Apart from the rather summary excavation on the summit of Aetós by Gell at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and the opening of some tombs above Pisaetó by Guitara in 1811–14, excavations have been made in Ithaca on three occasions previously to Lord Rennell's expedition.

In the course of two visits, one in 1868 and the other in 1878, Schliemann dug trial trenches in the plain at Pólis, at the ‘School of Homer’, at Aetós (both on the saddle and on the summit), at the cave of Dexiá, and at Marathiá. The work was carried out at great speed, and it is not always easy to make out from his description the precise nature of the objects found; nor is it known what has become of them. It is clear, however, that nothing Mycenaean was found.

When Woodward first published, among the inscriptions found by Wace in Beroea, the letters of Demetrius II to Harpalus, he had not a first-hand acquaintance with the stone and had, therefore, to rely on Wace's copy and squeezes. Now this stele, suffering as it does from water-erosion, yields very little by squeezing. It must be studied at first-hand and in a good light. Woodward himself realised this, when he said : ‘Prolonged study of the stone in a favourable light might recover a few more letters.’ It was my good fortune to be able to study the original in these favourable circumstances during a visit to Beroea in 1936 in the company of Mr. C. F. Edson of Harvard University. Our method was to moisten the surface of the stone and study it letter by letter in bright sunlight, and in the light of a powerful electric torch from different angles. Often the presence of a letter could be detected only by observing the discoloration left by the chisel-strokes.

In Ö. Jh. XXXI Beibl. 21 ff., I published my attempts to put together a number of early Attic votive pedestals, bases, columns, and capitals. I now follow this up by a publication of some Attic archaic monuments which I have similarly connected with their pedestals. Mr. G. M. Young was kind enough to translate into English the first draft of this paper, which was originally written in German.

I have excluded from this article the monument to which the Nike, Acropolis no. 690, belonged, as this seemed to me to deserve separate treatment (AJA XLIV). I have also excluded a further series of pedestals, which I have assembled but have not been able to connect with any sculptural fragments. I published these elsewhere in the course of a more general treatise on the technique and form of early Attic statue bases (Bull. Bulg. XII). The references to the sculptural fragments are given here as published in the first and second sections of Schrader Die archaischen Marmorbildwerke der Akropolis; Langlotz Die Koren; and Schuchhardt Rundwerke ausser den Koren.

A number of fragments of clay rhyta in the form of a bull's head were discovered at Palaikastro on 1 April, 1905, in area Π in a L.M.I stratum immediately overlying a M.M.III deposit. Such pots were evidently cheap imitations of works of art like the silver rhyton from the Fourth Shaft Grave at Mycenae and the steatite rhyton from the Little Palace at Knossos. Another fragment of such a rhyton was uncovered in Π 105, and the nose of yet another in Π 106. On 5 April, 1905, a cheek and one eye of a bull's head rhyton were found in Π 101, and on 18 April a painted nozzle in χ 24; in both instances in deposits dating from the M.M.III period. Sir Arthur Evans has traced the development of the bull-shaped fillers of the M.M.I period back to Early Dynastic types in Sumer, but stresses the fact that this particular group of bull's head rhyta seems to have originated in Crete, and he points out the propriety of such rhyta in a cult of the earth-shaker (PM I. 188; II. 260; III. 537).

It should be remarked, with regard to many statements, that earlier reports must be corrected or amplified, in accordance with more recent researches on the Minoan and Archaic Greek cultures. Many vases, termed ‘Kamares’ or M.M.II in the earlier reports, would now be classified as M.M.Ib, and most of those formerly called L.M. II would now be L.M.Ib. In their later reports the excavators modified their terminology in accordance with the modifications introduced by Sir Arthur Evans into his classification.

The pottery from the Post-Minoan strata on the ‘Temple Field’ (area χ) falls into three principal groups, (i) Geometric, (ii) Archaic, and (iii) Hellenistic. For the plan of the site, see BSA VIII, pl. xv.

Three geometric cups are reported from Ξ 14, and Professor Bosanquet records fragments of no fewer than forty lamps and twelve torch-holders scattered over different parts of the ‘Temple Field.’ One geometric cup (BSA X, 320, fig. 20), discovered in the road E, was associated with a group of seven jugs in a fine fabric, but with a poor dark grey slip (Plate 16, No. 2: CM 4615). The early date assigned to these cups, because of their position, I believe to be erroneous, and I do not think they are earlier than the Hellenistic period.

[Though some of these objects have already been published, they are better represented in the photographs in Plates 17–20.

The descriptions are based on notes left by Mr. Hutchinson when he left England for Crete in 1940, and it has not been possible to submit them to him for revision.]

A Bull's-head of Terracotta (Plate 20 A; CM 2070) was found at Praisos, but the circumstances of the find are not recorded. It may be the fragment which Bosanquet thought (BSA Suppl. I (1923) 153 n.) to be the end of the ridge-pole of the larnax from Tholos B. The larnakes in Candia afford nothing like it, but Dr. Schachermayer reports a similar head on a LM.III larnax in the Museum at Hierapetra. This head is of pink clay, covered with a pink slip; across the horns (one of which is broken) it measures ·13m. and from the top of the head to the tip of the muzzle ·10m. One ear is missing. Strongly marked characteristics are the bold modelling of the eyes and brow, the incised lines above the nostrils, the slit for the mouth, the narrow neck and nose, and the forward stretching of the head.

A Fragment of a Cosmetic Bowl of Egyptian type comes from Praisos, but I have been unable to identify it in the Museums containing Palaikastro material. Bosanquet left some notes on this object, and two restored drawings of it (fig. I), but did not state the material, or the circumstances of its discovery. Probably it was a chance find purchased by Bosanquet from some local proprietor.

Professor Bosanquet's text was already in galley-proof more than fifteen years ago; but as it had to be re-set, I have made a few corrections and additions, and added the inventory numbers which the objects now bear in the Candia Museum (quoted under CM) and references to works published since 1926.

A full discussion of the seals from Palaikastro should take account of the numerous examples obtained in the province of Sitia by Sir Arthur Evans, who travelled there in the days of Turkish rule, and other collectors. Owing to the migratory character of the Christian population, many of whom passed the winter in the villages of the Palaikastro plain and the summer in villages in the hills, and to frequent intermarriages with more distant settlements, gems found here have been widely scattered. In the list which follows have been included some stones from Palaikastro and neighbouring sites which were bought for the Candia Museum during the excavation. It is probable that most of them come from interments disturbed in agricultural work.

There are fragments of eight to ten tripods from Palaikastro now in the Candia Museum. Some of these were found outside and in front of the temple precincts. The excavator mentions fourteen, but he may not have noticed that certain fragments belong to the same tripod. Part of a tripod-leg in the British Museum catalogued (1907, 1–19–233) as being from Palaikastro and published BSA XXXV, 96, 97, fig. 10, pl. 23, 5, is illustrated in Bosanquet's notes, but I have not been able to determine the exact provenience of individual tripods at Palaikastro. Compare the position of tripods found in front of the sanctuary of Polis in Ithaca, BSA XXXV, 51, and in front of the Idaean Cave, Halbherr and Orsi, Museo Italiano, II, p. 5. It certainly comes from the same workshop as Candia Museum No. 86 from the Idaean Cave and carries a similar figurine.

This memorandum, written before 1910 by the late Professor R. C. Bosanquet, seems to have been intended as a historical introduction to the definitive report of the British School's excavations at Praisos and Palaikastro. Some sections have been revised by the Curator of Knossos, Mr. R. W. Hutchinson.

Kukahn, Der Griechische Helm, has traced the development of the Corinthian helmet—(1) a ‘stove-pipe’ shape, longer than it was broad; (2) (a) back adapted to the human head; (b) necessary modifications of the side; (3) plastic adjustment of the cap. His catalogue follows this scheme, but he makes nonsense of it by dating nos. 44–69 about 600 B.C. (p. 32, see pl. 2, 3 and 4, 5 and 6), and a more developed helmet no. 76 (pl. 32) about 640 B.C. He has seen (p. 26) that 2a is depicted on vases dated before 650 B.C.; so is 2b, with a bend in the side, though Kukahn has missed it (p. 28). See Payne's photograph of the plastic aryballos in Berlin and of the Macmillan vase, PV p. 23; also the helmet of the kneeling man on an aryballos, Johansen, pl. XXIII, 1. ‘Stove-pipe’ helmets continue to occur long after 600 B.C., the foot often hidden by a shield, but the best helmets of 600 B.C. are not shaped like a pipe (see Payne, NC pl. 31, 9 and pi. 32, 2); more like the ‘fly-away’ helmet, Kukahn no. 134, pl. 3, 6 than like no. 55, pl. 2, 6, which he dates about 600 B.C.

The statuette of which photographs are reproduced here was seen by Major the Honble. R. A. B. Hamilton, who writes:—

‘In January 1939 I was riding with a concourse of tribesmen past the old ruin of a fort, which lies at the mouth of the Wadi Jardan, in the Aden Protectorate: Long. 47° E.: Lat. 15° N. A tribesman ran after our party and offered me a small statuette for sale. I asked him where he had found it and he replied that it had been washed out of the ruin by a flood the year before. He demanded Rs. 200 for it. I tried to beat him down but he refused to drop his price. There was, for many reasons, little time for argument, and I had no more than Rs. 50 of my own money with me.