The identity of the Ithaca of the Odyssey with the island which has borne that name since remote antiquity had never been disputed until recent times. When, therefore, the tradition of centuries was called in question by so eminent an authority as Dr. Dörpfeld it was inevitable that zealous defenders would come forward to contest his arguments. The exploration of the traditional Ithaca (or Thiáki as the name has become by the metathesis not unusual in medieval Greek) by a group of British archaeologists and scholars, together with the excavations carried out there over some four years under the direction of Mr. W. A. Heurtley, who was able to devote the summers to this work, have established important conclusions for the solution of a controversy which has divided Homeric students. Investigation on the spot has revealed how closely the narrative of the epic, rationally interpreted, conforms to geographical conditions. Its episodes take place in scenes readily recognisable to-day and evidently drawn from personal observation. Even calculations of distance to be traversed incidentally to the story by land or sea are correctly estimated. The excavations confirm the evidence derived from a text in which amplitude of local detail, so unusual in early literature, tends to confirm another tradition accepted in ancient times, namely, that the poet was personally familiar with Ithaca.

The area of the Protogeometric cairns here described was first discovered in 1931, when we opened a trial pit (Fig. 3) which revealed part of a wall (Fig. 4, 6) and behind it what seemed to be a confused mass of stones mixed with black earth, and containing sherds, ranging from a few LH III to Protogeometric. These stones we took to be the remains of a collapsed house. In 1932 the pit was extended, principally to West and North, and though we encountered the same masses of stones all over the area, it became possible to discover some coherence in them. The plan (Fig. 3) and section (Fig. 4) give some idea of the complexity of the remains, but for the sake of clearness the accumulations of stones (all of which it was necessary to plot before they could be removed) between the surface and the remains actually shown are omitted. In the neighbourhood of wall 6 the stones explained themselves as remains of a succession of terrace-walls and their filling, built at various periods to terrace up the area to the North of them, each time with a slightly different alignment. It was only when we had got near virgin soil that the cairns became recognisable. They had naturally suffered in the process of terracing and had been further disturbed by a series of Byzantine cist graves (Fig. 3, 12–21; Fig. 5), the makers of which had displaced the stones and contents of the cairns and the earth above them. It is really remarkable that the cairns have survived at all and it is only owing to the skilful and patient work of Miss Lorimer that their structural character has been recognised.

Laconian figurines have been found on four sites at or in the neighbourhood of Sparta: by the British excavations at the Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia, at the Menelaion, and on the Acropolis at the Sanctuary of Athena of the Brazen House: and by the Greek and, subsequently, the German excavations at the Amyklaion. So far as I know only three archaic Laconian figurines have been found on sites which are not Laconian. Of these, two are from Tegea, a site which was open to Laconian, Argive and Corinthian influences; these two objects will be mentioned below. The third is the late archaic terracotta head from Olympia, which Langlotz classes as Sicyonian, but which is much more akin to late archaic Laconian heads. One would expect that seventh-century figurines of Laconian style would have been found at Tarentum, but as almost no archaic terracottas from that site have been published it is impossible to say whether such exist or no: the few I have seen in Berlin do not present any striking similarity with those from Laconia, although one of them is akin to the Cretan heads of about 625.

The following is an account of some expeditions made from Knossos by members of the British School. It is hoped in time to make a complete register of all ancient sites on the island (more than six hundred are already known). How much is still to be done is shewn by the fact that over thirty-five new sites were found during the course of the journeys here described.

The names of the sites here given must be taken with reserve. Pronunciation varies so much from one district to another that accuracy is exceedingly difficult. Moreover, the Turkish names are hard to reproduce, since the Turkish č is written and pronounced ts by the educated, and written ki, while pronounced as English ch by the peasants. The n is liable to be dropped in Crete: thus Alexadros for Alexandros.

The inscriptions here published or discussed have, some of them, historic interest; which I hope I have not entirely neglected to point out. But this is chiefly a report of my work in the Museum: the reconstruction of stelai, the recognising and distinguishing of hands. In the third section, A Distinctive Attic Hand, my argument for date is cumulative, and weak as cumulative arguments are: I have no single certain proof that any of the group, still less the whole of it, belongs to the 'thirties. I record it as my cumulative impression; but my main concern has been to distinguish the hand, and to try to formulate a method whereby hands can be, securely, distinguished.

Acknowledgments: first and warmest to M. Kourouniotis, Director of the Epigraphic Museum at Athens and of the excavations at Eleusis. His generosity in placing unpublished stones at my disposal, and his constant encouragement, have been delightful to remember. Next, to Hiller von Gaertringen, whose I.G. I has seldom, during this work, been far from my hand: all students of fifth-century Attic inscriptions will know what I owe him. I have had much help from Dow and Oliver of the American school: Dow indeed taught me to distinguish hands. Meritt's constant and exciting letters, while I was working on the Quota Lists, have made that the most useful section of my paper: I had much help also from West's pupil McGregor of Cincinnati University, who was working on the same subject (see below, p. 110).

It is a little surprising that practically nothing has been done to supplement Traquair's valuable pioneer work on the churches of Mani. The field is richer even than his article suggests. The buildings are in a state of preservation unique for Greece, they cover a long period and their study may be expected to elucidate the history of the peninsula in the Middle Ages.

In July 1933 I spent four days in the villages between Pyrgos and Gerolimena, a journey of which the principal objective was the church of H. Theodoros at Vamvaka. This, the only dated church reported in Mani, is somewhat summarily dealt with in Traquair's survey. Though small in size and simply decorated it gives the key to the chronology of the whole Mani group and seemed on this account to deserve a special examination. A short account of this church constitutes the core of the present article (pp. 139–145).

In my study on the chronology of Middle-Byzantine churches after considering the contrary evidence I accepted the dated inscription in the west front of H. Theodoroi at Athens as a record of the erection of the present building. In an additional note reference was made to an article by Xyngopoulos, published after my own had gone to press. To support his dating of the church in the twelfth century he introduces new arguments which I suggested demanded a re-examination of the evidence. More recently Laurent has dealt conclusively with some of the points in connection with the inscriptions raised by the Greek scholar. But, while his verdict on their content may be accepted with confidence, for the archaeologist the question is not yet closed. Laurent's main theses are that in the first place the date on the smaller stone should be reckoned by the Byzantine era and interpreted as 1049, and, secondly, that the metrical inscription should be attributed to the eleventh century, if not earlier, in preference to the twelfth. However, of the relation of the two stones to one another and to the church into which they are built he speaks with less conviction. He favours the prima facie view that the present building was erected by Kalomalos in 1049, but, if the church is shewn on stylistic grounds to be of later date, he is prepared to dissociate both the dated and the metrical inscription from the foundation and to place the latter in the tenth century or even earlier (p. 82).

The date of the first contact of the Greeks with the Western Mediterranean is very difficult to determine from literary sources. It is as old as the Theogony and probably as old as the Odyssey; but there is, as yet, no general agreement as to the date of either of these sources. Many historians still assume that it began, if not with the foundation of the Greek colonies in Sicily, at least with that of Cumae. These colonies, they maintain, were planted solely as a means of solving the problem of over-population in old Greece, in areas suitable for the production of corn, and without commercial intent. Whence came the necessary geographical knowledge and how the sites were chosen is seldom clearly stated, if it is stated at all. We are left with vague suggestions such as a preliminary expedition of exploration or ‘Traditional Survival’ of geographical knowledge based on Minoan, Mycenaean and Nostoi voyages, any explanation, in fact, that will save the historian from the natural assumption that the western colonies were planted in areas previously reached by Greek commercial enterprise.