In April 1971 remains of ancient buildings were brought to light and partly destroyed by a bulldozer in the south-west corner of a field below Makryteikhos village at Knossos. The field lies against the west bank of the Kairatos stream (fig. 1), immediately north of the path which runs down to the stream from the village. The owner, Mr. P. Triandhaphyllou, had put in the bulldozer to prepare the ground for planting. At the request of Dr. St. Alexiou rescue excavations were carried out on 3–4, 6–7, and 12 May by P. Warren on behalf of the School, and the site was afterwards filled in to leave the field free for planting.

The area of the Protogeometric cairns here described was first discovered in 1931, when we opened a trial pit (Fig. 3) which revealed part of a wall (Fig. 4, 6) and behind it what seemed to be a confused mass of stones mixed with black earth, and containing sherds, ranging from a few LH III to Protogeometric. These stones we took to be the remains of a collapsed house. In 1932 the pit was extended, principally to West and North, and though we encountered the same masses of stones all over the area, it became possible to discover some coherence in them. The plan (Fig. 3) and section (Fig. 4) give some idea of the complexity of the remains, but for the sake of clearness the accumulations of stones (all of which it was necessary to plot before they could be removed) between the surface and the remains actually shown are omitted. In the neighbourhood of wall 6 the stones explained themselves as remains of a succession of terrace-walls and their filling, built at various periods to terrace up the area to the North of them, each time with a slightly different alignment. It was only when we had got near virgin soil that the cairns became recognisable. They had naturally suffered in the process of terracing and had been further disturbed by a series of Byzantine cist graves (Fig. 3, 12–21; Fig. 5), the makers of which had displaced the stones and contents of the cairns and the earth above them. It is really remarkable that the cairns have survived at all and it is only owing to the skilful and patient work of Miss Lorimer that their structural character has been recognised.

Excavations were undertaken by me on behalf of the Cretan Exploration Fund in the spring of 1901, in pursuance of a programme for exploring the Eteocretan country. Primitive remains had been noted in the Zakro district, by Captain Spratt in 1852, and been more fully described by Prof. F. Halbherr in the Antiquary for 1892 (p. 153). They were visited later by others, notably Prof. L. Mariani in 1893. Mr. A. J. Evans in 1894 and 1896 visited the upper valley, and besides giving a short account of what he saw in the Academy (July 4, 1896), preserved very full notes made on the spot. When a coastal site in East Crete was desired, he recommended these remains, near a natural port, the last on the directest sea-route from the Aegean to the Cyrenaic shore, to my attention.

The paper presents new studies of the architecture at Karfi (12th-11th centuries BC) which has significantly deteriorated since excavation in the 1930s. 1:50 plans of the best-preserved buildings, a new topographical plan of the whole site area, and an EDM plot of the main visible unexcavated remains, allow enhancement of previous commentary on social organization at the site and others of the period. It examines in detail and with the use of wide-ranging comparisons (including with sites of the preceding LM III and subsequent PG-A periods) the ways in which new social systems were materially constructed from soon after widespread settlement relocations in Crete c. 1200 BC. It highlights inter-site similarities suggesting regular, deep-rooted interaction between communities during or soon after this horizon of major social change while evaluating subtle differences probably related to differences in size and complexity between the new villages. For example, cooking facility distribution suggests a role for communal cooking, paralleled at other sites, which is here especially pronounced. This limitation on individuals' potential to achieve status through the hosting of exclusive secular feasts/gatherings may relate to particularly volatile factional competition in large settlements. Evidence recently cited in support of such a model for Karfi (the presence of several different large structures, some containing feasting evidence) is used to raise the question of whether all large secular buildings at this period must be seen as residences. The distinctive character of Karfi's eastern excavated zone (previously argued to relate to diachronic development or to ethnic origins/power balance at the sites) is here characterized in terms of its static rather than agglutinative planning, a feature possibly marking a unique social role for the area. The ‘Megarons’ block, located in this zone, is compared with similar buildings at contemporary sites, with the conclusion that Crete saw the emergence soon after 1200 BC of a fairly fixed template for public feasting buildings, drawing deliberately on features which had earlier possessed exotic/prestige associations. Though such buildings may have shared their social role with powerful families' residences, and direct emulation of their form may have been an important element in social competition, they represent a separate, standardized social institution at this period, complementing the new standardization of cult practice in settlement temples. We seem able identify consistently recognized social concepts spanning the Latest Bronze through Archaic periods in Crete, which were nonetheless transformed through their materialization in changing historical circumstances. The paper concludes by discussing future management and research potential at Karfi.

This paper considers the recruitment of young archaeologists into the German military on Crete and its impact upon the development of archaeological agendas during the period of the Third Reich. It explores – as a case study – the archaeological activity of August Schörgendorfer, an Austrian archaeologist, on German-occupied Crete. Schörgendorfer enlisted as a Wehrmacht officer, was upgraded to a Kunstschutz officer through the intervention of Major General Julius Ringel, and in 1941–2 undertook illicit excavations at Knossos and in the Mesara. By presenting data collected through archival research and Schörgendorfer's previously unpublished photo album of Crete, I explore his ideological trajectories and his archaeological itineraries on the island under occupation. Integrating the latter with the recent historiography of Nazi-era archaeology illuminates undocumented aspects of the Wehrmacht’s archaeological research on the island. Facets of the cultural policies of the German Archaeological Institute and wider questions of archaeological ethics are informed by analysing the entanglement of archaeological institutions and archaeologists with the political turmoil of the era of World War II.

The earliest fine Attic pottery (excluding scraps of Geometric ware) found at the site of Old Smyrna was made in the first quarter of the sixth century (see no. 2 in the Catalogue below), although it is not until the second quarter that it appears on the site in any appreciable volume. One of the earliest, and incidentally most complete vases among otherwise very fragmentary material, is a lebes gamikos (no. 1) from the workshop of Sophilos, and it is accompanied by near-contempory lekanai by known painters. From this time on into the first decade of the fifth century fragments of almost every known variety of Attic cup are found, some of the highest quality, and at the end of this period skyphoi and lekythoi also appear while larger vases are conspicuously few. In the first quarter of the fifth century there is a marked falling off in the import of Attic pottery and it is noteworthy that no vases later than the first decade of that century were found in the main excavated area of the sixth-century houses at the north end of the site, and only isolated fragments from Trench C to the West. The possible historical significance of this is pointed out elsewhere by Mr. Cook. By the middle of the fifth century import is resumed on a small scale, but it is of high quality, including as it does a volute crater by the Niobid Painter (no. 118). The volume increases to the beginning of the fourth century, dying away again by the middle of it, and in this period fine black pottery, some of it with impressed decoration, appears beside the figured vases. The Attic black pottery of the fourth century is intimately associated with its numerous Ionic imitations and the presence of some of the commoner shapes is noted in the publication of the Ionic ware in a later volume of this Annual, to which the reader is referred.

During the second major season of excavation conducted in 1987, more evidence was found for the extent of crop storage in the Bronze Age Settlement together with a ‘street’ that appeared to have been in use in the latest Bronze Age and earliest Iron Age. Fragments of bronze casting debris suggest the possibility of bronze working at the site around 1150 BC.

Discovered in 1923 during excavations led by Duncan Mackenzie, the frescoes were found in a deposit in Space E on the ground floor of the building. Subsequent publication of the Monkeys and Birds Fresco suggested that the composition originally decorated a room on an upper floor of the House of the Frescoes. Shaw's close reading of the original excavation reports written by Mackenzie, however, yields no evidence for an upper storey. Shaw's review of the archaeological evidence and architectural comparanda suggests further that the House of the Frescoes may have been one-storied and that Room H-3 is the most likely candidate for frescoed decoration.

Part Two, undertaken primarily by Chapin, publishes a new reconstruction of the Crocus Panel that incorporates 14 previously unpublished fresco fragments in addition to the 14 fragments previously attributed to the composition. Stylistic and iconographic associations confirm the distribution of red-flowered crocuses, undulating bands, and an olive tree, but evidence for the attribution of two agrimia and blue-flowered crocuses remains weak. Detailed stylistic and iconographic analysis places the Crocus Panel within the Neopalatial tradition of wall painting.

It has been argued that a foot of c. 0.30 m was used in the design of the Early Iron Age building at Lefkandi. However, deriving the foot-unit length from the preserved measurements is not statistically valid; in this case, proportional analysis is more likely to advance understanding of the building design rather than foot-standard studies. Attempts to determine the building function using direct analogical reasoning are problematic because of the exceptional character of the Toumba building. Based on the archaeological evidence of ritualised collective gatherings, however, a transformation in the communal meaning of the monument is proposed.

Alan Wace and I spent three memorable years together, wellnigh half a century ago, in the British School at Athens, of which he was later to be for nine years the Director. The first book which either of us published was the Catalogue of the Sparta Museum, in the writing of which we collaborated, and I have followed with keen interest his subsequent career as scholar, administrator and teacher. I therefore regard it as a privilege to make a contribution however slight to the volume of the British School Annual which will serve as a tangible expression of his friends' admiration of his past achievements and their heartfelt wishes for his future happiness.

The human remains discovered by Mr. Hogarth in the caves of the Zakro Gorge, and sent to me for identification, consist of three skulls of adults and a fragment of an upper maxillary of a child. The skulls present the following characters. All are well developed, with highly complicated sutures, and wormean bones in the parieto-occipital suture, with thin cranial walls, and without the strong muscular impressions and ridges, usually met with in prehistoric skulls, and present in all living uncivilised peoples.

This article is based on a set of notes written by Sir Arthur Evans on the objects retrieved from a pit found under the gypsum floor of the Vat Room, known as the ‘Vat Room Deposit’. Evans made annotated drawings of the most important objects, stressing notable features and often recording the total number of similar objects. Objects which were not published by Evans have now been identified through these notes and appear here for the first time.

Though the name of Demetrios of Skepsis is hardly known to us except through Strabo, he was in his way a remarkable man. The only independent account of him is a mention by Diogenes Laertius as one in a list of well-known namesakes; ἑνδέκατος Σκήψιος, πλούσιος καὶ εὐγενὴςἄνθρωπος καὶ φιλόλογος ἄκρως οὖτος καὶ Μητρόδωρον προεβιβασε τὸνπολίτην (V. v. 11). The date of his birth is fairly closely fixed by his own statement in Strabo (XIII. i. 27) that he visited Ilium as a boy (μειράκιον) when the Romans landed in Asia to attack Antiochus, i.e. in 190 B.C. The word μειράκιον may be taken to mean anything from about 14 to 20 years of age. Demetrios therefore cannot have been born much before or after 205 B.C. Some surprise may be felt at the statement that he gave Metrodoros his start in life; Metrodoros, the friend of Mithridates, died, as we know from Strabo (XIII. i. 55) and Plutarch Lucullus 22) in or immediately after 70 B.C. The lives of the two men therefore cover some 135 years; if both lived to be 75, Metrodoros can only have been 15 at Demetrios' death. The description of Demetrios as ‘a man of wealth and birth, and a scholar to his finger-tips’ is quite borne out by what we know of his works. He plainly inherited the tradition of the little nest of Platonists and Aristotelians who were established at Skepsis and the neighbouring Assos; he was an enthusiast for Homer and geography, and devoted his life to a geographical commentary on Homer, and more particularly to the Trojan Catalogue, which so nearly concerned his native Troad: He found place, however, for excursuses of very wide range; for instance the long one on the Kuretes in Strabo X. iii. 19–22. Another on the changes in the face of the earth produced by volcanic action is quoted in l. iii. 17.

It may safely be said that of no prehistoric city on Hellenic soil are such extensive remains extant above ground as of the Cretan Goulàs. The walls, indeed, are not so massive as those of Tiryns, there is no single monument to fix the attention like the Lions' Gate at Mycenæ, nor has excavation as yet done anything to add to what meets the eye on the surface of the earth. But for the mass of primeval ruins, the still-standing remains of individual dwelling-houses, the number of distinct quarters within the walls and the area they occupy, Goulàs is without a rival. Its site, moreover, with its twin citadel peaks—the northern one looking down over a thousand feet sheer to the valley below—is more commanding than that of any sister city.

During the last three decades, wooden coffins have come to light in increasing numbers in graves of the earlier phases of the Late Minoan period, especially in the area of Knossos. When their form and dimensions can be discerned, they often belong to a type that is or imitates a chest for household use. Sinclair Hood, Ingo Pini, and Bogdan Rutkowski, who have dealt with these coffins, agree on their general similarity to the clay larnakes of the type called chest-larnakes that are so common in the LM III graves of central and western Crete, and for which wooden prototypes are generally assumed. Hood and Pini also stress that the wooden coffins belong to a different tradition from that of the earlier, Middle Minoan, clay larnakes, but that the origin of the type is unknown. Rutkowski thinks that the wooden coffin was ‘a subsequent development of the M.M. rectangular larnax made of clay’. Common to all three is that they see the use of the wooden coffin as a purely Minoan phenomenon, in line with the tradition of larnakes from Early Minoan onwards till the end of the Bronze Age. They note in passing that there are a few examples of sarcophagi of wood, stone, and terracotta on the Mycenaean mainland, but attribute their occurrence to Minoan influence.

The pottery which forms the main subject of this article was found during the 1964 and 1968 Citadel House excavations beneath the floor of two rooms that were designated Rooms 21 and 22. All the pottery from Room 22 has been kept, including the unpainted sherds, so that the group can be analysed numerically and compared with other groups of LH IIIB pottery from the Argolid. It contains a small quantity of painted wares and a large group of undecorated pottery of which a few whole profiles can be restored. The importance of the deposit is that the painted wares provide a date for the building of the South House and thus for the sequence of building in the whole area. Moreover, they give a further selection of patterns current in LH IIIB 1; these show that the group is perhaps a little later than that from Room 3.

This article is a critical reassessment of the major Knossian deposits assigned by Evans to the Middle Minoan I A phase. It is divided into three main sections: first, an introduction, in which the author discusses the development of the definition of Knossian MM IA pottery; second, a detailed discussion of each deposit, based upon a systematic and first-hand re-examination of the ceramic material, and of the relevant written sources; third, a discussion of the problems concerning the classification of these deposits, and a typological study of their ceramic assemblages. The picture of Knossian MM IA pottery which emerges from this study is remarkably different from that presented by Evans, which is generally accepted. This has further implications not only for the study of Minoan pottery, but also for the early history of the site.

The statistical evaluation of NAA data for 250 Mycenaean potsherds from the Peloponnese (Achaea, Ayios Stephanos, Chora Ano Englianos, Nichoria, Olympia-Kolosakos, Peristeria, Palaiokastro and Platanos-Renia) resulted in twelve chemical groups defining the composition of pottery from the different regions. Earlier groupings of pottery from Ayios Stephanos and Nichoria were confirmed and chemical profiles were also produced for pottery from western Messenia and the north-east Peloponnese.

The north-east Peloponnesian groups are chemically very similar to Argolid pottery groups, such that the provenance of a group of early (LH I/II) pottery identified in this study, and of this chemical type, remains uncertain. This aside, the groups' chemical profiles are quite distinct from those representative of other areas of mainland Greece and Crete.

Whatever absolute dates are to be attached to the L.H. IIIA 1 period, its historical significance is indisputable. At present this significance derives mainly from events outside Greece itself, the fall of Knossos and the disruption in the Aegean area which went before it. On the mainland, although in South Greece no major event can be associated with the period, in Boeotia the fall of the palace at Thebes has been dated to L.H. IIIA 1 and has been a source of much speculation.

The paper describes a small ancient quarry in white and red variegated marble, located near Sitia in Eastern Crete. By examining the geological setting of marble occurrences in the district, and comparing the style of stoneworking with those reported from other ancient quarrying sites, it is possible to assess the viability of Cretan marble as a local building material in Classical times, and to speculate upon the role of one particular small quarry in providing such building material.