In the decades around the millennium the issues of bronze coinage of the Byzantine Empire, except at Cherson, were exclusively ‘Rex Regnantium’ folles. In accordance with the theocratic political philosophy of the time, the portrait they bore was that not of the emperor but of Christ, ‘the King of those who Rule’. The inscriptions were analogous: Ἐμμανουήλ and Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς Βασιλεὺς τῶν Βασιλευόντων. Some issues were similar in size and fabric to the earlier issues of the Macedonian dynasty, but others were large, heavy coins, superior to any that had been generally available since the days of Justinian the Great. Quite probably, indeed, they were modelled on the sixth-century folles, as those of Constantine IV certainly had been, with the intention of recalling the glories of the past. The intervening period had witnessed an almost total decline in the circulation of petty currency in the provinces. It is to be seen as evidence of a corresponding decline in city life, for which, in turn, a complex of causes is to be discerned—demographic decline; the Islamic expansion into the eastern provinces and into the coasts and islands of the Mediterranean; the pressure of the Avars, Slavs, and Bulgars in the north-west; the strain imposed on the Byzantine treasury by the military effort expended in containing these threats; provincial self-sufficiency, and lowered standards which necessarily followed from the impoverishment of the state and its peoples. The revival of the Empire's fortunes began in the ninth century, and reached a climax under Basil II (976–1025), who re-established Byzantine rule firmly over territories extending from the Adriatic coasts to the upper valley of the Euphrates. By the end of Basil's reign the use of petty currency, which during the ninth and tenth centuries had still been significantly restricted to a few cities of the Aegean and Black Sea coastlands, was spreading much more widely through the Balkans and Asia Minor. Also, the reconquest of Antioch and the cities of Cilicia added to the needs that the imperial coinage had to meet.

Accepting the prevailing view which holds that the battle of Oinoe took place during the Pentekontaetea, this paper attempts answers to the triple problem raised thereby: A. The Artistic: is it likely that (as Pausanias alleges) the Stoa Poikile contained among its other paintings, all (so far as we know) scenes from the glorious epic or near-epic past, a picture showing a recent battle against the Lacedaemonians? It is argued that the other pictures usually cited in comparison are not analogous, and the contemporary evidence of Aeschylus and Herodotus is invoked to suggest that more probably the painting showed a mythical subject harmonizing with the rest, although admittedly commemorating a recent campaign (as perhaps the rest did also). B. The Historical: when did this battle take place? It would seem to fit best into Thucydides' narrative of the Pentekontaetea if it is set shortly after the battle of Oinophyta; it could even, perhaps, be included in the exploits of the general Tolmides. C. The Historiographic: why does this battle survive only in the record of Pausanias? Thucydides' silence cannot be satisfactorily explained. But a confusion, perhaps made by Ephoros, in the account of Oinophyta could explain why there is no reference—at least, no direct reference—to Oinoe by any later historian. Pausanias evidently knew it from a bare tradition preserved by successive antiquarian writers, or guides, in their descriptions of the two monuments which commemorated the victory, the painting in Athens and the bronze group at Delphi.

Basic to a study of the Knossos sealings are questions of provenance and identification. Seal-impressed nodules were excavated from various parts of the Main Palace and its dependencies, both as isolated finds and as hoards. What sealings were found in which places? And how many can be identified with actual examples in Herakleion and Oxford? Those are the two questions to be considered in this article.

The documents available for this research vary in reliability. Among published accounts, reports in BSA have the virtue of being written in the same year as the excavation, though even they are subject to occasional errors arising out of misread notes. SM i compiled a few years later contains a more mature assessment of the material but is mainly limited to the Hieroglyphic Deposit. More detailed information is to be found in PM i–iv; but because of the time that elapsed between the important excavation seasons at the beginning of the century and the publication of this work, the advantage of Evans's greater experience of Minoan archaeology is outweighed by a greater tendency for mistakes to enter unnoticed.

When Pendlebury wrote his book The Archaeology of Crete (1939) so few sites of the earlier Minoan periods had been recognized in the parts of Crete west of Mt. Ida that he was led to suggest that this region, over a third of the island in area, was virtually unsettled before L.M. III times. Some years earlier Marinatos had commented upon the fact that, whereas there was evidence of occupation in the west of Crete both during Neolithic times and at the end of the Late Minoan period, hardly any relics assignable to the Middle Minoan period had been identified there. Since then many more caves with traces of Neolithic or Early Minoan occupation have been noted in western Crete, especially during the last few years owing to the researches of M. Paul Faure. At the same time a number of open settlements have been identified, with evidence of occupation during the flourishing period of the Minoan civilization between M.M. I and L.M. I.

Notable among these are a couple of sites in the extreme south-west corner of Crete (A. 1, 2), ‘literally at the back of beyond’, as Pendlebury described it. The first of these by the Monastery of Khrisoskalitissa (Virgin of the Golden Stairs) was noted by Pendlebury, who claimed to have found L.M. I sherds there. But much of the pottery recovered by us in 1963 from this and the site at ‘Thrimbokambos’ (A. 2) further south appears to be rather M.M., and some of it M.M. I or earlier (E.M. II) in character.

The Ionic Black Figure pottery at Old Smyrna is a fragmentary body of material and it is of no very great bulk; so there is no certainty that it is fully representative of the wares current in North Ionia in the sixth century or that it gives a reliable indication of their relative frequency. It is worth remark that no Fikellura came to light. The material here published was divided into classes after the conclusion of the excavations and the photographs were taken. The classification then adopted was a subjective one and not entirely satisfactory. The isolation (in Section A) of what seemed to be conscious imitation of Attic Black Figure may be useful; it could be improved in detail, but at least it does not cut across other divisions. For the rest, the section (E) headed ‘Clazomenian’ ought on any count to have embraced more of the material, and the boundary between Sections B (‘North Ionic Styles’) and C (the North Ionic Column Kraters) is a rather arbitrary one. But there would have been obvious dangers in a rearrangement made without full recourse to the material itself; for due attention must be paid to the physical appearance of the wares. So the original classification has been retained.

The classical Black Glaze pottery is a reddish ware distinguished by a uniform, lustrous black ‘glaze’—to use the term improperly—and fairly closely standardized in its forms. The main centre of production of this ware was Athens; and at the commencement of the excavations at Smyrna we supposed that the pottery of this class in the classical levels was Attic import. But it soon became clear that the bulk of the black glaze ware in the fourth-century levels (as opposed to that of the fifth century) was not Attic. It is very good imitation of Attic, so good as to be at times indistinguishable; but when the material is set side by side with Attic ware of the same period, differences become manifest. The biscuit is less consistent in colour, too frequently pink near the edges of the break and grey in the core; and not infrequently the glaze is a warm sigillata red. The ring feet tend perhaps to be heavier and the bases less delicately painted than the Attic. The favourite type of bowl with a reserved stripe on the outer wall (Figs. 4–5) cannot be matched in Athens, while conversely the ordinary fourth-century kotyle with cyma profile is not present at Smyrna; and the salt-cellars at Smyrna seem to diverge from their Attic counterparts.

At the invitation of Dr. St. Alexiou, Ephor of Antiquities for Crete and Director of Herakleion Museum, two magnificent large stone vases from the original Knossos excavations are published here. The vases (A. Her. Mus. 21; B. Her. Mus. 23) were found in 1900 in the passage adjoining the ‘Room of the Stone Vases’ on the south, and were reported by Evans. They are the vases of which more details about the find-spot have been given by John Boardman. The fact that vases were found in this passage, well above the floor level (Boardman op. cit.), confirms Evans's view that the whole series had fallen from the upper floor, the majority into the basement room north of the passage.

Each of these vases is unique but they may be taken as part of a series of large stone vessels in use in the Palace at the time of its destruction. This series includes the giant amphora and the smaller one from the Sculptor's Workshop, the dark maroon limestone basin from the passage north of the Throne Room, and two other large basins from the North-west Insula, a fine reddish limestone amphora, the Throne Room alabastra and various large vessels from the Central Treasury deposit. The two lids have L.M. IB parallels whilst that of the reddish limestone amphora is similar.

A marble slab, built into a private chapel in a cemetery in Catania, has on it a centauromachy, carved in relief. In a recent publication the author observes that at the start of the century the chapel belonged to a Catanian antiquary, who decorated it with sculpture from various places and periods; apart from this, nothing is known about the provenience of the slab. He also comments that the whole face has been re-cut at an unknown date, but certainly in modern times, so that an exact judgement of the style is impossible, and adds that the theme was a common one in ancient art, citing in particular the metopes from the south side of the Parthenon and the frieze from the temple of Apollo at Bassae. It is possible to go somewhat further; the nine figures on the relief are all copied from the frieze from Bassae; reading from left to right, the first four figures correspond to Slab 526; the fifth one to the left-hand centaur on Slab 521; the next two to the left-hand pair on Slab 525, and the last couple to the group of a Greek and a centaur on Slab 521. It might seem impossible to decide beyond all doubt if the Catania relief is an ancient copy of the frieze, re-cut in modern times, or if it is entirely modern; the copyist has indeed taken certain liberties with his original, varying some of the details—for instance, the position of the right forearm of the right-hand centaur—and replacing the woman on Slab 521 by two figures from another slab, but these changes are perhaps not inconceivable in an ancient copy. Two other details, however, are decisive.

The L.H. IIIA 2 period according to Furumark's chronology covers the fourteenth century, a crucial phase in Mycenaean history and, whatever absolute dates are eventually assigned to the period, the pottery belonging to it marks the vast expansion of Mycenaean trade throughout the Eastern Mediterranean. It is therefore extremely important to determine what pottery must and what pottery may belong to L.H. IIIA 2. The definition of L.H. IIIA 1 pottery adopted in a previous article enables us to deal with the beginning of the period. The division between L.H. IIIA 2 late and L.H. IIIB 1 can be placed, in terms of the pottery from settlement sites, at one of two points. The earlier would be the introduction of the vertical (as compared with horizontal or diagonal) Whorl-Shells. This was suggested by Mackeprang. The later point, and the one adopted in this discussion, is the introduction of the Deep Bowl (FS 284) and in unpainted ware the Conical Kylix (FS 274). This later terminus seems preferable as a more radical and easily recognizable development.

The well-known gem of lapis lacedaemonius, generally described as from Kydonia (i.e. the province of Crete in which lies the town of Khania), and now in the Benaki Museum in Athens, has been frequently quoted as a basis for, or in support of theories on, Minoan–Mycenaean religious belief and practice. In this note it is intended to set out grounds for doubting the genuineness of the gem.

Its shape and material establish a prima facie case for authenticity. The rather large (c. 25 millimetre diameter) lentoids, slightly elliptical in shape and pierced, generally down the shorter axis, occur commonly in lapis lacedaemonius, carnelian and agate in the L.M. I–II period. Moreover the material does not seem to have been used by forgers, perhaps because it is harder to acquire than, for example, carnelian or agate. However these factors seem out-weighed on closer inspection, when all grounds for doubting the stone's genuineness are considered.

The piece that I am publishing was first noticed by the late Dr. Ioannis Papadimitriou, then Ephor of Antiquities for the Argolid, early in 1948. I measured and photographed it in situ before he removed it to the Nauplia Museum, and a few days later I drew it as assembled on the floor of the Museum. For various reasons, I had to do this rather hastily; and I give the fragments the numbers used by Papadimitriou.

Fourteen years ago I had just drawn out the block and was ready to publish it when, hearing that Papadimitriou was in London for a few days, I was persuaded to send him my work for corrections and comments. I never saw it again. Some years later, not long before his death, he published the block in Πρακτικά for 1955, illustrating it with no drawings and with only one photograph (Plate 79a), of one face only. At that time the block, remaining in the Nauplia Museum, was already set in plaster, as it still was in March 1964. The place at Mycenae where it turned up, in the prodomos of the Megaron, is now covered with the unattractive chippings of an artificial floor in gypsum. As the block was of some interest and beauty, I set down what I learnt about about it soon after its discovery.

Previous study of the relationship between provenance and composition in the Late Bronze Age painted pottery of Minoan Crete and Mycenaean Greece has shown that it is possible to distinguish a number of different types of composition which have a clearly defined territorial significance. One type of composition has been found to be characteristic of sites in the Peloponnese, two others to be almost wholly confined to north Greece, yet another to be distinctive of central Crete, and so forth. This stage of the original investigation, in fact, defined the different composition patterns which could be associated with the producing centres in the Minoan and Mycenaean homelands. But much Minoan and an even greater quantity of Mycenaean pottery has been recovered from regions far removed from these production centres. Such finds have been recorded from South Italy and Sicily, from the Ionian coast of Asia Minor, in Cyprus, Syria and Palestine, and in Egypt. A second phase of the original investigation therefore concentrated on this material. It was found, for instance, that Mycenaean pottery found in North Syria at Tell Atchana, and in Egypt at Tell el Amarna, was indistinguishable from the composition pattern (Group A) of the Mycenaean pottery from sites in the Peloponnese. This congruence was interpreted to mean that such pottery had been made in the Peloponnese and that it had travelled to Syria and to Egypt in the course of trade.

Obsidian to the Greeks was no more than a semi-precious stone, black and shiny, suitable for mirrors or exotic ornaments. But to their predecessors in the Aegean through five millenia it was an important raw material for the manufacture of tools and weapons. Sharper and more abundant than flint, more easily worked and cheaper than copper, it was not displaced entirely even by the use of bronze, which was always an expensive material, there being no source of tin in the Aegean. Only when knowledge of iron-working was brought to the Aegean coasts did obsidian fall from its position as an important raw material to that of a curiosity.

Huge quantities of obsidian are to be found lying about the surface of most prehistoric sites in south Greece—any farmer or shepherd will tell of the ‘little razors’ to be found on his land. But its occurrence in nature is very unusual since it is found exclusively in regions of recent volcanic activity, and then only when certain conditions exist, such as a high silica content in the lava of the volcano. Every single piece found in mainland Greece had to be imported from overseas, a process implying competent geological knowledge, skill in sailing and navigation, and perhaps social organization, to a considerable degree. It is the earliest trade in the world for which we have concrete evidence.

The first excavations at Palaikastro, undertaken in the years 1902–6 by Bosanquet, Dawkins, and others, coincided with the first great period of research and discovery in Minoan Crete. They ran concurrently with Evans's early seasons at Knossos and with Hogarth's work at Zakro, not far from Palaikastro, and were in a true sense pioneer work. The series of reports which appeared in the Annual from 1901/2–1905/6, together with the later supplementary volume of Unpublished Objects and two final articles prepared for publication by various hands, built up a systematic and clear picture of one of the largest and perhaps the best preserved Minoan settlement yet excavated in Crete.

The work was undertaken on a major scale, in the third season employing up to seventy workmen for nearly three months. It produced evidence for occupation in the area from the Neolithic to the end of the Late Minoan period, with a continuing cult of Dictaean Zeus from Geometric down to Hellenistic and Roman times. In addition some careful anthropological work was done, and the phases of occupation were tied in with those of the other Minoan sites known at the time.

The publication of any Late Minoan IIIB and C pottery from Crete hardly requires apology even when the context of the pottery is as unsatisfactory as that to be considered in this article. For we know far too little about the latter phases of Minoan history and this deficiency will only be made good when more material has been made available. Certainly a more thorough examination of Mainland and Cretan relations in this period is required than that which will be attempted below, though it may well be that the time is not yet ripe for firm or convincing conclusions to be formed. In particular the late Mycenaean IIIB and early IIIC phases of pottery require clearer definition. When this has been done, several of the suggestions in this article, based on comparisons with Mainland pottery, may require amendment.

The pottery to be the subject of this study was found in a box numbered Gamma 67 in a store-room of Heraklion Museum in which was housed material from the old excavations at Zakro, Ayia Triadha, Palaikastro, Knossos, and elsewhere. It is predominantly advanced L.M. III in character but includes a few L.M. I sherds, some L.M. II/IIIA, and a considerable amount of Geometric. Unfortunately the box has no label stating the provenance of its contents but there are other helpful indications.