Four inscriptions of Hellenistic to Early Roman date were found in rescue excavations undertaken during the construction of public housing at the location Bedevi, east of Leophoros Knossou in the suburbs of modern Aghios Ioannis (Heraklion). These four inscriptions constitute an intriguing group as they provide evidence of a rural installation where a vessel with an inscribed lid was stored, a sepulchral site and private worship of Artemis, as well as a point between ancient Heraklion and Knossos where a Roman road crossed the Chrysopigis stream. In antiquity this area was part of the greater Knossos area, albeit closer to Heraklion than to Knossos. These four inscriptions provide new evidence for the nature of this area and for the northern road connections of Roman Knossos, particularly the road that linked Knossos with its harbour at Heraklion.

We present a review of the post Bronze Age material excavated by Coldstream and Huxley at Kastri on Kythera, as part of the ongoing Kythera Island Project. In particular we refer to material not published in Coldstream and Huxley 1972. Greek material is largely confined to one deposit and dates to the period c.500 to 380 bc. From the Roman period material is more plentiful; the two relevant strata are third and late sixth to seventh centuries, with some earlier Julio-Claudian pieces. While later Medieval pottery also is largely from one deposit, the entirety of it is presented, and a mis en scène with respect to Kytheran modern history is offered.

Since 1902 archaeological investigations at Palaikastro in eastern Crete have sought evidence for two architectural structures: a palace located amongst the substantial remains of Minoan settlement and the temple and sanctuary of Zeus Diktaios referred to by Strabo. In 2001 a geophysical survey was conducted in the Roussolakkos valley to the south-east of the excavated Minoan remains. Previous studies had recorded this as an archaeological ‘nil’ zone owing to the complete absence of cultural surface debris. Seven geophysical zones, covering a total of 20,960 m2, were surveyed using a combination of electrical resistance and magnetometry methods. Anomalies attributed to anthropogenic activity were found in six of these zones. They probably reflect substantial Minoan architecture based on the shape of some anomalies, a comparison with geophysical results from a previously excavated area (Block X) and the occurrence of no pottery later than Minoan on the ground. On this basis the geophysical survey has approximately doubled the known area, of the Minoan settlement. The anomalies may belong to a large urban block though their scale and orientation are also comparable to plans of palatial structures from other sites. Anomalies that could reflect architecture were found in Zone 7, situated in the area of earlier finds of Iron Age votives and Archaic architectural fragments and may therefore be related to the Diktaion.

This article reappraises the iconography and function of an architectural model or pyxis from Aetos on Ithaka, represented by four sherds originally published by Martin Robertson in BSA 43 (1948), 101–2 as part of the group Aetos 600. Particular comparison is made with the iconography of an imported Ithakan kantharos from tomb 949 in the San Montano cemetery at Pithekoussai. This tomb context, dated to the third quarter of the eighth century, provides a rare fixed point in the chronology of Ithakan painting. In both cases, the mixture of Italian and Near Eastern iconographical traits suggests closer connections with contemporary Italy than the Greek mainland. Further iconographical and functional comparison is made with a figured architectural model from the Monte di Vico acropolis at Pithekoussai.

The relationship of the metopes to the architecture of the peristasis of the Hephaisteion and the Parthenon is examined in order to ascertain the extent of planning which took place before the erection of a Classical Greek temple. All relevant published measurements are taken into consideration and critically compared. On the basis of the discrepancies of the corresponding architectural and sculptural members, it is argued that the working-out of the details of the plan was not the result of large-scale drawings, but was affected after the commencement of construction. While the Hephaisteion is built largely in accordance with the conventions of a Classical Doric temple, the Parthenon, due to its unique plan, provides indications of experimentation inferred from the extensive inconsistencies at its eastern end.

Among the antiquities in the collection of the British School, there are a few examples of East Greek pottery, including Wild Goat Style, Chian, Fikellura, and Clazomenian as well as a Rosette Bowl and a Bird Bowl. Following a summany of the British School's excavations and role at Naukratis, the site where much of this East Greek pottery was discovered, the objects from the collection are presented in both summary and catalogue form. An appendix is dedicated to an Attic polychrome phiale mesomphalos, which, although not East Greek, shares many technical and stylistic features with some East Greek wares, and was originally identified as Vroulian. It is briefly considered in relation to East Greek and Archaic pottery.

Μεταξύ των αρχαιοτήτων της συλλογής της Βρετανικής Σχολής, υπάρχουν ορισμένα παραδείγματα ανατολίζουσας ελληνικής κεραμικής, στα οποία περιλαμβάνοντοα δείγματα του ρυθμού των Αιγάγρων, της Χίου, των Φικελλούρων, των Κλαζομενών, καθώς επίσης και δύο ανοικτά αγγεία με διακόσμηση ρόδακα και πτηνών αντίστοιχα. Μετά από μία σύνοψη των ανασκαφών και του ρόλου της Βρετανικής Σχολής στη Ναύκρατι, τη θέση όπου ανακαλύφθηκε μεγάλο μέρος αυτής της ανατολίζουσας ελληνικής κεραμικής, τα ευρήματα της συλλογής παρουσιάζονται σε σύνοψη και σε κατάλογο. Ένα παράρτημα είναι αφιερωμένο σε μία αττική πολύχρωμη μεσόμφαλη φιάλη, η οποία αν και δεν ανήκει στον ανατολίζοντα ρυθμό, μοιράζεται αρκετά τεχνικά και στυλιστικά χαρακτηριστικά με ορισμένα ανατολίζοντα ελληνικά αγγεία. Η φιάλη αυτή είχε αρχικά ταυτιστεί ως αγγείο τύπου Βρουλιάς. Εν συντομία θεωρείτοα ότι έλκει στοιχεία από την ανατολίζουσα ελληνική και αρχαϊκή κεραμική.

Some recent statements in the scholarly literature exaggerate the length of ancient catapults, so a critique is offered, and an explanation for the source of the error is suggested. A brief account is given of how to calculate the dimensions of the ‘classic’ types of ancient catapult according to the formulae for their construction in Philon and Vitruvius. The implications for fitting artillery to fortifications are highlighted. It is emphasised that the type of device for which first generation artillery towers were designed were tension-powered catapults, not torsion-powered models. They were bow catapults (tension), not spring catapults (torsion), and therefore, since the formulae apply only to spring catapults, none of the ancient formulae apply to the machines for which first generation artillery towers were built.

Studies of Christianisation in mainland Greece have indicated different processes, planned and unplanned, of religious change. Memory and tradition were drawn on to help situate the earliest churches within existing social and religious structures without creating significant tension. Using the methodology developed for the study of the Peloponnese, the aim of this work is to examine three topographically and politically distinct regions (Crete, Cyprus and Lycia) to assess the extent to which various network connections provided a conduit for religious change throughout the Late Antique period.

In the context of our ongoing work on the new corpus of Theban inscriptions (IG VII2, 4), we had the opportunity to study the famous inscription that records the contributions for the refoundation of Thebes after 315 bc. The inscription consists of two fragments, the first of which has been known since the nineteenth century, whereas the second was published very recently by Professor Buraselis. Following Buraselis’ publication, the two fragments were physically joined in the Archaeological Museum of Thebes, where the inscription is currently on display. Our article provides the first ever full epigraphic edition of both fragments after autopsy. It is accompanied by detailed epigraphic notes, new supplements, apparatus criticus and a full historical analysis. By combining the study of abundant literary and epigraphic sources, we have attempted to place the inscription in its historical context, correcting certain earlier scholarly assumptions, making new suggestions about the motivations of the numerous contributors, and examining the modalities of the refoundation of Thebes.

Minoanisation – the process by which Cretan ways of doing things spread throughout the Aegean – is a major focus of study in the Middle and Late Bronze Age Cycladic islands, but debate about the primary causes of the phenomenon has been concerned chiefly with its Late Bronze Age phases. In this article, the author considers the earliest phase of Minoanisation at Ayia Irini on Kea, Period V. The ceramic assemblage is considered holistically, including local and imported as well as Minoanising and non-Minoanising pottery. The Keian assemblage is compared with recently published discussions of Phase C at Akrotiri on Thera and City II-iii at Phylakopi on Melos. New, non-Minoanising features of the Keian assemblage in Period V, particularly in the form of new shapes and increased importation of Melian and/or Theran pottery, suggest that Melian and/or Theran communities engaged in new production and exchange strategies at this time. It is likely that these new intra-Cycladic relationships played an important role in changing local tastes and practices at Ayia Irini, spurring the adoption of new Minoanising as well as non-Minoanising forms of material culture and practice.

In recent years a number of vases with floral decoration have come to light, and we can now carry a little further the study of the Euboean floral black-figure style of vase-painting started in BSA lv. 211 f. Unfortunately few have any known provenience and it is often hazardous to attempt to distinguish between the work of Euboean and Boeotian workshops. Some of the Euboean attributions here made are tentative, and even when they can be regarded as certain the question of the distribution of the vases within Euboea still remains largely unsolved.

An early example of a vase with decoration that consists entirely of floral elements is a pelike in Athens, Plate 69a, with provenience given in the inventory as ‘Chalcis?’. It has bands of myrtle, ivy, and a kind of laurel with spatulate leaves covering the neck and the upper part of the body, and can be regarded as a precursor of the floral style. It is to be distinguished from it chiefly by the absence of the palmette, which is the chief ingredient of the floral style proper. The stemless ivy leaves accompanied by spots recall the sixth-century skyphos of Chalcidian make, Rhitsona 31. 41 (BSA lviii. 18, pl. 2. 3), and the little stemmed kothon, Athens E1520 (Ibid. pl. 2. 8).

We present the results of a diachronic survey of the Katsaronio plain in the Karystia, southern Euboea, Greece. The project was organised under the aegis of the Norwegian Institute at Athens with a permit from the Hellenic Ministry of Culture under the official name of the Norwegian Archaeological Survey in the Karystia. Five years of fieldwork (2012–16) covered an area of 20km2 in a large agricultural plain located about 5km north-west of the town of Karystos. The survey identified 99 new findspots with a range of dates spanning from the Final Neolithic to Early Modern times. Here we present the collected prehistoric through Roman data, which represent the bulk of the acquired evidence. One of the notable features of the assemblage is the vast quantity of lithics that were recovered, numbering over 9000 and consisting mainly of obsidian. Certain periods were absent from the evidence, such as post-Early Bronze Age prehistoric and Geometric, while others were represented with varying intensity. We offer an initial interpretation of the patterns observable in the evidence in an attempt to reconstruct the past use and habitation of this part of Euboea.

The Return of Hephaistos to Olympus was a popular scene in Attic vase-painting from the beginning of the sixth century through the end of the fifth century bce, and it is found occasionally on other forms of pottery as well. According to myth, Hephaistos was lame, and this disability is sometimes depicted on painted pottery, almost always in scenes of his Return. The most well-known example is the François Vase, which is often the only vase cited when discussing instances of Hephaistos's lameness on Athenian pottery. Although three other Attic vases are occasionally cited as showing the disability, one of which does not show his Return, but instead the Birth of Athena, there are actually quite a number more Attic vases that depict his lameness than have previously been recognised. In this paper I present seven new Attic examples that clearly display his lameness, and consider both the different ways in which his disability is rendered and how they relate to the various epithets associated with him For example, he is often associated with the epithet ‘clubfoot’, and while there was an established iconography of clubfoot Corinthian komasts, the god's disability is never rendered in this manner on Attic vases. Instead, he is depicted in ways more similar to other epithets associated with him. Most notably, four vases represent the disability in a fashion that seems to be connected with Hephaistos's most common Homeric epithet, ἀμφιγυήεις, or ‘with both feet crooked’.

The course of the Roman road along the southern shore of the sea of Marmora between Priapus and Cyzicus has hitherto been known only from the Peutinger table and from a single milestone (the thirteenth) found in a Turkish cemetery above Tchaoush-keui, not far therefore from its original position. The Peutinger table notes only one point between the places named—the crossing of the Granicus. That of the Aesepus, a much more important river, is still marked by the considerable remains of a fine Roman bridge, which, owing to its secluded position at a turn of the valley, has hitherto escaped the notice of such travellers as have passed along the coast road. Hearing at Boghashehr, where I had shewn an interest in the fast-vanishing ruin of Ak-kupru, that a similar bridge existed on the road to Gunen, I took that route and was rewarded by the discovery of the best-preserved ancient bridge in the district.

The resemblance of certain of the ivories to some in the Ephesus deposit makes it clear that they came from Asia. Close relations and exchange of gifts between Sparta and Lydia are recorded for the sixth century, and have been claimed for the seventh, the age of Alcman. Long ago Curtius pointed out certain affinities between the Lydian goddess of the Lake, Artemis Gygaea, and the Spartan Orthia. Now that Mr. Hogarth has vindicated the Hellenic character of the early worship of Artemis at Ephesus, it becomes probable that the great Ionian sanctuary may have made its influence felt at Sparta as well as at Koloene. The road to Sardis was by Ephesus, and the road to Ephesus by Samos, and with Samos too we have links. The legend of the xoanon found in a thicket of agnus castus is common to the cult of Hera at Samos and of Orthia at Sparta. Again the best parallels for the Spartan masks have been found, as Mr. Dawkins has pointed out, in Samian tombs.

The pottery described comes from areas of the Roman stoa that were selected by the excavators as important. Most groups contained quantities of local tiles, glazed or unglazed, and large numbers of unidentifiable body sherds. The vast majority of the pottery was locally made and is micaceous, normally very micaceous. Its normal colour is orange of various shades, but it can be a light brown; fired in a reducing atmosphere the body is grey, and this can have a grey slip. There was considerable use of black glaze and red-to-brown slip on Laconian vessels, both coarse and fine; black glaze seems to have been in use at Sparta well into the 1st cent. AD. The generally late hellenistic and Roman Laconian vessels from these contexts are largely unknown archaeologically, and dating is thus at a preliminary stage. Very few imports were found, but these represent the main dating criteria. The hellenistic and Roman pottery found in the Roman stoa, limited as it is, can only be regarded as material for the beginning of a corpus of the many local forms of the period.

In my previous paper on Cretan Palaces and the Aegean Civilization I sought to give a general account of the architectural evidence resulting from excavation, in its bearing on the disputed question as to the continuity of Aegean culture throughout the course of its development.

It will now be advisable to consider the problems involved on a wider basis, in the light of the objects other than architectural, found in Crete and elsewhere in the Aegean world.

The Carian Hypothesis as to the Origins of the Aegean Civilization.

That the implications of the question are of an ethnological character will at this stage in the inquiry be generally admitted. And here it will be convenient to take as our point of departure a standpoint that may now perhaps be regarded as pretty general, though negative in its bearings, and which is to the effect that the originators of the Aegean civilization, at any rate in its pre-Mycenaean phases, were not ‘Achaeans’ in the vague general sense of being a people from the mainland of Greece. But the attempt to give a positive form to this conclusion has led to the revival of an old hypothesis which is perhaps not so entirely out of date as has lately been supposed. According to this hypothesis, the originators and representatives of the Aegean civilization were Carians from southwest Anatolia, and it was they, according to Doerpfeld, who built the earlier palaces of Crete. The later Cretan palaces, on the other hand, according to the same authority, were built by people of Achaean, and so of Hellenic race.

Graffiti have been found in a number of the churches in the medieval town of Paliachora on Aigina and elsewhere on the island. Recently two graffiti of sailing vessels were noted in the church of Agioi Anargyroi in Paliachora and it is suggested that their presence may be related to the maritime activities of the medieval inhabitants, pirate raids on the town, and the beliefs of fishermen and sailors.

This paper examines Late Bronze Age chipped ceramic and stone discs known most commonly as stoppers. Stoppers are distinguished from other classes of archaeological finds, including pierced discs and lids. Although it has long been known that stoppers could play a role in sealing ceramic vessels, recent scholarship has preferred to see them as multifunctional. For this article, 158 stoppers and 100 spout apertures from transport stirrup jar spouts found in secure Late Bronze Age III contexts have been studied. The results demonstrate a strong correlation in the apertures of transport stirrup jar spouts and the maximum diameter of stoppers that points to a meaningful relationship between the two. As the primary transport container of the Late Bronze Age, transport stirrup jars required careful sealing in order to allow their contents to transit without spilling or spoiling. There were many possible sealing configurations, however, and indeed this paper demonstrates some support for independent Mycenaean and Minoan traditions. A comparison with sealing traditions throughout the eastern Mediterranean reveals that the stopper method of sealing endured or reoccurred for thousands of years for the storage and transport of a specific commodity – wine. I conclude with the case study of stopper distributions at ancient Eleon, Boeotia, in order to show that a contextualised study of stoppers and stoppering activities in domestic structures has much to contribute to the study of social processes and domestic consumption practices.

A catalogue of pottery, all or most of it from the 1911 excavations of the British School at Phylakopi, set out by shape and motif, is accompanied by a summary collation of evidence for dating and provenance across the Cyclades. Investigation of the material provides some new information about the character of the Phylakopi pottery and the contexts in which it was found. The material prompts observations on a number of questions in the area of Cycladic prehistoric ceramics, prominent among which is the transition from E to MC Some suggestions are offered as to topics which require investigation. The study should be seen as a continuation of work by the same writer which appeared in BSA 69 (1974).

Ένας κατάλογος αγγείων και οστράκων, όλα ή τα περισσότερα από αυτά από τις ανασκαφές της Βρεταννικής Σχολής στη Φυλακωπή κατά το 1911, οργανωμένος κατά σχήματα και μοτίβα, συνοδεύεται από μία σύντομη επισκόπηση των ενδείξεων που υπάρχουν από τα νησιά των Κυκλάδων γενικά σχετικά με τη χρονολόγηση και την προέλευσή τους. Από τη μελέτη του υλικού προκύπτουν ορισμένα νέα στοιχεία για το χαρακτήρα της ντόπιας κεραμεικής της Φυλακωπής και τις ανασκαφικές της συνάφειες. Το άρθρο συμπεριλαμβάνει παρατηρήσεις πάνω σε διάφορα θέματα που αφορούν στην προϊστορική κεραμεική των Κυκλάδων – το πιό σημαντικό από τα οποία αναφέρεται στο θέμα της μετάβασης από την Πρωτοκυκλαδική στη Μεσοκυκλαδική περίοδο. Επιπλέον, διατυπώνονται προτάσεις για θέμαια που χρήζουν περαιτέρω έρευνας. Ｈ παρούσα μελέτη θα πρέπει να θεωρηθεί ως συνέχεια της δημοσίευσης του συγγραφέα στο BSA 69 (1974).