These five tombs, discovered by chance during the last two years, have an importance out of all proportion to their size and the wealth of their contents. They comprise (see Map, Fig. 1) (1) at Ayios Ioannis, a solitary ‘shaft-grave’ with bronze weapons of early Late Minoan type, but no vases; and (2) on the site of the new Hospital, a group of four tombs (three ‘chamber-tombs’ and a ‘shaft-grave’) containing bronze weapons, together with Late Minoan II vases which provide much fresh information about the pottery of the period.

None of the five tombs had held more than one, or at the most two, bodies: that at Ayios Ioannis, and all except Tomb I on the Hospital site, evidently belonged to warriors buried with their arms. The bronze helmet from Tomb V (see p. 256 and Plates 50–52) is not only the first of the Bronze Age from Crete, but the only one of its type from the Aegean; and it has important bearings upon the origins of early metal helmets in the rest of Europe to the west and north.

In my recent book Epirus, published in June 1967, I have dealt with the finds from the tumuli of North Epirus at Vajzë, Vodhinë, Bodrishtë, and Kakavi which were excavated in 1954 and 1955 and reported in Albanian in the Buletin per Shkencat Shoquërore (referred to hereafter as BUSS) 1956, 1. 180 ff.; 1957, 2. 76 ff.; and 1959, 2. 190 ff. It was in 1963 that I first heard of this journal and late in 1964 that I obtained an offprint of the Vajzë report through the kindness of the excavator, Professor Frano Prendi. He dated the tumuli and their contents to the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age and to the early centuries of the Iron Age, but I have advanced the view in my book that the earliest of these tumuli and the earliest burials in such tumuli date to the Middle Helladic period. When this went to press in December 1964, I was able to publish also a few objects from the tumuli of the Mati valley which were illustrated in the same journal for 1955, and appeared to be of Middle Helladic date but had been dated by the excavator to the end of the Bronze Age at the earliest. Late in 1965 I was sent by Professor Frano Prendi a copy of a new Albanian periodical Studia Albanica, no. i of 1964. Here the same dates were given for the tumuli of North Epirus and of the Mati valley but reference was made for the first time in my experience to a Middle Helladic dating of tumuli and of objects which had been found at Pazhok. This material was too late to be included in my book. As the evidence at Pazhok is conclusive for the Middle Helladic dating, I give a summary of the brief report, which this time was in French, and I reproduce the illustrations which were not of a high standard. The reports of all these excavations have escaped the notice of scholars in the western countries, so far as I am aware. The Pazhok report runs as follows (with my numbering of paragraphs and a few comments).

The purpose of this article is to correct and expand our understanding of an interrelated group of socially prominent families from Roman Sparta and Epidaurus. Part I publishes an inscription from Sparta, dating to about 240, which attests new members of the Spartan families of the Claudii and the Pomponii: respectively Claudia Tyrannis, a great-granddaughter of the senator Tib. Claudius Brasidas, and C. Pomponius Aristeas qui et Pericles, her husband. At the same time, a revised account is offered of the Claudii and of a further four Spartan families to which they were related: the Memmii, the Voluseni, the Aelii, and the Pompeii. Part II re-examines the evidence for the Epidaurian family of the Statilii. Apart from the new inscription, more recent work on the epigraphic corpora from Sparta and the Asclepieum, the possibility of reinterpreting the older material, and the need to take hitherto neglected documents into account, together seem to justify a fresh treatment of these families. The resulting study, as well as providing up-to-date family histories, includes many corrections on detailed points of local epigraphy, chronology, and prosopography.

The 2008 excavations on the small island of Dhaskalio opposite Dhaskalio Kavos on the Cycladic island of Keros are reviewed. An account is given of the survey, recording many walls of the early Bronze Age, and of the excavations, continued from the 2007 season. Excavations at the summit of Dhaskalio revealed a substantial building 16 m long and 4 m wide, within which was discovered the ‘Dhaskalio hoard’ comprising a chisel, an axe-adze, and a shaft-hole axe of copper or bronze. Study of the pottery reveals continuity, within which a sequence of three phases within the Early Cycladic II and III periods can be established.

Excavations were continued and concluded within the Special Deposit at Kavos South with the recovery of many more special but fragmentary materials including marble vessels and figurines. Specialist studies for the geomorphology, geology, petrology, ceramic petrology, metallurgy and environmental aspects (botanical and faunal remains, phytoliths) are in progress. No more fieldwork is planned prior to final publication of the 2006 to 2008 seasons.

Στο άρθρο ετηχειρείται ένας συνοπτικός απολογισμός των ανασκαφών της περιόδου του 2008 στην νησΐδα Δασκαλιό, απέναντι από τον Κάβο Δασκαλιού, στο ΝΔ άκρο της νήσου Κέρου, των Κυκλάδων. Περιληππκά αναφέρονται τα αποτελέσματα της τοπογράφησης με τον εντοπισμό πολλών τοίχων της Πρώψης Εποχής του Χαλκού, αλλά και αυτά της ανασκαφής, η οποία αποτελεί την συνέχεια των ανασκαφών του 2007. Κατά τις ανασκαφές στην κορυφή του Δασκαλιού αποκαλύφθηκε ένα ευμέγεθες κτήριο μήκους 16 μέτρων και πλάτους 4 μέτρων, εντός του οποίου βρέθηκε ο ‘Θησαυρός του Δασκαλχού’, ο οποίος αποτελείται από μία σμίλη, μία αξίνα-πέλεκυ, κοα έναν πέλεκυ με συμφυή οττή για την τοποθέτηση του στειλεού, όλα χάλκινα ή μπρούτζινα. Η μελέτη της κεραμικής απέφερε σημαντικά αποτελέσματα και απέδειξε ότι υπάρχει συνέχεια. Η αυτή ίδια μελέτη κατέδειξε μία ακολουθία τριών φάσεων, οι οποίες χρονολογήθηκαν από την Πρωτοκυκλαδική II έως και την Πρωτοκυκλαδική III περίοδο.

Οι ανασκαφές στον Κάβο Δασκαλιού συνεχίστηκαν και ολοκληρώθηκαν στην περιοχή της Νότιας Ειδικής Απόθεσης με την αποκάλυψη πλήθους ιδιαίτερων, αλλά αποσπασματικά σωζόμενων, ευρημάτων, μεταξύ των οποίων, πολλών μαρμάρινων αγγείων και ενδοίλίων.

Οι εξειδικευμένες μνκρομορφολογικές-γεωαρχαιολογικές, γεωλογικές και πετρογραφικές μελέτες, αλλά και οι αναλύσεις πηλού και οι μελέτες, που αφορούν στην αρχαιομεταλλουργία και στο παλαιοπεριβάλλον (αναλύσεις των καταλοίπων της χλωρίδας και της πανίδας αλλά και των φυτολίθων), βρίσκονται σε εξέλιξη. Άλλες έρευνες επί του εδάφους προς το ηαρόν δεν προγραμματίζονται, πριν από την ολοκλήρωση της τελικής δημοσίευσης των αποτελεσμάτων των ερευνών των περιόδων 2006 έως και 2008.

This article examines the methods of surface treatment of the Neolithic vessels from northern Greece. The work is based on the study of a large sample of ceramics, covering the whole span of the Neolithic, from Macedonia and Thrace. Macroscopic study of the material was complemented by microscopic examination (SEM and petrographic analysis) and retiring tests. The results are compared with data from other technological analyses of Neolithic vessels from northern Greece. Apart from identifying, in some cases for the first time, methods of surface treatment and materials used by the potters of these regions, the present study considers the changes in surface treatment and firing techniques through time.

The site of Kouphovouno, just south of Sparta, is one of the main Neolithic sites in Laconia. It was first settled in the Middle Neolithic period and developed into a large village with remains occupying some 4–5 hectares. A joint team from the British School at Athens and the Ecole française d'Athènes carried out excavations at the site in 2001–6. There is evidence for occupation during the Bronze Age, and for an extensive Late Roman villa, but this article concentrates on the chronology of the site during the Middle and Late Neolithic phases. The evidence from stratigraphic sequences, pottery typology, seriation and Bayesian analysis of the radiocarbon dates is brought together to present a detailed chronological sequence covering the period c.5800–5000 bc. In particular the analysis relies on the results from two deep soundings, one excavated in Area C carried down to the natural sediments underlying the site and exposing the earliest period of occupation, and the second in Area G covering the later Middle Neolithic and much of the Late Neolithic phase. The findings from Kouphovouno are placed more generally in the context of finds from other sites in the Peloponnese and in particular in relation to the important sequence from Franchthi Cave. On the basis of the evidence it is argued that the transition from Middle Neolithic to Late Neolithic in southern Greece was not abrupt, as had previously been thought, but showed a gradual evolution. This finding has implications for our understanding of the process of transformation that southern Greece underwent in the course of the later sixth millennium bc.

Everyone who has the slightest acquaintance with the Crimea at the present time, and especially with the economic conditions which prevail there, is thoroughly aware of its intimate connexion, both economic and social, with the southern coast of the Black Sea—with Samsun, Eregli, Sinope, Kerasund, Trebizond and other towns. Great masses of workmen from these parts flood the cities of the Crimea. Practically all shipments by sea in vessels of small displacement are carried out by the owners of feluccas, who hail from the municipal centres of ancient Pontus and from the neighbouring sea-towns of what was once Bithynia. A glance at the map is sufficient to show that there is no casual connexion here; the close interconnexion between the shores of the Crimea and the southern coast of the Black Sea, which is almost visible with the naked eye from the southernmost point of the Crimea, has been brought about by the natural conditions of the locality. The decline in the prosperity of the southern Turkish coast of the Black Sea and the great prosperity of the Crimea in the years immediately preceding the war were the chief reasons why the Crimea played the part of employer, and the sea towns of the southern coast the part of supplier of labour. They provided as well the necessary tonnage for coastwise shipping, mostly in the shape of small sailing vessels. Such could not always be the case, nor indeed have such conditions continuously prevailed, although, generally speaking, similar relations must needs be established quite independent of the fortune assigned by history to the districts with which we are now dealing.

The lead figurines from recent excavations at the shrine of Helen and Menelaus are discussed, excluding those in the form of wreaths, which were well over half the total of almost 6,000. Five hundred and sixty-one moulds are distinguished, divided between sixty-one varieties. A chronology is attempted on the basis of three methods, stratigraphy, seriation, and typology and a tentative sequence is proposed.

Among over 1800 boxes of Sir Arthur Evans's finds now stored in the Stratigraphical Museum at Knossos, at least 150 contain Greek pottery from Subminoan to Classical. A systematic study of this material, in relation to its recorded find spots, throws new light on the eastern part of the early Greek town, bordering the site of the Minoan Palace. Above the Palace itself, fresh evidence is produced, and fresh interpretation offered, for the Greek sanctuary described by Evans. In its immediate surroundings, there are signs of busy domestic and industrial life in the early Greek town above the South-West Houses, the West Court, the Theatral Area, and the Pillared Hall outside the North Entrance to the Palace. Greek occupation is also noted above the House of Frescoes, the Little Palace and the Royal Villa. A wider aim of this article is to trace the limits of the early Greek town of Knossos, both of its original Early Iron Age nucleus surviving from Late Minoan times, and of its spacious extension towards the north in the late eighth and seventh centuries BC.

The existence of agonistic festivals in Boiotia in the first half of the first century B.C. is well attested by inscriptions, many of them collected in the pages of IG vii, which appeared in 1892, and others published as a result of subsequent archaeological discoveries. Foremost in this field were the French scholars who conducted important excavations in the neighbourhood of Thespiai, at the Ptoïon and elsewhere. In his IG commentaries Dittenberger laid the foundations of a relative chronology for these inscriptions, and many supplementary details have been added from time to time by various French scholars. The value of this epigraphical evidence for an understanding of Boiotian affairs in the first half of the first century B.C. can be still further enhanced if the chronological relationships of the inscriptions are defined more precisely, and especially if it can be shown which of them belong to the period before, and which to the period after, the Mithridatic War.

This article should have been published in BSA xxxviii with the rest of the Karphi material. That it was not was due to the fact that in 1939 the pottery was insufficiently mended for drawing and photography. Most of the text was written by the beginning of 1940 and approved by John Pendlebury before his death. I can only apologize for subsequent delays and admit that I have forgotten much which might have been relevant.

Methods: The pottery from each room and each strosis was carefully collected and labelled. During the first two seasons it was then brought to Tzermiadho for study, but in 1939 arrangements were made for dealing with it on the site, which greatly simplified the work.

At first sherds were washed by women from the village, but the difficulties of washing were so great that it was soon decided that all those that were painted, or probably painted, would have to be washed by one of ourselves if their patterns were to be preserved. Even so there were many instances where no treatment which we could devise would remove the mud without also removing the colour, if not the entire surface. Eventually only such coarse sherds as seemed to be worth making up, or to represent new types, were washed at all, since brushing in plain water, which was all that these would stand, had so little effect that sorting was just as easy without it.

My first literary pilgrimage to the Ionian islands took place six years ago. I still find them an attractive field for research, and the present paper records observations made among them during two very pleasant summers. In this connection I would recall the fact that both Professor Chadwick and Professor Childe have indicated the importance of a study of North-West Greece for the better understanding of the coming of the Greeks.

At Easter 1981, as part of a joint Greek-British investigation of the region of ‘Toumba’ at Lefkandi in Euboea, a further area of the known cemetery there was excavated. The Greek Archaeological Service was represented by Mrs. E. Touloupa, previously Ephor of Euboea, and the British School by M. R. Popham and L. H. Sackett: the operation was under the general supervision of the Ephor, Mr. P. Kalligas.

Since the results of the previous excavations in this and the other cemeteries have recently been published with a full commentary, we have decided to give a quick and more summary account of the new finds as a supplement to the main publication to which reference is made for detailed discussion.

This paper deals with the cult and myths of the daughters of the mythical king of Athens, Erechtheus, who lived on the Acropolis. The myth, preserved in Euripides’ tragedy Erechtheus, establishes the deceased daughters as goddesses who are owed cult by the Athenians. It further equates them with the Hyades, a prominent star cluster in the constellation of Taurus, which they form after their deaths. We examine here the possibility that this myth not only narrates the placement of the girls after their death in the sky in the form of the Hyades, but also may have bound the constellation to certain festivals held on the Acropolis, which through their aetiological myths were connected to the daughters of Erechtheus and in which the participation of young girls (arrhēphoroi) was important. To explicate this cult, we explore its context on the Acropolis as fully as possible, through the visual arts, the literary myth, the festival calendar, and the natural landscape and night sky, so as to determine whether the movement of the Hyades was indeed visible from the Acropolis during the time when the young maiden cult rites were performed on the hill. This study investigates for the first time the role of the night sky and astronomical observations in the performance of the nocturnal festival of the Arrhēphoria.

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.

A final report is presented here on the excavation of four Areas at the prehistoric site of Kouphovouno, Sparta, Lakonia. Areas A and D were excavated as trials in 2001 and lie outside the land purchased by the BSA for the main campaigns, so they could not be excavated further, whilst Areas E and F had extensive deposits of historic date and were not further explored as being outside the remit of the main Kouphovouno Project. The excavations have yielded important Neolithic and Early Helladic II deposits, plus Bronze Age burials and later Roman remains. After summarising the aims of the Project and mentioning earlier work at the site, the report gives an account of the stratigraphy and finds and includes specialist reports on the human and animal bones, the ceramics, the chipped and ground stone and other finds. Also discussed is the relationship between the surface remains reported in BSA 99 and the excavated material.

More than 100,000 lead figurines are reported to have been found in the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia at Sparta. It has been suggested that these mass-produced votives were obtained from locally mined lead. Lead votives in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, were selected as representative of each ‘layer’ from the British excavations of the early twentieth century. Lead isotope analysis of the votives was conducted in the Oxford Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art and demonstrated that the lead was apparently derived from Lavrion as a by-product of silver extraction. There is a possibility that Attic silver, as well as lead, could have been used in Archaic Laconia.

Since 1950 widespread and important excavation has taken place in the Argolid. For Mycenae and Tiryns much of the post-excavation study has now been completed but has not yet reached final publication. The use of material from the preliminary reports has, however, led to conclusions which are not justified. The study teams at both sites, working in close collaboration, present here the detailed stratigraphie background to their work and the definitive assignments produced. The diagnostic pottery for the second half of the thirteenth century bc (LH III B2 Early and Late), which culminated in a major destruction at each site, is illustrated with its contextual background. The relationship between the two sites can thus be accurately assessed and the evidence will enable well-founded historical hypotheses.

Από το 1950 εκτεταμένες και σημαντικές ανασκαφικές έρευνες έχουν λάβει χώρα στην Αργολίδα. Για τις Μυκήνες και την Τίρυνθα ένα μεγάλο μέρος της μετα-ανασκαφικής μελέτης έχει πλέον ολοκληρωθεί δίχως ωστόσο να έχει φτάσει στο τελικό στάδιο της δημοσίευσης. Η χρήση υλικού από τις προκαταρκτικές εκθέσεις έχει ωστόσο οδηγήσει σε συμπεράσματα, τα οποία δεν μπορούν να τεκμηριωθούν. Οι ερευνητικές ομάδες των δύο θέσεων, στενά συνεργαζόμενες, παρουσιάζουν στο άρθρο αυτό το λεπτομερές στρωματογραφικό πλαίσιο της εργασίας τους και τις τελικές εκθέσεις. Η διαγνωστική κεραμική για το δεύτερο ήμισυ του δέκατου τρίτου αιώνα π.Χ. (YE III B2 Πρώιμη και Ύστερη), περίοδος που σημαδεύτηκε αηό μία μεγάλη καταστροφή και στις δύο θέσεις, επεξηγείται στο πλαίσιο των συνευρημάτων της. Η σχέση των δύο θέσεων μπορεί με αυτόν τον τρόπο να αξιολογηθεί με μεγαλύτερη ακρίβεια. Τα στονχεία αυτά θα επιτρέψουν τη διατύπωση καλά θεμελιωμένων ιστορικών υποθέσεων.

An intensive archaeological survey covering the entire extent of the island of Antikythera has recently revealed a sequence of prehistoric activity spanning the later Neolithic to Late Bronze Age, with cultural affiliations that variously link its prehistoric communities with their neighbours to the north, south and east. Here we present and discuss the results of a programme of both macroscopic and petrographie study of the prehistoric ceramics from Antikythera that defines a considerably varied group of fabrics and explores their implications with regard to regional potting traditions, on-island production versus imports, and changing patterns of human activity on the island through time.

Μια εντατική επιφανειακή έρευνα που κάλυψε το σύνολο της έκτασης των Aντικυθήρων αποκάλυψε πρόσφατα μια ακολουθία προïστορικής δραστηριότητας που χρονολογείται από την προχωρημένη Nεολιθική μέχρι την ´Yστερη Eποχή του Xαλκού, και αντανακλά ποικίλες πολιτιστικές σχέσεις των προïστορικών κοινοτήτων του νησιού με γειτονικές περιοχές στα βόρεια, νότια καν ανατολικά. Eσώ παρουσιάςουμε και (τυςητάμε τα αποτελέσματα ενός προγράμματος μακροσκοπικής και πετρογραφικής μελέτης της προïστορικής κεραμικής από τα Aντικύθηρα, που προσδιορίςει μια σημαντική ποικνλία κεραμικών υλών και διερευνά τη σημασία τους σε σχέση με τις τοπικές παραδόσενς κεραμικής στην ευρύτερη περιοχή του Aιγαίου, την αντιδιαςτολή εγχώρνας παραγωγής καν ενσαγωγών, και τις δναχρονικές μεταβολές στο χαρακτήρα και την ένταση της ανθρώπινης δραστηριότητας στο νησί.

The decoration of Hellenistic houses can be understood in terms of hierarchies, which marked out the relative importance of the rooms and spaces in the house. In mosaics, the hierarchy is related to the materials used and the complexity of the design; wall painting is capable of expressing more subtle distinctions, through a combination of colours, motifs, decorative friezes, and architectural features in stucco relief. Surviving houses from Delos, Morgantina and Monte Iato are analysed in detail to explain how their decoration might have worked, and from these examples some conclusions are drawn about changes in the use of domestic space in the late Hellenistic period.