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.

The presence of Hellenistic amphora production centres in central and east Crete was demonstrated in the 1990s through the survey carried out by J.-Y. Empereur, Ch. Kritzas and A. Marangou. In addition, more recent studies have placed emphasis on wine as a major component of the rural economy of Crete during that period. However, archaeological evidence from excavated sites and well-stratified contexts remains scarce. The rescue excavation carried out in a private plot at Loutra (Rethymnon, west Crete) by the 25th Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities brought to light a Hellenistic farmstead with an olive beam press and a pottery kiln mainly producing amphorae. In this study we focus on the ceramic assemblage from the site. The study of the pottery, coupled with thin-section petrography, adds new evidence for the production of amphorae in west Crete during the Late Hellenistic period, and allows the investigation of issues such as the use of raw materials, the clay pastes and the technology of pottery manufacture. Moreover, the proximity of the kiln to the olive beam press sheds light on the use of amphorae for the trade in olive oil on a local and regional scale.

This article examines Schliemann's own description of his journey through Greece and the Troad in 1868. It begins in Corfu and Kephalonia, and moves on quickly to Ithaca. The article examines Schliemann's concern with Homer in relation to his activities on these islands, as well as relating a Homeric narrative for his journey to concerns in his personal life, and picking out details emphasizing his increasing interest in archaeology. The scene moves on to Athens and Schliemann's view of modern Greece, then to the Peloponnese and his reaction to Mycenae, Tiryns and other Argolid sites. Part two concerns Schliemann's time in the Troad. It deals with the Homeric question and the location of Troy in scholarship up to 1868; an outline of Schliemann's itinerary in the Troad; Schliemann's search for Troy, including excavations at Bunarbashi; and the question of his acquaintance with Hissarlik. The views put forward differ significantly from those previously expressed in regard to the question of Hissarlik. The article concludes with two appendices, one offering extracts from Schliemann's Ithaca diary, the other extracts from his Troad diary.

The story of the Rhodian knight Dieudonné de Gozon and the slaying of the great dragon of Malpasso is, largely owing to Schiller's adoption of the theme in a ballad, one of the best-known legends of its type. It is one of several instances in which an historical personage figures as the hero of this quite mythical adventure.

Dieudonné de Gozon, a member of the Provençal langue, was the third Grand Master of the Knights of S. John at Rhodes, ruling from 1346 to 1353. He is represented as a simple knight at the time of his great adventure. As might be expected, no contemporary or nearly contemporary authority mentions the dragon-fight of de Gozon. But so early as Mandeville and Schiltberger we find anonymous Rhodian knights figuring as the heroes of current folk-tales of the chivalric type.

The probable extent of the Late Cycladic town at Akrotiri is discussed, and the original geographical setting reconstructed. The principles on which the town and its buildings were constructed are elucidated; emphasizing the compact accumulation of rooms and other units of space. Buildings are generally multi-storied, and there is no evidence for courtyards or light walls within them. Access is generally limited to a single entrance, lighting and ventilation are provided by windows. Drainage systems are provided. The three types of streets: main streets, narrow alleys, and blind alleys are described, and the factors behind their arrangement and form discussed. Orientation of the streets is approximately north to south and east to west. The phenomenon of dentation in the construction of walls is discussed. The conclusion is that the town plan reflects a building operation based on a well-organized community with strong traditions and unwritten laws.

The publication of Sheila Adam's lively and closely argued study of the technique of Greek sculpture has aroused considerable controversy; not the least disputed of her views was that the running drill, ‘the only major technical change which occurs in Greek sculpture of the Classical Period’, was not introduced until the second quarter of the fourth century B.C., a full seventy years or more after Blümel's date for its invention. Although such examination as I have been able to make of extant Greek originals from this period suggests to me that Adam was correct in concluding that the tool was not in general use until after c. 370, there does seem to be some evidence that sculptors were experimenting with it for about twenty to thirty years beforehand.

This report describes the excavation of two pits which had been dug into the natural rock, apparently in connection with the storage and perhaps original manufacture of plaster, in the space named after them the ‘Room of the Plaster Pits’. The pits were filled and covered in LM II, and the evidence for their date helps to bring the history of this part of the palace into clearer focus. The Room of the Plaster Pits may be the same as the elusive Lapidary's Workshop described by Evans in his Knossos report for 1901. It is suggested that the lack of observed floors or blocking walls in doorways separating deposits in this area makes it difficult to divide the vases assigned to LM III B here from tablets and seal impressions involved in the final destruction of the palace.

This article is a continuation of that published in BSA lvii. 46–74, and the same principles have been followed in editing the present series of fragments. The three sections deal with the tablets found during excavations at Knossos in 1961, two small fragments preserved in the British Museum but hitherto unrecorded, and a collection of pieces in Iraklion which had previously been overlooked or thought unworthy of publication. The new numbers assigned run from 8210 to 8332.

The system of transcription has been slightly modified to conform to the latest version of the ‘Wingspread Convention’ dated 1962 and published by Professor E. L. Bennett as a supplement to Nestor. The use of hyphens between groups of letters representing Mycenaean signs has been continued, as allowing in some cases a more accurate account to be given of the state of the text. The expansions of the abbreviated names of the ideograms will be found in the index of ideographic signs on p. 88. The comma has been used as the transcription of the word-divider, as it seems inadequate, especially in fragmentary texts, to leave it to be inferred merely from the spacing.

In the summer of 1972, while participating in the excavation of the Royal Road South at Knossos under the direction of Professor Peter Warren now at Bristol University, I undertook a limited examination of certain boxes in the Stratigraphical Museum in the reasonable hope of supplementing John Betts's earlier discovery of five sealstones and sixty-six sealings that could be related to the Palace. The boxes I examined all carry the label of ‘Evans's Personal Property’, and contain an extraordinary number of faience, clay, and stone objects, all with provenance unknown, but many, if not all, surely from Evans's own excavations. The box containing the seals was marked ‘Box 1878, Evans's Material’.

1. Edessa. This inscription is still where Leake first reported it, in the courtyard of the Metropolitan Church, the Dormition of the Virgin, built into the south end of the west wall of the Γραφεῖον of the Δεσπότης. Although it has been published half a dozen times, the text has never been read correctly in its entirety, largely because its height from the ground makes the taking of a photograph or the making of a squeeze, let alone a study of the letters, very difficult. I was fortunate to be able to examine it in situ, and the accompanying photograph of a squeeze will facilitate the establishment of the text (Plate 5).

It is a rough block, c. 0·46 m. in height and 0·50 m. in width, with a moulding all round, the first line being engraved on the upper moulding. The letters are irregular, measuring on an average 0·025 m. in ll. 1–6 and 0·01 m. in ll. 7–18. The letter-forms, especially important in a dated inscription, are noteworthy. Alpha, delta, and lambda have short tails on the apex; in ll. 1–6 epsilon is square, in ll. 7–18 lunar; similarly in ll. 1–6 sigma is square, in ll. 7–18 lunar. The forms of mu and omega are to be noted; see the accompanying photograph. There are no ligatures.

Three vase-groups, largely drawn from material found in the Purification Trench on Rheneia and published in Délos 15 and 17, are discussed in this paper. The first belongs to the Late Geometric period while the other two are to be placed in the first half of the seventh century BC. All three may be linked in sequence and together illustrate a pottery tradition which is likely to be Parian. Evidence is presented linking the Attic Würzburg Group with a Cycladic artist here identified as the Ad Painter and located on Paros.

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.

During the sinking of some trial pits by the iron bridge over the Eurotas a hoard of silver coins was found. They were contained in a plain vase of red ware, the mouth of which was closed by a clay stopper, and were discovered at a depth of ·50m. below the level of the present surface. The coins have now been transferred from the Sparta Museum to the National Coin Collection at Athens. They are all silver tetradrachms of Attic-Euboic weight, except of course the Ptolemaic coins, which were struck on the Phoenician standard. The weights are those of the coins before they were cleaned. They have probably lost a little in weight during the cleaning process, but I have not thought it necessary to re-weigh them. The Athenian coins I have not described in detail, as the type is so common. My hearty thanks are due to Dr. Svoronos for his help and advice.

1. The frontier of Pisidia, where it adjoins Lycaonia, is placed wrongly in my Histor. Geogr. Chs. Q and V. The district was little known, when I wrote: I had traversed it hurriedly in 1882, 1886, and 1890, in each case only on a single hasty route. The excursion of 1882 resulted in placing Anaboura and Neapolis. No name was discovered in the excursions of 1886 and 1890. Prof. Sterrett explored the district very carefully in 1884 and 1885; but the numerous inscriptions, which he found, unluckily did not contain important topographical indications, and he assigned a position much too far north for the city of Pappa-Tiberiopolis. I shared his view on this critical point, with the result that many other towns were drawn away far north of their true situation, because they stood in some relation to Pappa, and when it seemed to lie away in the north, they had to be placed correspondingly. For the same reason, the Pamphylian frontier was drawn too far north.

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.

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.

The practice of acclaiming the Emperors with certain set forms of words is mentioned by the Byzantine chroniclers in their account of the court ceremonies. Both Constantine Porphyrogenitus and the writer of the handbook which goes under the name of Codinus Curopalata give the proceedings in some detail, whereby we learn the names of the court officials, their gorgeous robes, and symbols of office, the various sections of the Imperial guard and the solemn pageantry enacted by them on state occasions, and can easily imagine the pomp, tiresome perhaps, but certainly impressive, that surrounded the Eastern Throne.

This is a report on the excavations undertaken in 2007 at the site of Praisos in eastern Crete. Three trenches were opened just next to the so-called Andreion or Almond Tree House on the NW slopes of the First Acropolis, excavated by R.C. Bosanquet in 1901. The upper layers of two of these trenches (A-200 and A-300) consisted of re-deposited material of Classical and Hellenistic date, which we infer came from Bosanquet's dump. Material from these upper layers comprised tile, pottery (including numerous examples of Cretan necked cups), loomweights and terracotta plaques with a distinct masculine iconography. Excavation also reached lower Late-Classical–Hellenistic floor levels, on which a number of pithoi survived in situ. Some of these pithoi are considerably older than the floor level, a terminus post quem for which is provided by a bronze coin. The abandonment of these houses must be dated to the final phases of Praisos' occupation, before 146 bc. There is however nothing to suggest that the city itself was subject to a fire destruction. Rather, the city seems to have undergone a forced abandonment followed by deliberate demolition.