The present study explores the possible interpretation of the terracotta cylindrical models found in Late Minoan to Early Iron Age contexts (generally known as “(circular) hut models”) as reduced-scale models of tholos tombs. Theoretical issues concerning the relationship of an ‘architectural model’ with the archaeological context in which it is found are examined in order to support the above-mentioned suggestion. Archaeological data concerning the morphology, chronology, distribution, use and significance of the Late Minoan and Early Iron Age tholos tombs are explored in order to contribute to the discussion. The possible connection between the presence of the LM III tomb models in domestic contexts and the absence of contemporary intramural burials allows us to expand on the possible significance of these artefacts for our knowledge of LM mortuary practices and beliefs, especially those concerning the possible practice of ‘ancestor worship’. The presence of terracotta figurines of the ‘Minoan Goddess with Upraised Arms’ type attached in the interior of two examples (from SM Knossos and PG B Archanes) is considered as a late development within the tradition of these models and linked with the practice of placing MGUA figures in Early Iron Age tholos tombs (Rhotasi, Kourtes).

The graves published here lie in a group by the junction of the main Knossos–Heraklion road and the secondary road to Ambelakia (Fig. 1). In May 1939 workmen widening the road to Ambelakia uncovered a tomb (Tomb I) which was cleared by the British School's Curator at Knossos, Mr. R. W. Hutchinson. In the summer of the same year the late Mr. T. J. Dunbabin, then Assistant Director of the British School, excavated five other tombs (Tombs II–VI) in the roadside. During the war a rectangular pit was dug near the road-corner by the occupying forces in Crete, presumably for a shelter which was never constructed. The pit revealed at least two other tombs whose contents were taken to Heraklion. The vases were subsequently removed from the island but for two which the ephor, Dr. N. Platon, rescued for the museum, and which he has kindly permitted me to publish here (Vases A and B). In September 1953 I excavated the dromoi of the two tombs which had been in the pit and cleared a side chamber in one of them (Tomb VIII), as well as a small tomb which had been partially disturbed by the pit (Tomb VII).

Dr. Kunze's splendid presentation alone makes possible the study of Cretan shields, many of which he put together with his own hands. Even where I differ from his conclusions I have to start from the premises he laid down from his careful and scholarly analysis, and his magnificent illustrations.

Dr. Kunze dated the beginning of the Cretan shields by the date of certain gold bands (op. cit. pp. 247, 266) found with Attic vases, from the end of the ninth to the beginning of the seventh century B.C. He has subsequently lowered the date of at least some other Attic vases by some fifty years, and he has told me that he is now disposed to date the shields also later than he did.

Dr. Kunze was naturally looking for an early date, since Johansen had affirmed the dependence of Protocorinthian vase-painting on Crete, particularly on Cretan metal-work, in which he was firmly supported by Payne.

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.

My drawing (Fig. 1) shows a tentative restoration of tomb S 201 at Cyrene, and Fig. 2 its plan. In Cassels's catalogue of the Cyrene tombs, which recognizes its importance, it is described simply as a built rectangular tomb and marked as such on his map. My investigations suggest that it is rather more complicated, and belongs to a specialized class of tomb of considerable architectural interest.

The present condition of the tomb can be seen in Plate 44, a. Part of the walling is still upright, but most of the superstructure has collapsed, encumbering the ruins. This, together with the very short time at my disposal, made it impossible to carry out a complete investigation, which would require clearing the tomb and arranging the various fallen blocks accessibly. Nevertheless the tomb is important enough to deserve a study based on the information available, even though, inevitably, some of the details will have to remain conjectural.

The tomb comprises a rectangular forecourt excavated into the rock, which here forms a virtually level ground surface, and a rock-cut chamber opening off its north-west side. This is the normal practice at Cyrene when rock-cut tombs are constructed on the level parts of the plateau. I could not take full measurements of the court; its width is a little under 12 metres, other details being obscured by fallen masonry and silt.

Excavations carried out by The Helike Project in the Helike plain on the south-western coast of the Gulf of Corinth, north-west Peloponnese, since 2000, have brought to light the well-preserved remains of a coastal Early Helladic (EH) II–III settlement. The site developed as a densely organised settlement during the EH II period and underwent a major architectural transformation at the beginning of the following EH III. In addition to a reorganisation of the settlement on a rectangular town grid, the outstanding feature among the buildings discovered is that of a monumental Corridor House. The newly organised building plan of the settlement was most probably associated with the rise of a new socio-economic structure at the time, including advanced technological specialisation, and possibly the establishment of administrative control within the town supporting communal interests, together with a new emphasis on the status of the private individual.

Considering EH Helike in its broader geographical context, the site's prosperity marks an exception to the widespread decline attested in the mainland settlements of the time, and links it rather with centres across the Aegean Sea and further east. In addition to similarities at the level of settlement organisation, such overseas links and contacts are conspicuously evidenced at Helike through the presence of an array of exotic, prestigious items and commodities including an outstanding depas cup of Trojan/Anatolian type, ornaments of precious metal from the east or the north and Melian obsidian tools, and by the adoption of ‘international’ fashions of life such as the ‘serve and drink’ culture and ‘potter's marks’. In this paper, we present the range of material evidence from the EH III town of Helike illustrating its various spheres of foreign contact, and discuss possible insights into the social and economic conditions that generated the town's floruit and cosmopolitanism in EH III.

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’.

Research conducted and published over the last 35 years has brought to light much new information concerning the so-called ‘SOS’ amphora, produced primarily in Attica and Euboea in the Archaic period. However, little focused work has been undertaken in the study of these vessels since Johnston and Jones' seminal work in 1978. This paper therefore provides a critical update on the production and distribution of SOS amphorae using the current data available. Included in this update is a discussion of recent research on Early Iron Age amphorae that may help situate the SOS amphora within a broader ceramic milieu. A new distribution of SOS amphorae also necessitates a reappraisal of some previously held ideas concerning their chronological patterns and the specific actors involved in their shipment. Taking into consideration the multiple spatial and temporal varieties of SOS amphorae, it can be shown that these vessels were relatively evenly deposited across the Mediterranean, from Iberia to the Levant, very early in the Archaic period. In combination with other factors, this widespread distribution may support the hypothesis that non-Greek seafarers were involved with transporting Athenian and Euboean SOS amphorae. Ultimately, it is hoped that a fresh look at this ceramic shape, however brief, might contribute to existing scholarly debates on cultural interactions and mobility within the Mediterranean basin during the Archaic period.

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.

It seems appropriate to contribute to this volume an unpublished fragment from Sparta of a list of victorious σφαιρεῖς of which Professor Wace kindly gave me a squeeze many years ago, and to append to it some miscellaneous notes on the lists of this class published in IG V. 1, 674–688. Some of these notes have already appeared in print, in earlier volumes of the Annual, but it may be helpful to collect and slightly amplify them here, using the prosopographical evidence now available for establishing a more exact date for some of the lists. It seems also a suitable occasion to examine briefly a new interpretation of these lists suggested in a recent work on Sparta.

Working from an inscription discovered in Athens nearly 20 years ago, suggestions have been recently made by Robertson, Shear, and Dontas for the proper placement of the Archaic agora and for the Aglaurion, Prytaneion, Theseion, and Anakeion. Based upon these recent suggestions, we may now propose a location for the Archaic Altars of the Dread Goddesses (Semnai Theai) and for the route that Kylon's followers took down from the Akropolis before they were murdered in the aftermath of their conspiracy c. 632 BC.

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.

In BSA 74 (1979) 1–80, an account was given of MM III and LM I buildings and their contents uncovered in 1975 at Knossos during a rescue excavation undertaken by the British School, in the northern half of the Staphylakis field, on the south-east flank of the acropolis (Site Plan, Fig. 1). In that account reference was made (p. 4) to the discovery of other ancient features within the heavily ploughed area. The more important of these finds are briefly described in what follows, to complete the summary publication of the results of the 1975 operation.

Full details of the circumstances in which this investigation was undertaken are given in BSA 74, together with acknowledgements to all those who assisted the authors on the site and in the preparation of the material for publication. A brief account of the whole excavation appeared in AR 1976–77.

Despite the old image of degradation and fall, modern research has shown that Roman Greece underwent a series of changes which are best reflected in the central public space of the ancient city, the agora. A variety of different factors, such as the dynamic presence of the local elite, the exploitation of the past, the imperial presence and most importantly the will to maximise functionality and monumentality, contributed to the formation of the spatial and architectural framework of the agora. In many cities the development of the agora is best described as the juxtaposition of old and new, which was achieved by the preservation and enhancement of the traditional landscape as well as by its enrichment with new buildings, many of which, like the Roman-style baths, improved the provision of services. In this context the term Romanisation describes the effort of each city to adapt to the requirements of the urban framework of the Imperial period, a framework characterised by monumentality and functionality. Roman colonies were the newest additions in the city pattern of Greece. In contrast to the Roman colonies in the west, many of the Roman foundations in Greece were founded over pre-existing cities with long histories. Therefore, they raise a series of questions concerning not only their architectural development but also the process of restructuring the existing landscape in order to create an urban framework that reflects their romanitas.

As a result of their alliances with Rome in the first two wars with Macedon, the Attalids made a number of small territorial gains in the western Aegean. Among these was the island of Aigina, which was captured by the Romans in 210 B.C., during the First Macedonian War, passed into the possession of the Aitolians in accordance with the terms of their treaty with Rome, and was finally purchased from them by Attalos I of Pergamon for the sum of thirty talents (Polyb. xxii. 8. 10): Αἰτωλοί, κύριοι γενόμενοι τῆς πόλεως κατὰ τὰς πρὸς Ῥωμαίους συνθήκας, Ἀττάλῳ παραδοῖεν, τριάκοντα τάλαντα παρ᾿ αὐτοῦ λαβόντες. This action requires some explanation, especially as the issue has been obscured by the widely held view that Attalos' fleet took part in the capture of the island; some clarification can be found in the literary accounts referring to Attalos' activity during the first years of his involvement in the war. Rome, as is well known, avoided total commitment in Greece even after Laevinus' treaty of 212/11.

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 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.

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.

Several fragments of 4th-century BC Athenian decree-inscriptions are discussed. Joins are made between IG ii2. 13a and 68 and Hesperia, 40, no. 3; IG ii2. 257 and 300; 242 and 373; 407 and SEG 32. 94; IG ii2. 309 and 552; 530 and 590. Attributed to the same stele, but not joining, are IG ii2. 139 and 289; 277 and 428; 540a and SEG 24. 117; IG ii2. 540b and Hesperia, 21, no. 17; IG ii2. 286 and 625; 414a and 403; 398a (+ 438) and 612; 484 and 558; 489 and 532; 495 and 709; 405 and Hesperia, 4, no. 32. Other decrees discussed, mainly in light of the work of A.S. Henry on the formulae of Athenian decrees, are IG ii2. 44; 81; 121; 129; 147; 154; 155; 156; 285+ 414d; 321; 335; 364; 406; 416; 1001; and SEG 21. 362 and 25. 85.

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).