The subjoined photograph, Fig. 1, very kindly taken for me by Mr. E. R. Ayrton, is, as far as I am aware, the first published of the important fresco of Keftiu (Minoan Cretans?) in the tomb of the architect Senmut at Egyptian Thebes. The three left-hand vases from this fresco were reproduced in colour (not altogether correctly) by Prisse D'Avennes in his monumental work on the History of Ancient Egyptian Art (Art Industriel: Vases des Tributaires de Kafa, 9, 2), and tracings of his drawings were published by Prof. Steindorff, Arch. Anz. 1892, by Mr. W. M. Müller in his Asien und Europa, p. 349, and by me in my Oldest Civilization of Greece, pp. 53, 54. Other tracings of Prisse d'Avennes' reproductions have also appeared. In my article on Keftiu and the Peoples of the Sea in the eighth volume of the Annual of the British School at Athens, pp. 172, 173, Figs. 4–8, I published drawings of four of the vases shewn in this photograph and a fragment of a fifth (which does not appear in it), from sketches made by me at Thebes three years ago.

Excavations at the Sparta theatre were resumed in 1992: the objective was to survey it and clarify its history. Nine trenches were opened and a catalogue of architectural blocks compiled. A trench in the sw orchestra revealed two staircases; while the seats of honour, the walkway behind, and two or three rows of benches above are preserved, the remainder of the theatre was severely damaged in the 9th–13th centuries. The diazoma's foundations were revealed; below it were ten radial staircases, above seventeen. The lower cavea had thirty-one rows, the upper nineteen. At the top, rows 17–19 rested on concrete over an inner radial wall of concrete-bonded stones; there are traces of a Doric colonnade around the walkway here. The upper cavea yielded pottery suggesting an initial construction under Eurykles (c.30–20 BC); no certain evidence of an earlier theatre has been found. The stage building's architecture suggests Flavian and Severan reconstructions and later repairs. The site's use as a theatre ended c. AD 400, but finds indicate early Byzantine continuity and three later occupation phases (9th–13th centuries). Sculptures found include a statuette of Apollo or Dionysos, an Antonine female portrait (priestess?), and an important late Roman male portrait head.

This pottery was picked up by Mr. Blegen of the American School and myself on a low mound on the edge of the Bereketli marsh, which is the source of the Angista and other streams which water the plain of Drama. The mound is about one hundred yards south of the Drama-Kavalla road at the eighteenth kilometre, that is about two kilometres east of Philippi, nearly midway between Drama and Kavalla and at the spot where stands the great stone with the inscription to Caius Vibius, hence the name of the spot ‘Dikilitash,’ the ‘Upright Stone.’ It should be noted that all the pottery was picked up on the surface and no sort of excavation was made.

Between the Acropolis hill of Sparta and the northern limits of the modern town lies a stretch of level ground, the greater part of which is covered with olive trees. In the middle of this area (General Plan, K 14 and 15) are a series of four tombs, of which two found undisturbed and one empty belong to the Hellenistic age, while one, now unfortunately almost totally destroyed, appears to have had a greater antiquity. This line of tombs lies along the southern limit of what we suppose to be the site of the Agora, and is thus in the heart of the ancient town. The conspicuous ancient building known as the Tomb of Leonidas lies a short distance away, and the discovery of tombs so close to it, and of a form not greatly dissimilar, opens once more the question of its purpose.

In the last volume of the Annual a report was given on the work done at Haliartos in 1926. It was not possible at that time to publish the excavation exhaustively as the finds had not been thoroughly examined, but I have recently made a further study of them, and have prepared this supplementary paper to bring the publication up to date. The finds are here catalogued and discussed under their several sections, and the conclusions derived from them are set out in the summary at the end.

At one time it was generally assumed, even by distinguished Byzantinists, that the Turkish conquest of Constantinople in 1453 put a sudden stop to the production of all objects of quality in the East Christian world, and that after that date Byzantine art at once degenerated into a peasant art throughout the whole of the area touched by the Turks. Recent research has, however, led to some modification of this view, and though work of the same superb quality as that produced in the great middle period of Byzantine art was not executed, we now know that in addition to painted icons, such things as embroideries, carved reliquaries, crosses of chased metal work or champlevé enamel and objects in bone or even ivory, were produced, which were by no means negligible from the artistic standpoint. Their production continued, moreover, through the sixteenth and earlier seventeenth centuries; only after that date did Christian art in Greece and the Balkans assume an essentially ‘peasant’ character. It is indeed to the sixteenth century that the greater number of painted icons that are now to be found in museums and private collections in Greece are to be assigned, and though there was much hack-work, paintings of very high quality were also produced amongst them.

Early Cycladic pottery from the lower levels of the site at Akrotiri, especially from the pits dug to bedrock to support the modern roofing, is described and discussed. This demonstrates that Akrotiri was occupied as early as the EC period. Evidence from this for relations with the rest of the Cyclades and the Aegean in general is discussed, together with the possible chronological equations. Most of the pottery belongs to the advanced phases of the Early Cycladic. There is, as yet, no certain evidence for Neolithic.

Vincenzo Coronelli (1650–1718), cosmographer to the Venetian republic, produced two books illustrating the towns and fortresses taken from the Ottoman Turks by the Venetians during their second conquest of the Peloponnese (1685–90). These were issued in numerous editions and translations in 1686–7, and formed the basis for other cartographic works. There were many variants of each plate, and the engravings have increasingly become separated from the books in which they were published. The problem is compounded by the many variants of the illustrations, and because different illustrations may exist for a town. By examining the known variants of one town and relating each to the edition in which it appeared, and by a bibliographical examination of the editions, we can determine which illustrations belong to which edition and can distinguish the political and historical bases on which Coronelli changed his illustrations from edition to edition.

Upper Macedonia is the upland country which lies at the back of Mount Bermius as regards Macedonia properly so-called, which is the Campagna between the hills and the sea at the head of the Gulf of Salonica. Beyond the hills Olympus, Bermius, and their continuation northward, lies Upper Macedonia about the valleys of the Haliakmon and Erigon and round the lakes of Ochrida, Presba and Kastoria. This was the fourth region of Macedonia according to the Roman division after the defeat of Perseus at Pydna in 168. This region according to Livy included Eordaia, Lynkestis, Pelagonia, Stymphalis (sic), Elimiotis and Atintania. The country to-day falls naturally by its geographical features into several divisions and these correspond, as far as our information goes, with the ancient districts. Going westwards from Edessa along the line of the Via Egnatia, near the lakes, of which Lake Ostrovo is the chief, the traveller first reaches some hilly country which forms the watershed between the valleys of the Erigon and Haliakmon. To the north in the valley of the Erigon is a long, narrow plain stretching from Fiorina past Monastir to just beyond Krushevo and Prilep. The northern part of this plain is itself separated from the rest by a low range of hills about the villages of Tsepik and Topoltsani.

Professor Doerpfeld in the Athenische Mittheilungen, xxx. pp. 257–97, has put forward a theory regarding the relation of the later to the earlier palaces at Knossos and at Phaestos, which requires serious consideration, not only in view of Doerpfeld's high authority in such matters, but also in the light of the results of excavation, as these have been accumulating from season to season at different sites in Crete.

It will clear the ground considerably if, as a common starting-point of argument, it is agreed at the very beginning that the question at issue is primarily one of stratification, and that all understanding of sequence in development is ultimately conditioned by our apprehension of the character of the sequence in the stratification, in so far as that has been brought to light by actual excavation.

In the course of a search for tombs in the Knossos area during the spring of 1951 I noticed some large blocks of limestone masonry with curved edges that had just been removed from a newly planted vineyard, the property of Georgios Kargatzes, near the top of the hill forming the southern end of the long ridge on the northern tip of which stands the Isopata Royal Tomb. The site is about 250 metres north-west of the Zafer Papoura cemetery of Late Minoan tombs dug by Evans in 1904, and at the bottom of the slope to the west is a high bank with important Geometric tombs (Knossos Survey 15), explored by Hogarth during the first year of the excavations at Knossos in 1900.

The curving blocks, together with the situation on the top of a hill less than half a kilometre south of the Kefala tholos tomb (Knossos Survey 8), excavated by Mr. R. W. Hutchinson in 1939, immediately raised hopes that another tholos tomb might await discovery here; and the fragments of Minoan pottery everywhere on and below the surface encouraged this belief. Dr. N. Platon, Ephor of Antiquities for Crete, visited the site and granted permission for the School to make trials to discover from what the blocks came. The Director of the School, Mr. J. M. Cook, gave his sanction for the work and asked me to undertake it. The plans were drawn by Mr. Piet de Jong, then the School's Curator at Knossos; the drawings of the vases are by Miss Susan Wood.

In a rescue excavation in the Demetrokali plot in the Chora of Naxos, part of a building complex, with a paved road, was discovered. Characteristic vases are presented (local imitations, and imports of Minoan types) which date the unit to the LC II period and show that Naxos at that time formed part of the network of communications with Crete and the eastern Aegean.

This paper presents in detail a deposit of metallurgical debris from a small-scale casting operation at Palaikastro, E. Crete. The deposit consists of a selection of discarded metalworking tools, including tuyères (blowpipes), crucibles, and moulds, all of which are indicative of different processes involved in the production of metal objects. The moulds offer rare evidence for the local manufacture of specific object types that can be identified from the fragmentary remains. In addition to moulds for various tool types, such as double axes, there are fragments of moulds for a large decorative stand similar to the ‘rod’ tripod stands found predominantly on Cyprus. This is the first evidence for production of these stands on Crete at such an early date.

In the course of the excavations carried on by the School from 1906 to 1910 at Sparta, a considerable quantity was found of the mediæval glazed pottery that is usually called Byzantine. As specimens of this fabric are not common in museums, and its date and general relations are still matters of some doubt, it seems desirable to publish all the pieces of any interest as material for further study, although the writers of this paper have no claim to speak as experts on the subject. The fragments were found in the numerous trial pits that were made on and around the Acropolis, and were especially abundant outside the east end of the Late Roman fortifications. The exactly similar ware from Pergamon and Constantinople now in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum at Berlin is there officially ascribed to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and other pieces from old Cairo in the same museum of very similar make, to the eleventh and twelfth. Two almost complete bowls from Pergamon, on the other hand, plainly of our classes I and III, are assigned by W. Altmann to ‘the first centuries of Byzantine art’ The position in which the sherds were found at Sparta gives some slight indication as to date in the form of a probable terminus ante quem, for the building of the fortress of Misithra, or Mistrá, by Guillaume de Villehardouin, in the middle of the thirteenth century, was quickly followed by the decay of the Byzantine city situated round the Acropolis of Sparta.

The existence of Late Minoan tombs somewhere in this area was noted by Evans, and several of those found during our excavations had been partly destroyed or plundered. Nineteen tombs were discovered in all. One of them (XVIII) was a Middle Minoan tomb (see p. 220). The rest (with the possible exception of tomb VIII which was found empty, and which from its shape and character may be Middle Minoan) all belonged to the Late Minoan III period, from the time of the destruction of the Late Minoan II Palace about 1400 B.C. (tombs I, II, XV), till the end of Late Minoan times (tomb VII), when iron had begun to come into use (c. ?1150 B.C.), a range of some 250 years or more. It is possible that tomb I, with its finely decorated clay vases and interesting bronze knives and razors, may go back within the limits of the early part of Late Minoan IIIA (Furumark's IIIA 1) before the destruction of the Palace.

Perhaps the most popular vase shape in Euboea in the fourth century was the lidded lekanis. A number of specimens, decorated with floral motives on the lid and simple leaves or linear patterns on the receptacles, may be seen in BSA lv, pls. 54–57 passim. They show considerable variety in the shape of the knobs and in the treatment of the handles, but the receptacles remain fundamentally the same. Akin to these are little bowls of similar shape, lidded, but without handles. Such are the vases of a kernos of unknown provenience in Athens with a vaguely anthropomorphic central handle consisting of a long loop surmounted by a moulded head and with small arm-like projections recalling those of a herm (Plate 1, 1). The lids of three of the four little vases are preserved, the two nearest the handle having horizontal rims, while the two outer vases both had lids with rims turning vertically down, as is shown by the one extant lid and by the flanges on both the receptacles. The knobs of the two lids with horizontal rims are of a shape similar to the stemmed foot of a cup or dish; the surviving lid with down-turned rim has a ring like the footring of a stemless cup to serve as a knob. Each kind of knob, stemmed or stemless, functioned as a foot when the lid was set upside down on the table and became a dish. The low footring knobs were not unknown in Athens, but they were commoner in Euboea. One was noticed in BSA lv. 212, no. 8 on a lid, not figured, belonging to the Bonn group of floral black-figure, which is undoubtedly of Euboean, and very probably of Chalcidian manufacture. We shall see more of them later on.

A visit to the monasteries of Meteora is easier now than in 1834, when Curzon, escorted by a party of “klephts,” reached them from the North. One feels, in reading the account of his rapid passage from Corfu to the valley of the upper Peneus and back again, that it was touch and go in those days. Now the traveller can approach Meteora by the railway, the chief outward and visible sign of improvement in the region assigned to Hellas by the Treaty of Berlin. To any one who has the time to spare I can strongly recommend a week in Thessaly, as it contains several objects of first-rate interest, and is in many respects unlike the rest of Greece. The population is largely Wallachian, and their bronzed shaggy faces suggest the uncomfortable thought, that the veneer of civilisation is even thinner than elsewhere in these parts. It is easy to believe that such a population would like nothing better than frisking into Macedonia in surreptitious bands.

There are several explanations current about the origin of the triglyph. First, that the frieze of triglyph and metope started from a decorative feature of Mycenaean art and survived—invisibly to us–until eventually Doric architecture emerged. Secondly, that triglyphs are the fossilised remains of barred wooden windows, which early Greeks needed but their successors did not. Thirdly, that triglyphs are the flattened vestiges of an upper row of columns, abandoned by the timid masons of the seventh century. Fourthly, that the triglyph represents the end or a facing of the end of a wooden beam, this though in all ascertainable early instances the beams run from the course above the triglyph. Fifthly, and liable to the same objection, that the metopes were originally the ends of beams and the triglyphs bars between them. To each of these explanations—and probably to any other that has been or can be devised—there are serious objections. But since the treatment and the prominence of the orthodox triglyph give it an appearance of being an important structural member and particularly one of wood, the most popular explanation is the fourth, which derives the triglyph from the wooden beam. If this is accepted, the argument may reasonably be pushed further.