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.

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.

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.

A tour round the churches of Volissos, made with Mr. J. Boardman in 1961, revealed a number of unpublished inscriptions which I am setting out here together with two known texts which we were able to review. With one exception (no. 6) they are of Roman date; with two exceptions (nos. 4 and 6) repulsive to look at. Some of them are, however, quite substantial texts and the concentration of so many documents of this same period at Volissos may be significant.

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.

Among the local finds displayed in the Museum of Antiquities at the Piraeus are six Roman portraits, all of Pentelic marble and all unrestored. Two of them, a colossal head of Trajan (no. 270) and a colossal statue of Balbinus (no. 278), have already been fully edited. But according to the Director of the Piraeus Museum, Dr. Threpsiades, and to the best of the present writer's knowledge, of the other portraits two are still unpublished, two described without any illustration; and it is with Dr. Threpsiades' kind permission that all four are published here.

I. No. E 4. Head of Claudius(Plate 67a–b)

Total height: 48 cm.

Height from crown of head to bottom of chin: 26 cm.

Width across at greatest extent: 20 cm.

Width from back to front at greatest extent: 24 cm.

The sculpture depicts the head and neck, slightly over life-size, of an elderly man, in whom we can immediately recognize the Emperor Claudius. At the base of the neck is a rounded ‘tenon’, designed for insertion into a cavity between the shoulders of the now vanished body of a full-length statue. Claudius' face has sustained considerable damage. The nose has practically gone, only part of the side, and the hollow interior, of the right nostril remaining. The chin, lips, and right ear are bruised, the brow is marred by several abrasures, and the left ear is lost.

With the idea of drawing attention to the fact that the whole of Crete including the most westerly parts had been occupied during every phase of the Minoan Bronze Age, if not earlier in Neolithic times, I recently listed sites of those periods known to me or reported by others in the province of Khania. Between 27 and 30 April 1966, my wife and I visited two areas on the south-west coast of the island (Fig. 1) where no Bronze Age sites appear to have been noted. These were (A) west of Palaiokhora (Fig. 2), and (B) between Sfakia and Frangokastelli (Fig. 3). Two small Minoan settlements were identified near the sea in area (A), and scattered traces of Minoan occupation in (B). The pottery seemed to reflect occupation during the flourishing period of the Minoan civilization between Middle Minoan I and Late Minoan I rather than earlier or later. The most westerly site visited (A. 7) might yield to excavation an interesting picture of what a small Minoan settlement in a remote area was like. In addition to the Minoan, a number of later, Greek and Roman, sites were observed. The most important of the Roman sites is B. 7 in the middle of the plain by Frangokastelli with substantial remains of an early Christian basilica church.

Cretulae is the name given in this article to the small clay nodules, stamped with one or more seal impressions, that have been found in quantity at most Bronze Age sites in the Near East. The Minoan examples are generally smaller than those found at other sites, and the great majority of them have a hole through which string once passed. That is to say, they are lumps of clay squeezed round string and then sealed. At most of the sites in Crete where they are known, they have been found in conjunction with inscribed clay tablets and clay disks. At Hagia Triada they are unique in being for the most part countermarked with a sign of the Linear A script. The interrelationships of the countermarks and sealings have not previously been recorded, and it is the primary purpose of this article to publish them. The catalogue will be found in Appendix A. Proper analysis of it should shed light on Minoan methods of administration, and perhaps too on the purpose of the Linear A tablets. That the tablets, or some of them, belong to a coherent system of administration, and are not all mere inventory lists of what happened to be coming into or going out of store at a particular moment, seems guaranteed by the fact, to which I shall revert later, that totals in the same numerical proportion are found at widely distant sites.

The large pictorial jug published here (Plate 12 a-d) was discovered in 1966 in a plundered Mycenaean chamber tomb at the site Melathria, near the village of Skoura in Laconia. Skoura is close to Sparta, opposite to and east of the Vapheio tholos tomb, on the east side of the river Eurotas.

It is a most unusual Mycenaean vase, remarkable for its pictorial decoration at such an early date. In view of the shape of the vase and its linear decoration, it seems to be one of the earliest pictorial vases yet found on the mainland of Greece.

The jug, which is now exhibited in Sparta Museum (Inv. no. 5533), has been restored from fragments, and large pieces of the belly have been completed with plaster. It can be described as follows: Tall jug with cut-away neck (Plate 12a). Light brown clay, polished yellow-pink surface, lustrous red paint which in places has adhered badly and flaked away.

In a note on the Argive festival of the Hybristika I mentioned the diviners of Skythia as examples of that strange phenomenon familiar among many savage peoples, the magician who dresses as a woman. As the θήλεα νοῦσος has been somewhat of a crux to Herodotean scholars, I may perhaps be allowed to develop the point a little more at length.

It has usually been suggested that the θήλεα νοῦσος must be explained either as a vice, or as a bodily disease, or as a mental affliction. None of these theories, however, accounts for all the features of the evidence which we possess, and can only be tortured into conformity by the Procrustean ingenuity of the scholar. Those, for example, who explain the θήλεα νοῦσος as a vice, have further to show why those who are afflicted with it form a definite class, why they are connected especially with Askalon, and why they are magicians.

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 pictures on pp. 230, 231 (Figs. 1, 2) are taken from a red-figured amphora of Panathenaic shape in the Louvre (G 61). They are more curious than comely, but if devoid of merit they are not devoid of interest. Let us put them beside the pictures on p. 233 (Figs. 3, 4), which come from a vase in Count Stroganoff's collection. The lower part of the dress and the sandalled feet are almost line for line the same in both vases; the altars are the same except in one small detail: notice carefully the sleeve in Fig. 1, and compare it with the sleeve in Fig. 4. Other resemblances will strike the eye, but it will be enough to mention one: is there not something odd about the perpendicular fold-lines on the chiton in Fig. 4? in archaic drawing, perpendicular folds go right on until they meet a transverse line; but here they stop of their own accord at Athena's waist: now the grouped folds on the sleeve of Fig. 2 behave in the same obstinate way.

The Louvre vase G 61 has a pendant in the Louvre vase G 60, which is figured by Pottier in his Album, Pl. 95. The subjects are similar: on A of G 61, Athena bending at an altar, holding a spear and a flower; on A of G 62, Athena bending at an altar, holding a wreath and a spray of smilax; on B of G 61, a woman worshipper at an altar, holding a smilax spray; on B of G 60, a man worshipper at an altar, holding a phiale.

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.

Located in west-central Crete, the ancient city of Eleutherna attracted considerable scholarly interest at the end of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. Drawing on largely unpublished archival information, this paper sheds light on the first archaeological explorations of the site, describing their aims, scope, vicissitudes, and results. Emphasis is given on the plans that the Italian School of Archaeology at Athens developed for Eleutherna and the excavations conducted there, first by the local ephor, E. Petrulakis, and then by the British School at Athens. The ‘discovery of Eleutherna’ is assessed with reference to the shifting scholarly agenda of Cretan archaeology in that period and its relation to major developments in the island's political history.

Η Ελεύθερνα, μια αρχαία πόλη ευρισκόμενη στο κεντρικό προς δυτικό τμήμα της Κρήτης, προσήλκυσε το έντονο ενδιαφέρον των αρχαιολόγων κατά τα τέλη του 19ου και τον πρώιμο 20ο αιώνα. Αντλώντας πληροφορίες από αδημοσίευτο κυρίως, αρχειακό υλικό, η παρούσα μελέτη επιχειρεί μια ανασύνθεση των πρώτων αρχαιολογικών ερευνών στην αρχαία πόλη, εξετάζοντας τα κίνητρα και τους στόχους τους αλλά και τις δυσκολίες και τα αποτελέσματά τους. Έμφαση δίδεται στα σχέδια της Ιταλικής Αρχαιολογικής Σχολής Αθηνών για την Ελεύθερνα, αλλά και στις ανασκαφές που διενέργησαν στη θέση πρώτα ο τοπικός έφορος αρχαιοτήτων, Ε. Πετρουλάκις, και αργότερα η Βρετανική Σχολή Αθηνών. Η «ανακάλυψη ιης Ηλεύθερνας» εξετάζεται σε σχέση με τις μεταβαλλόμενες ερευνητικές προτεραιότητες της κρητικής αρχαιολογίας της περιόδου αλλά κοα σημαντικές αλλαγές σιην πολιτική ιστορία του νησιού.

The excavations of R. H. Lang at the Temple of Apollo in Idalion in 1868 produced the largest number of Cypro-Archaic anthropomorphic bronze statuettes so far known from a single site in Cyprus. These are published here, many for the first time, and set within the context of similar material from the island, the Levant, and the Greek world.

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.

The marble statue of a youthful Athena, which was once in the Mattei collection and is now in the Louvre in Paris, has long been regarded as a work of considerable beauty and charm (Plate 66a–c). It seems to be a copy of an original of the fourth century B.C., but because no other versions of the type are known there has been some hesitation in attributing it to a particular sculptural workshop.

Within the last few years the Athena Mattei has emerged as one of the most important ancient copies in existence. For in 1959 a number of bronze statues were found by chance in Piraeus, and amongst them was a magnificent bronze Athena which appears to be the original from which the statue in the Louvre was copied (Plates 67, 68a). It is the purpose of this article to investigate the relationship between the two statues and to consider the implications regarding the date and authorship both of the marble copy and of the bronze original.

Some experimental excavations were carried out at Geraki (the ancient Geronthrae) between May 26 and June 6 of 1905.

Geraki lies in the upland plain which includes practically the whole of east central Laconia extending from the left bank of the Eurotas to the foothills of Parnon: it is on the south and south-western slopes of one of these foothills—the ancient acropolis of Geronthrae, which we shall discuss later in detail—that the modern village is built.