This article concerns the plague of 746–747, which took the lives of many in the Byzantine empire, especially in Constantinople. After discussing the main sources (i.e. the patriarch Nikephoros, Theodore the Stoudite, and Theophanes), mention is made of the possible influences which the plague had on developments in the iconoclastic controversy during the reign of Constantine V (741–75). The persecution of iconophile monks as well as attacks against the Holy (e.g., churches, icons, holy relics etc.) is placed in a more general psychological context which is at least partly explained by the plague. Finally, a brief reference is made to the Life of Leo of Katania which may reflect iconoclastic opinion on the matters given above.

The development of amphora production in Colchis is examined, from its beginnings in the mid-4th cent. BC under the influence of vessels from Sinope. The emergence of amphora production should be seen as the result of Hellenic influence upon the economy and upon craftsmen of the E littoral of the Black Sea. Throughout the Classical period one type of Colchian amphora existed, which underwent drastic change in the course of time. Three successive variants may be discerned. The earliest, from the mid-4th to 3rd cent. BC, retains similarities with the Sinopean prototypes. In the late 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, substantial changes in morphology and dimensions take place. In the late 1st and early 2nd centuries AD the third variant, with a rib under the rim, appears. Petrographic analysis shows that the vessels were made within one extensive region, Colchis, but at a variety of centres. They were produced in state-owned and private workshops, employing both Greek and local craftsmen. The Greek workshops (or those which had links with Greek potters) were the main exporters of amphorae to the northern Black Sea coastal region from the 4th cent, BC to 1st cent. AD.

Lieu de trouvaille et date. Le cratère à représentation de char qui fait l'objet de cette étude a été trouvé au cours de notre huitième campagne de fouilles parmi les ruines d'une habitation, au pied de l'acropole nord-est du tell. Il y a là dans les couches du Ier niveau les vestiges d'un quartier datant des XVe–XIIIe siècles. L'une des maisons était habitée par un artisan qui semble avoir pratiqué le métier d'orfèvre, à en juger par la balance de précision, le jeu de poids et le moule que nous avons retrouvé dans son habitation. C'est à lui aussi qu'appartenait peut-être le cratère dont les fragments ont été recueillis au même endroit. La profondeur à laquelle ils furent rencontrés et le contexte archéologique permettent d'attribuer ce vase au XIVe siècle avant notre ère. Sa hauteur est de 46cm, le plus grand diamètre de la panse est de 37cm. 5, fig. 1.

Sailing into Astakos Bay, which the Navy calls Dragomesti Bay, along the S.E. coast of the Krithote Peninsula, one passes the little Church of H. Nikolaos, and then a yawning black cave-mouth in the precipice of limestone 500 ft. above (Pl. 23a), about one hour's walk from Astakos. The lowest entrance is visible above a carob tree, and nothing was discovered in the lowest cave, tested at M (see section, Fig. 1a). We climbed up a ladder to a pleasant platform in the open where there was a terracotta or so. Another ladder, with a sheer drop below and a nice fig-tree alongside (Pl. 23b), led to the real entrance. I went first; the ladder broke, but I clutched the fig-tree. The foreman had hysterics, which was our only casualty, except one malingerer on the last day, who attributed his (alleged) fever to the miasma of the Neolithic dead.

A set of notes found in the Ashmolean Museum Archives, unknown until now, and written by Sir Arthur Evans, has provided the basis for this paper. In them, Evans made annotated drawings of the most important objects recovered from the Temple Repositories of the Palace at Knossos, as well as of the Repositories themselves. Some ideas and issues developed in Evans's subsequent publications can be traced in their first forms in these notes. It is very significant that next to each drawing Evans wrote a figure, evidently the total of similar objects—something he did not do to such an extent in the publications. The section dealing with the sealings may reveal their actual number, as well as a certain confusion between the actual impressed surfaces and the sealings themselves. Reproductions of Evans's pages, transcriptions, and the author's comments on important points make up the bulk of the article. A more complete and enlarged corpus of the objects is now feasible; here an abbreviated catalogue of the newly identified objects is appended.

Whilst archon, in 493/2 B.C., Themistokles began his constructions at Peiraeus, which he got finished in 479/8 (Thuc. I. 93.3). On the latter occasion he persuaded (ἔπεισε) the demos: on the former he evidently acted in virtue of the archon's powers. What powers?

The classical archon's functions were mainly two: to conduct certain public festivals, and to see to such lawsuits as pertained to the family. Not unimportant functions, at least not unimportant in the archaic state: when his discretion in his own court was still considerable, the man who could, e.g., dispose of heiresses had much power and enjoyed much confidence. But not by any means enough to account for his known importance.

Heavenly bodies figure in the works of both Homer and Hesiod, but their functions in the two poems mainly concerned are very different, as accords with the contrasting character of the Iliad and of the Works and Days. For the moment it is enough to note that Hesiod's attention is directed mainly to constellations, Homer's (so to call the poet of the Iliad) to individual stars. The passages which establish the fact are few, but as the precise meaning of some of them is in doubt, it is necessary to begin with an examination of the most important.

In ancient medical practice several sorts of natural earths, found at various places in the Levant and described in detail by Pliny and other writers, had recognised curative properties, being employed for the most part as astringents and desiccatives in the treatment of wounds and internal haemorrhages. Pliny's list includes the earths of Chios, Kimolos, Eretria, Lemnos, Melos, Samos, and Sinope. The use of many of these persisted into quite modern times, but none was so generally esteemed either by ancients or moderns as the Lemnian, which was set apart in the first place by its alleged miraculous power against poisons (especially the bites of venomous reptiles) and later against plague, and in the second by the religious accompaniments and the various artificial restrictions of its production.

Pelikáta hill might best be described as a spur of Mt. Exogé, which lies immediately to the west of it; but it is also joined on the south to the central peak of the island (Mt. Anogé) by a narrow ridge on which stands the main street of Stavrós village. Elsewhere it is detached (Pl. 2), and its sides fall in irregular gradations, broken further by terraces, to Afáles bay on the north, Phríkes bay on the east and Pólis bay on the south. From the summit all three bays are visible and any one of them can be reached in a short half-hour. In addition to its command of the three bays, Pelikáta has to-day, and presumably had in the past, a supply of first-rate drinking-water, reached at a depth of a few metres below the surface; and a small level space on the actual summit.

The significance of Greek chevron and pendent semicircle skyphoi to the dating of I, IIA, IIB, and III at Veii, and thus the dating of the early Iron Age in Central Italy, is discussed. A survey of examples of chevron skyphoi from Greece defines and dates the various probable centres of manufacture: Athens, Corinth, Cyclades, Euboea, Crete, Rhodes, East Greece, Argolid. The Veii chevron skyphoi are assigned to their probable places of origin, and a later date argued for them (IIA 780–730, IIB 750–710). The pendent semicircle skyphoi from Veii are described. The chronology and typology of the psc skyphoi in general are discussed. It is argued that the major production centres of the psc skyphoi had shifted to the east by the late Geometric period.

Scores of Neolithic sites have been excavated in west Macedonia since the 1990s, yet the majority are relatively short-lived installations, lacking high-resolution stratigraphies and sequences of radiocarbon dates. Megalo Nisi Galanis, a large mound in the Kitrini Limni basin, near modern Kozani, is a rare exception to that pattern. Systematically surveyed and excavated in 1987–9 and 1993, this site covers a large part of the Neolithic period in a stratified, radiocarbon-dated sequence capped in places by thin deposits of the Early Bronze Age. We present here the critical details of that sequence and relate them to evidence from other, recently excavated sites in west Macedonia. Megalo Nisi Galanis was first settled in the Early Neolithic (late seventh millennium bc), was intensively occupied until the early phases of the Final Neolithic (around 4500 bc), and continued to be inhabited, albeit sparely or intermittently, until the transition from the Early to the Middle Bronze Age, about 1800 bc. By the end of occupation, the mound covered more than eight hectares and rose up to five metres above the surrounding landscape. We attend closely to features of that landscape that are likely to have played an important role in the history of occupation of the site and Kitrini Limni in the course of the Holocene.

Fragments of a large Black-Glazed Cup with part of an incised inscription are published. A date c. 590—570 is suggested. A second, slightly earlier cup from the Menelaion is included. The inscription refers to the cult of Zeus Messapeus attested in the sources. Discussion centres on the location of the cult-place and the origin of the cult. It is suggested that it derives from the region of Messapia in South Italy where the Spartan colony of Taras was situated.

A group of ten copper and copper alloy Minoan tools from the Ashmolean Museum's Cretan collection is analysed. Though the component elements are recorded, the emphasis is on metallographic aspects of the objects. By considering these sets of information together we can learn how craftsmen treated the types of metal available in order to suit the requirements of the intended products. Many details of the stages undergone by the metal in its transformation into a finished item can be recovered. Much of this process is dictated by the physical properties of the metal itself. Two standards of finishing existed, relating to the available metal and its intended use. Though limited in the range of its conclusions, the study shows that the return of information, especially in an area of investigation left unexplored, well recompenses the loss of the snippet required for analysis.

The material for the present study was collected during 1963 and 1964, on various expeditions to eastern Arcadia. My original intention was to survey the whole province with regard to its prehistoric occupation; this, however, proved too great a task in the time available, and I was able to cover little more than the highland plains around the Classical cities of Tegea, Mantinea, and Orchomenos. The following work will therefore be mainly concerned with that area, which constitutes eastern Arcadia, although I have also listed the evidence for prehistoric habitation over the remainder of the province as well. I have taken the province to cover the area as described by Pausanias, rather than the present-day administrative unit. This is not an exhaustive survey, even of the area most intensively covered; rather it should be seen as a preliminary work, which will, it is hoped, stimulate interest in further field-work and perhaps excavation in this neglected area of the Peloponnese.

This article makes use of recently published graves to offer the first synthetic analysis of the typology and topography of Spartan burials that is founded on archaeological evidence. Our knowledge of Spartan burial practices has long been based almost entirely on textual sources – excavations conducted in Sparta between 1906 and 1994 uncovered fewer than 20 pre-Roman graves. The absence of pre-Roman cemeteries led scholars to conclude that, as long as the Lycurgan customs were in effect, all burials in Sparta were intracommunal and that few tombs had been found because they had been destroyed by later building activity. Burial practices have, as a result, been seen as one of many ways in which Sparta was an outlier. The aforementioned recently published graves offer a different picture of Spartan burial practices. It is now clear that there was at least one extracommunal cemetery in the Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic periods. What would normally be described as extramural burials did, therefore, take place, but intracommunal burials of adults continued to be made in Sparta throughout the Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic periods. Those burials were concentrated along important roads and on the slopes of hills. The emergent understanding of Spartan burial practices takes on added significance when placed in a wider context. Burial practices in Sparta align closely with those found in Argos and Corinth. Indeed, burial practices in Sparta, rather than being exceptional, are notably similar to those of its most important Peloponnesian neighbours; a key issue is that in all three poleis intracommunal burials continued to take place through the Hellenistic period. The finding that adults were buried both extracommunally and intracommunally in Sparta, Argos and Corinth after the Geometric period calls into question the standard narrative of the development of Greek burial practices in the post-Mycenaean period.

An askos (BSA 49 [1954] 222, pl. 25:111) found by R.W. Hutchinson in Tomb 2 at Khaniale Tekke near Knossos is recognized as an export from nuragic Sardinia; similar askoi are common there in the same chronological range, c. 850–680 B.C., as that represented by the Cretan context. Although other good parallels have also been found outside Sardinia, notably at Vetulonia in Etruria, the Tekke piece is the first Sardinian artefact of the Early Iron Age to be identified in the Aegean. Its presence there is related to the Phoenician element in the complex pattern of long distance trade that preceded the arrival in Italy of the first Western Greeks.

This article is concerned with the Macedonian vaulted tombs as a specifically Macedonian contribution to the development of Greek architecture. It looks at the theory that the technique was inspired by eastern examples. Mesopotamian and Egyptian vaulting techniques are described, and shown to be different. It therefore follows that the Macedonian technique was not copied from the Near East.

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).

The following notes are the results of several journeys in the district between Brusa and Mihallitch, which, in spite of its accessibility, is archaeologically ill known.

they deal with:—

1. The Byzantine Churches of Triglia and Syge.

2. The Byzantine fortresses: Caesarea Germanice, Katoikia, Koubouklia.

3. Besbicus-Kalolimno.

4. Inscriptions.

First principles tend to be forgotten in the course of scholarly polemic. At worst the fault lies in the animus and heat engendered. At best it is because the opponents have become absorbed in an elegant game of skill. Meanwhile the problem remains unresolved—whether it is the dating of crucial fifth-century Attic texts or some far less serious point. We must keep our priorities right. What really counts in the ‘three-bar sigma’ controversy, for instance, is the bare text of the epigraphic documents, freed of modern supplement and interpretation. It is vital to start from this often narrow base of certainty. I propose to do just this, with more self-discipline than in the past. For convenience I shall divide my inquiry into six main parts.