The other day I received a letter from someone I did not know, but who shares my rather common surname. This gentleman had received a piece of mail intended for me—a Who's Who entry for correction, in fact. The occurrence in itself was not very remarkable, as those of you who have surnames which are as widely distributed as mine will especially appreciate. What was particularly striking to me was that my correspondent began his letter by saying that he had never written to an archaeologist before, and could not resist the temptationto do so now. I replied that I was somewhat surprised that archaeologists could still have such a curiosity value; it had been my impression that we had become so relatively common during the last two decades as not to attract much more notice than many other professions. We are still not, and are never likely to be, a large profession, but there is also, of course, a strong body of serious amateurs who can also reasonably call themselves qualified archaeologists—and we do get a more than average amount of publicity.

The major Early Bronze Age hoard from Arreton Down in the Isle of Wight was made known to the Society of Antiquaries as early as 1735. Until recently however, half of the hoard had remained unlocated since 1737, when it was drawn by Charles Frederick. His drawings, which appear in the Society's MS 265, have been instrumental in relocating five of the missing bronzes; four of these were found to have acquired false provenances. This paper traces as far as possible the varied histories of ownership of the Arreton bronzes and in conclusion draws some lessons from the problem of uncorroborated provenances. For the first time the whole of the known hoard is illustrated together.

Excavations conducted in 1980–81 for the Soprintendenza Archeologica at Pompeii, by the writer, revealed considerable information about conditions in and around the forum from the sixth century B.C. onwards. The results are briefly described and used to indicate hypotheses as to the development of the site. Already in the sixth century the whole 63 ha. appear to have been enclosed by a wall circuit. It is argued that the enceinte may have protected a port of trade sited at a threshold point between Greek, Etruscan and indigenous culture systems, and that the forum area, also possibly enclosed or demarcated, represented the site of formal market activity.

Towards the close of the fourth century, in a changed political milieu, the fortifications were strengthened and evidence of Black Glaze kiln waste indicates the production of consumer commodities, taking the site a stage further from the simple agricultural and market centre suggested. However, it is not until the late third or second century, with its involvement in the ever more complex and expanding Mediterranean market system, that the evidence is clear enough to allow for the application of the term town to the site.

In 1980, it was suggested on petrological grounds that during the Roman period Orvieto was an important source of Pompeian-style mills. In 1985, a short programme of field work led to the discovery of the quarry site. This paper assesses the evidence for leucitite quarrying near Orvieto and describes newly discovered production waste.

An isolated building in the Wadi al-Qarn below the castle of Montfort has attracted the attention of travellers for over two centuries. Various explanations have been suggested for it. A detailed survey, however, carried out in September 1982, now allows its character to be understood more fully than hitherto. It is suggested that the earliest part of the structure was a mill-house, associated witha masonry dam built across the valley. This phase may be dated to the twelfth or thirteenth century before 1228, when it is possible to identify it with a mill dependent on the village of Trefile, which belonged at that date to the Teutonic Order. The second phase represents a domestic hall, built over the top of the mill-house, which then went out of use. The hall's architecture and masonry marks allow it to be associated with a later phase of the castle itself, datable to some period between 1229 and 1266. It is suggested that it was a guest house, dependent on the castle of the Teutonic Knights, and intended for the use of important secular or ecclesiastical visitors and their households.

A contract of 1392 between two Oxford brasiers, with an account of the ensuing dispute, provides important evidence for the organization of the medieval brasier's craft andfor technical aspects of his trade. One brasier employed another to make pots, bells and fawtys (probably faucets) for a flat payment by weight. The master-brasier provided the raw materials, comprising scrap brass on the one hand, and graycober (perhaps antimonial copper) and stelebake (probably zinc-bearing calamine ore so called from the place Stolberg) on the other. This, with newly discovered references to the importation of calamys and calamin in 1384, provides the first evidence yet found for the making of brass in England from its raw materials.

The Glamis Book of Record, compiled by Patrick 1st Earl of Strathmore between the years 1685 and 1689, contains, in addition to more mundane material, the Earl's autobiography. This, combined with other documents preserved in the charter room at Glamis, provides a remarkably detailed account of the Earl's building and other works at Glamis between the years 1671 and 1689, a short but crucial period in the long history of the castle.

In 1671 the castle, then little more than an empty shell, consisted of a massive tower-house, with additions and alterations mostly dating to the first few years of the century, attached to an east wing of earlier date. The single access crossed an encircling ditch and reached the entrance through a walled courtyard containing a miscellaneous collection of buildings, some possibly a good deal older than the castle itself.

The Earl, who was his own architect, began by drawing up a scheme for all his proposed improvements, which he then executed in stages over the years as circumstances allowed. The existing approach was replaced by an avenue with a series of ornamented gateways. The buildings in front of the castle were cleared away and replaced by an inner and outer courtyard with gardens and a bowling green, while necessary outbuildings were sited in a separate courtyard at the back of the castle. The existing east wing was matched by a new west wing to provide a symmetrical façade and the available accommodation increased by an addition to the east wing and extensions to the back of the tower-house, including a rectangular stair tower and three storeys of rooms with a chapel on the topmost floor.

Although the principal building works were carried out by local masons underthe Earl's instruction, the interior was decorated where appropriate by immigrant craftsmen of high standing. Thus, by the time the Earl died in 1695, he had converted a largely derelict, haphazard assemblage of buildings into a well-planned and seemly mansion environed with gardens and wholly appropriate to a Scottish gentleman of the period.

The evidence is here reviewed from which to conclude that a chair now at Kelmscott Manor was designed by Philip Webb and exhibited in the Mediaeval Court at the 1862 International Exhibition in London, despite the fact that it has nothing stylistically medieval about it. Analysis of the design does, however, suggest the assimilation of older Egyptian and Japanese ideas and thus that the chair in 1862 was considered derivative.