This article focuses on some central supporting walls one can see in certain buildings at Early Minoan Hagia Triadha, Fournou Korifi (Myrtos) and Vasiliki. The walls, which have Π-, C-, and L- shapes, have been viewed as central ceiling/roof supports. But that interpretation is only a partial one, for it does not explain the walls' ‘enclosing’ shapes. The solution I argue for here is that a ladder was set in each, providing access to the roof in single-storeyed buildings, as at Hagia Triadha, or to a second floor, as at Vasiliki. My investigation attempts to clarify one of the unique characteristics of Early Minoan architecture as well as how that form may have been adapted to provide access in buildings with more than a single storey.

The Greek temples on the summit of the citadel at Mycenae were discovered and partially cleared by Ch. Tsountas in 1886, but the major excavation was undertaken in 1939 under the direction of A. J. B. Wace. The results of this season have never been fully studied. This article is based upon a new examination of the material evidence and the documents in the Mycenae archives of the British School at Athens. Previously unpublished architectural drawings, photographs, plans, and sections make it possible to assess the nature of the Archaic and Hellenistic temples at Mycenae. The evidence points to the establishment of the cult in the Geometric period, along with the construction of the northern terraces, followed by a significant reorganization of the temenos and the construction of the first stone temple in the early Archaic period. Preliminary analysis of the preserved architectural elements indicates a strong connection between the Archaic temple at Mycenae and the early temples at Corinth and Isthmia. The well-known stone reliefs from Mycenae, dated c. 630 BC, should also belong to this early structure. In the third century BC, when Mycenae had been resettled as an Argive kome, the temple was rebuilt, incorporating Archaic material in its foundations.

The year 1906 was marked by the inception of what seems likely to be the most extensive and productive piece of work yet undertaken by the British School at Athens. We take this opportunity of expressing our thanks to the Hellenic Government and the Ephor-General of Antiquities for the liberality with which permission to undertake the excavation of this important site was accorded to us, and for the constant support given to us in all the stages of the work. Among the officials of the Department of Antiquities we are particularly indebted to Dr. Soteriades, the Ephor appointed to reside at Sparta during the excavations, and among local officials, to the Demarch, the Treasurer and the Chief Engineer, thanks to whose co-operation many difficulties and obstacles were overcome, and to Mr. G. D. Kapsales, the efficient Curator of the Museum.

This inscription consists of two decrees, one of which gives a certain Sthorys the Athenian citizenship, the other of which provides for a simple amendment. Despite fairly numerous editions, a number of difficulties of detail remain which seem sufficient to warrant a further discussion. In the first place, the most recent editors, Wilhelm and Meritt, while agreeing on the general substance of the text, have a number of discrepancies in their readings, though neither has provided a detailed commentary on the readings adopted. In addition, the full implications of fragment (b) have not been taken into account hitherto. Secondly, Sthorys, the recipient, is a very shadowy figure, and the precise circumstances in which he received Athenian citizenship are not altogether clear. Thirdly, the formula employed for the grant of citizenship in this decree is somewhat unusual compared with that found in other such decrees of the fifth and early fourth centuries. The purpose of this article therefore is, firstly, to provide a new text with a full critical commentary, and also to consider the physical details of the stele; secondly, to consider fully the contents of the two decrees, and in particular the status of Sthorys and the possible reasons for his honours; and finally, to discuss the formula for the grant of citizenship in this decree and in the other preserved examples of the fifth and early fourth centuries.

Two cemeteries associated with the early iron age occupation of Kourion have been excavated at the localities of Bamboula and Kaloriziki. In his publications of these cemeteries Benson attempted to demonstrate continuity of occupation at Kourion in the transitional bronze–iron age. A reanalysis of the pottery from both cemeteries has instead shown that the supposed continuity of occupation at Kourion is a result of Benson's erroneous identification of the final Late Cypriot and Initial Cypro-Geometric wares.

Pausanias' Book viii on Arcadia contains at the beginning a list of Arcadia's early kings from Pelasgus onwards, and later in the book more information of a similar sort is attached to Pausanias' accounts of various Arcadian communities. This material has received considerable attention, notably from Hiller von Gaertringen, and there has recently been a full and careful examination by Hejnic of this ‘phenomenon quite unique in the whole ancient literature’. The main effort of modern analysis has been directed at establishing Pausanias' sources, and evaluating how far the form of the material is due to Pausanias' own redaction and how far to discernible earlier redactions, with the further hope of extracting from Pausanias' account an original core of material and using it to reconstruct Arcadian history, especially of the archaic period. It is the purpose of this article, apart from making a minor contribution to this process, to suggest that the form of Pausanias' material owes more to Pausanias himself, and therefore presents more serious obstacles to interpretation, than has been realized.

Here only one part of the material is examined, namely the sons of Lycaon. Pausanias' account of them is almost certainly drawn from Arcadian belief of his own day; the other main account of them, by Apollodorus, probably stems from a non-Arcadian literary development.

The season of 1910 closed the excavations of the School at Sparta which were begun in 1906 under the direction of Professor Bosanquet, and, although much work remains to be done in the Museum in preparing the finds for publication, especially those from the Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia, no further excavation is contemplated. The results achieved have been regularly reported each year, and the objects discovered at the various sites have been nearly all published, with the important exception of the great mass of objects from the Orthia Sanctuary, which are so numerous that their adequate publication will require a separate book. An important series of Byzantine painted pottery and some jewellery of the same period also await publication. The nature of these previous annual reports makes it unnecessary here to do more than give the usual short summary of the year's work which is more fully described in the following sections, and again to express the thanks of the School for the continual support of the Hellenic government, which was this year again ably represented by Doctor Rhomaios.

About 100 metres south-east of the new bridge over the Eurotas a line of large blocks can be seen in the right bank of the river running out into its bed. These are the remains of the city-wall, which originally must have made a sharp bend to the south-west, as it reappears in the field of the Heroön. But this angle, and the land which it enclosed, have been carried away by a change in the course of the river. Close to the northern arm of the angle, and abutting on the present river-bank, lies the large structure illustrated in Figs. 1 and 2. Its eastern front has long been visible, but seems to have escaped the observation of travellers. Excavation revealed at a depth of 0·70 m. below the present surface, a great platform 23·60 m. long by 6·60 m. wide and 1·90 m. high. There are four foundation courses, averaging 0·34 m. in height, of a softish crumbly stone, and a sillcourse 0·55 m. high, projecting 0·10 m. beyond the foundations. This sillcourse consists of squared and dressed blocks, which extend all round the building with a uniform breadth of 0·90 m., and vary from 1·60 m. to 2·50 m. in length. Their surface is carefully smoothed, leaving an edge on the outside, raised 0·003 m. and 0·07 to 0·08 m. wide. This careful finish, combined with the regularity of the foundation-courses, and the absence of all trace of bonding-mortar, suggests Hellenic workmanship.

The sequence of construction of the Propylaia to the Acropolis of Athens is reassessed in the light of Pontus Hellstrom's suggestion that the two unbuilt east halls, and the original plan for the S.W. hall were intended to be dining halls like the Pinakotheke. It is argued that the objections of the various priests are unlikely to account for changes in plan; that the east halls were abandoned before work started on the S.W. wing; and that the cause of the change was financial, the need to economize in the face of the growing certainty of war with Sparta.

The scope and a summary of the results of the 1962–3 excavations at Palaikastro and their relation to the earlier work of 1902–6 were set out in Part I (BSA lx (1965) 249–52). There is no call to repeat those findings here, nor has further study made it necessary to make any significant revisions.

In this article we publish the Late Minoan IB and reoccupation pottery from Block N (excavation report in PK VI. 252) and from other tests, along with an account of work undertaken in the main area of the town at Palaikastro (Roussolakkos).

As before, the excavation report was written by L. H. Sackett, while M. R. Popham contributed the sections on the L.M. pottery. We are grateful to P. M. Warren for notes on the stone objects and to V. E. G. Kenna for a note on one sealstone.

The material still awaiting final study and publication consists principally of Early and Middle Minoan pottery from Kastri, tests in Block Χ, Block Γ, and Square H3.

In 1956 the Greek Archaeological Council decided that there should be no excavations at Mycenae. The Anastelosis Department was still busy with the rebuilding of the Cyclopean walls of the Citadel along the western side and along the stretch of ashlar work in conglomerate from the Lion Gate to the north-western angle. At the actual north-western angle the Cyclopean work of the northern wall of the acropolis had originally met the conglomerate work in ashlar with a straight vertical joint. This has now been obscured in the rebuilding. The Archaeological Service was also planning and preparing to put into effect various measures to protect the site from damage by the large numbers of tourists who visit it every year.

Since we were thus not able to excavate, we devoted ourselves to studying and preparing for publication the finds from the excavations of previous years in the museums at Athens and Nauplia. In Athens the Director of the National Museum, Dr. Karouzos, and his wife, Mrs. Semne Karouzou, made us very welcome and afforded us every possible facility. Mrs. Sakellariou and Mr. Papathanasopoulos, assistant curators in the museum, also gave us much friendly help. At Nauplia Mr. N. Verdeles, the Inspector of Antiquities, and Miss Protonotariou, the Epimeletes, made special arrangements for our work and gave us every support.

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 origin of the sealstones in the British School of Archaeology at Athens is rather obscure. Although they have sometimes been referred to as the Finlay collection, this is apparently incorrect. That collection is now in the museum of the University of Manchester. Numbers 1–18 below (M30–M47 in the School's museum inventory) consist of three Minoan gems of the ‘talismanic’ type and fifteen ‘Melian’ Island gems. The combination of Island with a small admixture of Minoan gems, especially ‘talismanics’, seems to have been characteristic of material derived from Geometric tombs in the cemeteries of Trypiti, Trion Vasallon, and elsewhere on Melos during the latter part of the nineteenth and the first years of this century, in particular during the period in which the British School was excavating on the island at Phylakopi.

In a joint Greek-British excavation in 1993–4 on the E slope of the hill of Xeropolis, an interesting tomb complex of MH date was revealed, consisting of two chambers covered by slabs. Above the slabs was a stone-mound. The tomb complex, which had been robbed, recalls the tombs in the tumuli that are either built or in cist form. The pottery collected dates it to the MH period, but the tomb had been built on top of an EH layer. EH or LH pottery was also found in the fill of the tomb, apparently fallen from the settlement on the hill.

The strict Lenten fast of the Greek Church is preceded by a carnival of a fortnight's duration. The week from Septuagesima Sunday to Sexagesima is celebrated with feasting and merriment subject to no religious restrictions; in the second week, although similar festivities continue, heightened rather than abated, no meat may be eaten; and on the morrow of Quinquagesima (for Monday is the first day of the Greek Lent), the full regulations as to fasting come into operation, not only meat, but fish, eggs, milk, cheese and oil being almost universally prohibited. None the less a free use of wine makes the Monday the climax of the carnival.

‘The vases of the Acheloos Painter and those in his manner might have been included in the long Leagros list, as they are central examples of the Leagran style: I have placed them in a list of their own, but would insist that they are no less Leagran than the others.’ Thus Beazley, in the introduction to the long Leagran chapter in ABV. The Leagros Group is a large and embarrassingly homogeneous group of late sixth-century Attic black-figure vases; so stylistically homogeneous is it, in fact, that even Beazley admitted a certain defeat when it came to attributing most of them to their painters. As a group they have a well-defined personality, and much of what is true of any one vase is also true of the others, whence the particular problems of attribution. It is an important group because it is contemporary with the red-figure Pioneers, Euphronios, Euthymides, Phintias, and their coterie, and stylistically like their work; Beazley claimed in the ABV introduction that the Leagran pots were painted in the same workshop.

Among the Mahommedan religious antiquities of Asia Minor the tomb-sanctuaries held to represent the resting-places of Arabs killed during the forays of the viii–ix centuries form a well-marked and extremely interesting group. Their authenticity is on general grounds more than doubtful. The campaigns of the Arabs led to no permanent occupation: the lands they had conquered for the moment were restored to Christendom or fell to alien races. Only in the borderlands, where in times of peace Christian and Moslem might meet on equal terms, can we expect a true tradition regarding Arab graves or a continuous veneration of them to have persisted.

Of these borderland Moslem cults supposed to date back to the Arab period we can point to two examples, the tomb of the ‘sister of Mahommed’ at Tarsus and the tomb of Umm Haram in Cyprus.

The former is mentioned by Willibrand von Oldenburg (1210) as still a place of Moslem pilgrimage under the Christian kings of Armenia. It was situated outside the church of S. (Beatus) Peter and S. Sophia in the middle of the town.

In Ö. Jh. XXXI Beibl. 21 ff., I published my attempts to put together a number of early Attic votive pedestals, bases, columns, and capitals. I now follow this up by a publication of some Attic archaic monuments which I have similarly connected with their pedestals. Mr. G. M. Young was kind enough to translate into English the first draft of this paper, which was originally written in German.

I have excluded from this article the monument to which the Nike, Acropolis no. 690, belonged, as this seemed to me to deserve separate treatment (AJA XLIV). I have also excluded a further series of pedestals, which I have assembled but have not been able to connect with any sculptural fragments. I published these elsewhere in the course of a more general treatise on the technique and form of early Attic statue bases (Bull. Bulg. XII). The references to the sculptural fragments are given here as published in the first and second sections of Schrader Die archaischen Marmorbildwerke der Akropolis; Langlotz Die Koren; and Schuchhardt Rundwerke ausser den Koren.