The Excavations at Phylakopi in Melos, 1911: § 1.—Introduction

Extract

In the spring of 1910 the work which had engaged the School at Sparta since 1906 was brought to an end, and it was decided to devote a season to a supplementary excavation at the prehistoric site of Phylakopi in Melos, the scene of the School's activity from 1896 to 1899. These dates are of some significance; the work in Crete, which has revolutionised our ideas of the Bronze Age in the Aegean, was only begun in 1900 with the first work at Knossos, and on the mainland of Greece the recent work of the German Institute at Tiryns, the Greek and German work at Chaironea and Orchomenos in Boiotia, and the prehistoric researches in Thessaly and North Greece, first of Tsountas at Dimini and Sesklo and later, over a much enlarged field, of Mr. Wace and his colleagues, had none of them been even begun when the first excavation at Phylakopi was closed in 1899. It was in fact the first important prehistoric excavation in Greece since the death of Schliemann. Few comparisons with other sites were therefore possible; the results of the work of Schliemann and of his successors at Mycenae and the researches in the Cyclades published by Tsountas were the main guides for Mr. Edgar in his pioneer work on the pottery from Phylakopi.