On 7 Metageitnion of the Athenian year 322/1 B.C. a military engagement near Krannon, some 15 kilometres south-west of Larissa in Thessaly, marked the end of the so-called Lamian War in which a majority of the Greek mainland poleis, temporarily united under Athenian leadership, had attempted to terminate the Macedonian domination and to reassert their rights to individual autonomy. Although significant in that it heralded the final miscarriage of the Hellenic revolt, none the less the battle at Krannon was, in itself, a comparatively minor struggle in which the Greek forces, after an initial success, capitulated with surprising rapidity to the Macedonian commander-in-chief Antipater. That this war, in which the Hellenic armies had held the upper hand during the initial stages, should have concluded with such an insignificant clash of arms, is understandable only in the light of events at sea. The key battles which signalled the end of hopes for an overall Greek victory in their struggle for autonomy were naval ones—the most crucial being the naval confrontation determined near the island of Amorgos in the Sporades, some time prior to the battle of Krannon.

This report describes and discusses the archaeological sites explored by the writers in an intensive survey of the lower catchment of the river valley which reaches from just south-west of Pigaidakhia to the mouth of the Ayiofarango just west of Kaloi Limenes (Fig. 1). This area was chosen because it was known to be of considerable archaeological importance, yet in recent years it had been subjected more to the depredations of tomb-robbers than to the exploration of archaeologists. In addition, there was the possibility that a road would be cut through the valley from the Mesara to Kaloi Limenes. A survey in advance of such work would enable sites of archaeological importance to be recorded and either investigated or safeguarded before any construction work took place.

The valley is 12 km in length and is divided by a watershed at 550 m. from basins draining northwards to the Mesara Plain. The study area forms the southernmost part of the catchment, draining south, by the A. Kyriaki River, to the Libyan Sea. The river and several of its tributaries are ephemeral (Fig. 2).

It is evident that the geology of the area dictates the shape of the land, and in the past, as now, controlled the quantity of flat land available for settlement and cultivation.

From intensive field data a soil map and a land use potential map have been compiled. They should be considered together, and in relation to the cumulative site maps (Figs. 34–6).

I. The Ayiofarango Valley

E1 (M, GR, BM)

A terrace at about the 200 m. contour, east of and above the road from Kaloi Limenes to A. Kyriaki, c. 100 m. from the point where the road crosses the watershed into the catchment area. The terrace is c. 150 m. (N.-S.) by 50 m. (E.-W.), bounded on the east by steep, bare upward gradients, and on the west by a steep downward slope covered only with low scrub. Two possible stretches of wall were found on the western slope, but the only certain structural remains were a modern sheep pen and a circular wall, c. 1–5 m. in diameter, which appeared to be a filled-in well. Abraded sherds were quite common on the western slope, but scarcer on the terrace.

The material described below was found in November 1974 in a building plot in Knossos, property of Mr. Constantinos Vlachakis. The initial discovery consisted of six marble sculptures (S.6, 8–11 and 19) and a base (S.22) found in digging Foundation Pit 1 (Fig. 2). The Antiquities Service guard, Mr. Mitsos, who supervised the opening of the pits, stopped the work and reported the find to Dr. St. Alexiou in the Herakleion Museum. On the latter's request, H. W. Catling immediately undertook a limited investigation, in the course of which nineteen more fragments of sculpture came to light, and the structural features described below. The work lasted three days (11–13 Nov. 1974) with the help of two workmen. At its completion, approval was given for the continuation of the building.

One of the specialist contributions often appended to an archaeological report is the analysis of human skeletal material. Such an analysis is rarely of sufficient interest to be included in the main report, largely because the excavator has not set pertinent and soluble problems for the analyst. The time of specialists has been wasted measuring morphological minutiae in a vain attempt to track down quasi-tribal entities in which archaeologists no longer believe. The assessment of the age and sex of a skeleton, however, follows a firm methodology, is far less time-consuming, and yields relevant information.

Perhaps the most characteristic artifacts other than pottery found with any frequency at Mycenaean sites are the small, vertically perforated conoid objects described as spindle whorls or buttons, although neither use has been satisfactorily proved. They occur in several shapes. Persson distinguished the purely conical type with or without a rounded top from the shanked and the disc-shaped; Wace divided them into conical, shanked, shanked with concave base, and biconical; Blegen into bicones, short cones, and shanked; Furumark into conical (Type a 1), biconical (a 2), shanked (b), and disc-shaped (c). They belong, that is to say, to five basic types: bicone, semi-globular (Persson's round-top conical), conical, shanked, and flat or disc-shaped (Fig. 1), with variations in the shape of their bases (flat or concave) and of their tops (plain or ringed).

The stratigraphical excavations of the British School at Athens of the Minoan settlement at Knossos on Crete following the Second World War have produced, among much else, many fragmentary remains of wall paintings in datable archaeological contexts of almost every period from Early Minoan I to Late Minoan IIIB (c. 3000–1200 B.C.). This circumstance therefore presented an excellent opportunity to examine and analyse scientifically fresco samples spanning almost the entire Minoan epoch in the hope that it might be possible to fill in some of the gaps in present knowledge of Minoan wall painting technology. A cursory glance at the published reports of Aegean Bronze Age fresco analyses, especially prior to research since 1974, indicates the ‘gaps’ to be both wide and many: so few samples had been examined from any one site, or from any one period, or from paintings of any serious art-historical significance at all, that the scientific, statistical, and art-historical basis of this field of research seemed very dubiously established. The present study, which has grown from Dr. Mark Cameron's preparation of the publication of the new fresco material from these excavations, only became feasible when suitable laboratory facilities presented themselves.

Rearrangement of the Stratigraphical Museum at Knossos, emergency digs, chance finds, and interrupted projects of study have combined to leave the author with material which is largely disjointed though some can be welded into cohesive units. Presented partly in the form of a catalogue and partly as expanded notes, it may be useful to those working in the various periods and fields of Minoan studies.

The catalogue below covers some of the finds preserved in the Stratigraphical Museum from the excavations of Evans and Curators at Knossos, which they did not publish or which have been subsequently restored; to these have been added more recent chance finds and objects from emergency excavations in the Knossos area for which the author was responsible. This is followed by an account of some of Evans's deposits from the Palace which have a bearing on the relationship of MM IIIB and LM IA pottery.

The ancient remains in the Heraion Valley at Perachora are arranged in three groups. Firstly, by the little harbour the group including the West Court, the sixth-century temple of Hera Akraia (and, before that, the earliest temple), the altar, and the angled stoa. Secondly, above the first, rather steep section of the valley, and partly concealed behind a spur of the hill to the south, the double apsidal cistern and the hestiatorion. Thirdly, some distance behind this, and preceded by the ‘sacred pool’, the series of terraces, on the uppermost of which is the building identified as the Temple of Hera Limenia. This identification has led to the idea that there were, in effect, two sanctuaries; in publishing the double apsidal cistern and the hestiatorion I include them in ‘remains outside the two sanctuaries’