The Sanctuary of Artemis Amarysia in Amarynthos was the most renowned shrine of the Eretrian polis, and its annual festival, the Artemisia, drew large crowds from Euboea and beyond. Yet, despite its regional fame and prominence, its remains have eluded archaeological identification. As a result, the location of the Artemision has been a vexed question in Euboean studies for over a century. Between 2003 and 2007, however, a new impetus was given to its localization. In collaboration with the Ephorate of Antiquities of Euboea, the Swiss School of Archaeology in Greece (ESAG) carried out a large-scale geophysical survey in the area of Amarynthos, some 11km east of Eretria, at the foot of a hill locally known as Paleoekklisies (or Paleochora). The ensuing trial trenches were followed by systematic excavation that eventually led to the discovery of substantial buildings. We suggest that these buildings are part of a monumental complex that should be identified as the Sanctuary of Artemis Amarysia (see afterword).

This paper offers an account of the archaeological textiles excavated in Greece, consideration of the challenges one has to deal with when studying such materials and a discussion of ways to overcome them. A complete list of archaeological textiles excavated in Greece is not within the scope of this paper, since such comprehensive studies have been published previously (Spantidaki and Moulhérat 2012; Moulhérat and Spantidaki 2016) and, of course, the corpus of such textiles is continuously expanding.

The study of textiles is an emerging and fast-growing field of Greek archaeology (Gleba 2011). The number of archaeologists and conservators working with and studying archaeological textiles is steadily increasing, thus raising the general awareness of textiles and expanding the corpus of known ancient fabrics. In recent years, several research projects have investigated ancient Greek textiles, such as those conducted by the Centre for Textile Research at the University of Copenhagen (for example Textile Economies in the Mediterranean Area), several funded by Marie Skłodowska Curie Action grants and some by European Research Council grants (for example Production and Consumption: Textile Economy and Urbanisation in Mediterranean Europe 1000–500 BCE hosted by Cambridge University).

Strabo, who visited the island of Gyaros in 31 BC, described it as a village (kōmion, κώμιον Strabo 10.5.3) inhabited by fishermen. This comes as no surprise to anyone familiar with the Aegean islands today. Modern photographic promotions give local fish specialities, and the modest, traditionally whitewashed homes of the fishermen responsible for fresh catches, plenty of colourful emphasis. Not all the fish on offer in the islands are locally caught today, and many visitors arrive by air, rather than by boat, following one of the principal maritime itineraries (which do not, as it happens, normally include Gyaros).

More surprising, perhaps, is the fact that Strabo refers to Gyaros at all. This little island, no more than 17km2 and thus never big enough to provide much of a land-based way of life, even for a small community, lies midway, as the crow flies, between Kea to the west, Kythnos to the southwest and Syros to the south, and is flanked to the northeast by the long chain of islands which in effect extend the mountains of Euboea southeastwards into the heart of the Aegean — Andros, Tenos and Mykonos (map of the Cyclades). The geographer was simply articulating a memorable anecdote, according to which the Gyarians sent their own ambassador to Octavian in the hope of getting a reduction of the 150 dr tribute that had been laid on the inhabitants' reluctant shoulders. The Gyarians were not quite as inconspicuous as they wanted to appear in the eyes of Octavian, or as miserable as they looked to Strabo.

The production and publication of new research on the Cretan Early Bronze has accelerated tremendously in recent decades. This article aims to present the highlights and main trends of the last 15 years: the sites, excavations, research projects and main publications. Moreover, it explores how the new data interlink with the extremely large body of information available from more than 100 years of archaeological studies on Crete. The aim of such a review is to identify patterns of research, popular themes and the strengths and weaknesses of the data recovered, and to consider the place of Early Bronze Crete in current trends in the fields of Mediterranean Prehistory and archaeology more broadly.