In the spring of 1935 I was commissioned by the Trustees of the British Museum to examine the possibilities of excavation in North Syria. The object which I had in view was the discovery of any links that might exist between the civilisation of Minoan Crete and that of the Asian mainland, and to a large extent therefore the search was conditioned by the geographical nature of the country. If such connexion existed it would require trade-routes, and it was only along those that material evidence of inter-communication could be found; therefore the first requisite was a harbour as a terminus for the oversea traffic and easy communications between the harbour and the interior, i.e., communications not merely with the immediate hinterland, but also with the known cultural centres of the Near East. By the latter consideration the southern coast sites were ruled out; Palestine was never other than a poor country; South Syria was not likely to be profitable, for, in spite of its importance, Damascus is difficult of access from the sea, and from it the caravan route to Mesopotamia has to make the big detour round the north end of the Syrian desert.

The fabric of the group of sherds examined by me was certainly indigenous and, in spite of the strong Minoan influence visible in some cases, no imported Cretan ware was traceable.

The evidences of Cretan influence, however, are unmistakable.

The large cups or bowls, of somewhat thin make, showing white rosettes on a dark ground, which are here exceptionally forthcoming, may certainly be regarded as derivatives of the egg-shell cups, with dark, metallic lustre ground and similar white rosettes, that characterise the finest M.M. IIa technique. That exquisite bowls of this class presenting decorative details that point to the Knossian Palace fabric were actually reaching the Syrian Coast by the approximate date of 1900 B.C. is now demonstrated by the fragment—the first-fruits of a still unexplored Ras Shamra tomb—kindly lent by Monsieur Claude Schaeffer and the authorities of the Louvre Museum to the Minoan Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts. In the case of the Tal Atchana specimens, where the parallels belong to only one comparatively simple class of decoration and the whole fabric is of an inferior and imitative kind it is obvious that we may have to deal with a distinctly later dating. The white on dark rosettes themselves were still a common decorative motive in the later phase (b) of M.M. II which carries us down to about 1700 B.C. But the survival of this in a local style may clearly have gone down still later.

This account owes much to the kind co-operation of those who at short notice supplied me with information and photographs; I would here offer my thanks to them, and also to Professor Karo, who generously placed at my disposal the typescript of his article for the Archaeologischer Anzeiger, to Mr. T. J. Dunbabin, without whose assistance it could not have been completed, and finally to Professor Myres, who has kindly read it.

Athens and Attica

A stretch of the north wall of the Acropolis was threatened with collapse by a fracture in the rock which supports it; the rock has accordingly been underpinned with solid masonry at this point, and extensive reinforcements of the same kind have been provided at other weak points. The character of the rock face has been considerably altered by this work, but a disaster has been averted; care has been taken to preserve such ancient features as the underground passage from the Aglaurion.

Broneer has followed up his investigations on the north slope of the Acropolis by an examination of the cave at the east end. In removing the top of the dump from the entrance to the cave a number of important pottery fragments were found, some of which join with the Acropolis vases. Within the cave a stele cut on the right-hand side of the entrance provides the solitary evidence of occupation in antiquity.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the evidence for early Greek enterprise in the Adriatic, and to ascertain, within such limits as the scanty material imposes, its nature and extent. The Greek cities of Illyria and the eastern coast of Italy were always unimportant, though not, perhaps, quite so unimportant as has often been supposed. But it may be worth while to try to discover why no literary tradition has survived and why these cities remained without influence on, though not uninfluenced by, he main current of Greek history.

I. The sources and the credibility of Greek enterprise in the Adriatic.

Alcman is the only seventh-century author whose fragments betray an interest, albeit an incidental interest, in the Adriatic. He wrote for a Spartan audience, and would write what they could understand, and his poetry was sung at festivals in which many must have joined. Spartans of the late seventh century had heard something of the tribe in the northern corner of the Adriatic and of the Illyrians on the eastern shore or farther inland. In the sixth century Greek knowledge of Adriatic geography, human and physical, began to take shape. Not only the allusions in the poems of Mimnermus of Colophon and Ibycus of Rhegion, which shew that Greek legends were thus early being attached to the coasts of the Adriatic, but the systematic works of Scylax of Caryanda and Hecataeus of Miletus are as old as the sixth century.

Among the simpler and cheaper types of pottery in common use in the fifth century B.C. and later, one of the most attractive is the black-glaze ware decorated with incised and stamped patterns. A certain quantity of this has been found in undisturbed single burials or in other contexts which provide external evidence for its dating and development, notably in Sicily and South Russia, at Rhitsona in Boeotia and more recently in the Agora at Athens. Further and still more reliable evidence is to be found in the series of vases, mainly cups, in which similar incised or stamped patterns are found combined on one and the same pot with red-figure painting. The use of incision and stamping in the interior of the cups instead of the normal painted medallion no doubt made for cheapness, and the red-figure work is never of a very high standard. Nevertheless, some of the fifth-century examples have sufficient merit to be looked at for their own sake, while the combination of the two styles gives a useful equation.

Reviewing the recent archaeological discoveries in the areas where the ancient Greek colonies of Italy flourished, I shall divide them, so as to facilitate the finding of the places on the modern map, according to the present Italian regions. These correspond more or less to the old Roman divisions, excepting Lucania, the western part of which (Paestum, Velia) now belongs to Campania.

Sicily

Sicily suffered a great loss last year in the death of Paolo Orsi, to whom we owe the revelation of Siculan civilisation and an incalculable number of discoveries in the Greek centres of the island and of Magna Graecia. After his death lack of funds interrupted the work he had so happily initiated of liberating the temple of Apollo in Ortygia. Of this old Sicilian temple (seventh century B.C.) there was brought to light during 1933–34, by the demolition of the sixteenth-century Spanish barracks, the southern wall of the cella, still 6 and 7 m. high, and built with orthostates.

An impetus has of late been given to the study of Hellenistic and Sigillata wares in the Near East, principally by the excavations in the Athenian Agora and at Antioch. Until recently, few excavators troubled to publish their material of this period, and it has consequently remained largely an unknown quantity to Western scholars. A very cursory inspection, however, is sufficient to show the importance and interest of a proper study of the subject for students both of the Hellenistic East and of Sigillata wares in the West. One or two of the chief results of a preliminary survey of the material collected from a number of excavations and museums (Athens, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Pergamon, Samaria, Tarsus, etc.) are briefly summarised below.

Of the recent acquisitions to the Classical Collection of the Otago Museum (Dunedin, New Zealand) the most noteworthy is a particularly fine Attic white ground lekythos of about the middle of the fifth century (Plate XIV). It stands 38 cm. high and is in an excellent state of preservation, having been most carefully repaired with a minimum of repainting, which has affected only the breast of the woman, the right hand of the warrior, and some details of the small figure on top of the stele.

The design represents a stele scene of the sort so popular with lekythos artists of this period. To the left stands a woman wearing a sleeved chiton, so thin that it clearly allows her bowed legs to be seen through it; with her left hand she points downward to the base of the stele, which is adorned with a fillet and a wreath. On the other side stands a hoplite with his shield and spear;

To the discussion conducted during 1931, in the pages of The American Journal of Archaeology, regarding the authenticity of this work Prof. W. B. Dinsmoor made an important contribution, in which he pointed out marked technical differences between the style of the pedestal in front of which the statue was found and that of pedestals of the second century A.D., to which some would assign the work. In his opinion the pedestal dates from the second century B.C., a period hardly possible as the date of the statue itself; the inference being that during that century the statue had been transferred from its original position to the place in the Heraeum where it was found. I suggest that the occasion of the transfer was the receipt, in 146 B.C., at Olympia of intelligence of Mummius' proceedings at Corinth. He in fact treated Olympia well, dedicating gilded shields on the temple of Zeus and images of Zeus from the spoils of Achaea, in addition to other gifts. But the authorities may reasonably not have anticipated such treatment from him, and have decided that removal to the Heraeum, the oldest temple at Olympia, offered the best chance of preserving the statue.

On the site of Hierapolis ad Lycum a massive wall said to have been discovered in 1933 preserves among other ancient fragments part of an inscribed pedestal probably dating from the latter half of the second century A.D. To the kindness of a correspondent I owe the photograph (Fig. 1) of this marble block. The dimensions are lacking, but if, as seems probable, the letters are about 0.03 m. high, the inscribed surface measures about o.66 by 0.40. The present transcription gives, I believe, the first ancient text found at Hierapolis since the publication in 1898 of Judeich's corpus.