. He possessed, indeed, in many respects, almost ideal qualifications for the career which he adopted; and I think it may be said, without exaggeration, that no man of our time has done more to recover the monuments of Greek art and history, and to make them accessible to the study and appreciation of our own day. In him, too, this School has lost a friend and a benefactor; indeed, but for the effect produced in England by his discoveries and his influence, it may be doubted whether the British School at Athens would ever have been founded.

Excavations at Akrotiri on Thera, where some house roofs remain intact, have shown that U-shaped terracotta drains, set projecting out beyond the outside walls, drained roof terraces. These terraces were often surrounded by built parapets.

What then of contemporary Neopalatial buildings on Crete, where construction and style are similar but much less is preserved? Evidence for the appearance and use of roofs and parapets there consists of drains that seem to have fallen, as now reported at various recently excavated sites (Kommos, Mochlos, Palaikastro); also staircases that probably led to the roof; and architectural depictions (a model, plaques).

The village of Lefkóniko lies on the north side of the Mesariá plain, on the main or ‘upper’ road from Nicosía (21 miles) to Tríkomo (9 miles) for the Karpass promontory. Cross-roads connect Lefkóniko northwards by Platáni (5 miles) with Akanthoú on the north coast; south-westward with Yénagra ( miles) on the alternative ‘old’ or ‘lower’ road from Nicosía to Tríkomo; southwards, through the double village Peristeróna-Piyí, with Prastió (6 miles) on the north bank of the main channel of the Pidiás river. The Gephýria stream, descending from the North Range, crosses the Tríkomo road 2 miles east of Lefkóniko, and skirts the limestone plateau which was the home-territory of ancient Salamis swerving south-east beyond Peristeróna-Piyí and joining a loop of the main river at Styllos, 4 miles east of Prastió, and about half-way to the sea.

The main epigraphic evidence for the water-supply of Aphrodisias in Roman times is to be found in the fragmentary inscriptions published by Doublet and Deschamps in BCH XIV (1890), 611–13, nos. 7–10, and CIG 2782, ll. 40–2. From the former group of texts it has been assumed that two water-systems were installed, one in the time of Vespasian and the other in the time of Domitian; I hope to show that these texts refer to one water-system only, that built in the time of Domitian. From the latter passage it has sometimes been thought that M. Ulpius Carminius Claudianus paid for the laying-on of the waters of the river Timeles to the city in the age of the Antonines. This assumption rested on the false reading ὲλ[ειο]δ[ι]ὰκτο[υ]ς introduced by Boeckh. The word ὲλειοδὶὰκτοςis taken to mean a ‘conduit for draining marshes’ (LS9, s.v.). Sherard's copy preserves the true reading ἒλ <α> ια δρακτοῖς πολλὰκις τεθεικὸτα. All that can be proved by the inscription is that Carminius Claudianus made several distributions of oil ὲν τῶ̣ καιρῶ̣ τῆς τοῦ Τε<ι>μὲλου ποταμοῦ εἰσαγωγῆς (l. 41); there is no proof that he paid for the construction of the aqueduct.

The epigraphic evidence for the earlier water-system rests on the reconstruction of the text of which BCH XIV (1890), 611–13, nos. 7 (cf. REG XIX (1906), 223–4, no. 126), 8 and 9 are fragments; no. 10 seems to be part of another copy of this, or a similar, inscription. Of these fragments the only one found by the expedition led by Professor Calder in 1934 was no. 7; the improved readings in this inscription are from a photograph.

In the ruined monastery of Panagia Kavallaris, four miles south-west of Koutiphari. On a white marble stele supporting the altar in the church. Over 78 c. long by 23 c. broad and 13 c. wide. Letters 1·50 c. to 2·0 c. The stele is partly buried in the earth, so its total length is unknown, as it was impossible to dig in the church.

The monastery stands on the steep slope of Hagios Nikos above a hollow in the mountains, where there are vineyards, just below it is a copious spring. The road to Gytheion crosses the opposite slope. I found no other traces of Hellenic occupation, but the spot would be eminently suitable for a sanctuary site.

In 1922 we had heard rumours of the existence of a Cyclopean building to the west of the Lion Tomb and on the north or reverse side of the ridge from the Tomb of Clytemnestra. We dug here for one day then and verified the presence of big walls. Accordingly, during our brief campaign in 1923, we could not resist the temptation to see what this building might be, as it lies well outside the acropolis and outside the Hellenistic wall of the lower town, and in an area where no Mycenaean ruins have yet been excavated.

The plan in Fig. 91 shews the extent of wall we were able to trace. On the west at the foot of the slope we found a very heavy wall built in Cyclopean style with large blocks of limestone. It is 2·70 m. thick, in places as much as 2 m. high, and runs along for a distance of 15 m., and may have extended still further northwards. A wall returns at right angles from this straight into the hillside, and divides the space behind it into two sections, which we have provisionally called the north and south chambers.

I discuss four Linear A axe-head inscriptions. Two of them have not previously been published, one is discussed (though without a photograph) in AE 1953–4 (ii), 64 by N. K. Boufides, and one, though published by Evans in his first article on Cretan script before his excavations at Knossos (JHS xiv (1894), 280), is referred to neither in S.M. i nor by Carratelli. Its attribution to Linear A is probable but not certain.