The town of Amastra (anc. Amastris, med. Samastro), one of the most important of the ancient Greek colonies on the Euxine, and later a Genoese trading-post, lies on the neck and landward slopes of a steep peninsula forming a safe harbour on either side. The peninsula is connected by a bridge with an adjacent island, on which are a few houses still protected on the harbour side by the mediaeval town-wall. The bridge is defended on either side by a gate-tower, and the city proper and castle, which are on the peninsula, retain their lofty walls and towers, built of squared blocks evidently plundered from Roman ruins (Fig. 1). Despite this plundering and the recent construction of the new road (still unfinished in 1910) to Bartin, extensive ancient remains still survive above ground on the mainland opposite the town, notably the large Roman building of brick and opus reticulatum called the Bezestein, two columns of a temple or mausoleum, many built tombs, and considerable remains of masonry embankment and vaulting about the stream which debouches into the smaller (W.) harbour. Saving the change of ownership, the place has altered but little since Clavijo's description in 1404:—

‘The town of Samastro belongs to the Genoese, and is near the sea…. on a very high hill. Opposite this hill, but more inland, there is another on which the town is built; and from one hill to another there is a great arch, like a bridge, by which people pass, and it has two gates, one at each end.

When I was at Candia in the autumn of 1913, Dr. Hatzidakis, the Ephor of Antiquities, told me that a report had reached him of a Minoan site near the village of Pláti in the plain of Lasithi, and suggested that the School should apply for a permit to excavate it. Before leaving Crete I made a preliminary inspection of the site, and the prospects seemed to justify the School in undertaking the work. The local account was that a woman had had a dream that by digging in a certain place a church bell would be found. The villagers accordingly dug a hole in the place indicated, and found not a bell but an early piece of wall and some fragments of obsidian. A report of the discovery was made to the authorities by the scholarch of Tsermiádo, the chief village of Lasithi, and it was this document to which Dr. Hatzidakis called my attention.

The usual kindness of the Cretan authorities produced the required permit, and by the 25th of April the site had been measured by the government engineer in accordance with the law now in force, and we were able to begin the work. This lasted for exactly a month, until the 25th of May, the number of men employed being for the most part about thirty, and resulted in the discovery of the Minoan settlement described in the second section of this report. The party consisted of Messrs. J. P. Droop, R. M. Heath, and M. L. W. Laistner with the Director in charge throughout.

The sickle, as attribute of Kronos, was considered by certain scholars to be the sickle with which the corn is reaped, and this would be a reliable argument for the opinion that Kronos was from of old a god of the harvest. Recently W. Staudacher has advanced the opinion that the harpe, as the Greek word is, is a sickle-shaped sword of Oriental origin, and uses this as an argument for deriving the myth of the separation of Heaven and Earth from the Orient; but he has not succeeded in proving his thesis. I have expressed doubt that the harpe of Kronos was a sickle, and said that it may have been a sword, but I have also called attention to the fact that the harpe is said by Hesiod to be provided with sharp teeth, being reminded of certain implements from the Neolithic Age in which sharp chips of flint are inserted in a stick of bone or wood, as in e.g. harpoons.

The British excavations at Mycenae in 1952 were conducted with a research grant from the American Philosophical Society assisted by contributions from the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, the British Academy, the Leverhulme Trustees, and the British School at Athens under whose aegis the work was carried out.

The excavations began on June 30th, and all active digging ceased on August 18th, though several days were needed to clear up everything and transport the finds to the National Museum in Athens and the Nauplia Museum. Of the finds the bronzes, the ivories, the inscribed tablets, and some pottery wanted for special study were taken to Athens and everything else taken to Nauplia and placed in a separate room. Of the pottery the archaic and classical pottery and the terracotta figurines from the sanctuary by the Causeway, from the excavations of 1950 and 1952, and most of the classical and Hellenistic fragments from the Perseia Fountain House are now in Athens. All the prehistoric pottery except for a few select pieces is in the Nauplia Museum.

This article reconsiders from a methodological point of view some of the ways in which the ancient Macedonians and their culture have been assessed by recent historians. It is inspired by Professor E. N. Borza's book on this issue, where archaeological material is widely used in ways which do not always accord with the data or their interpretation. It has to be noted that the article is focused only on the evidence deriving from Vergina, a site of which the author has a direct knowledge, due to participation in its archaeological research over a long period.

The following notes were made partly in the course of a voyage taken in a small sailing boat in the late summer of 1922, from Corinth across the gulf, and along the Boeotian coast, during which all the south Boeotian harbours, as well as Voulis in Phokis, were visited, and partly in the course of subsequent visits from the land side. It is hoped that the notes may supplement, if they cannot improve upon, Mr. Gomme's excellent description of this part of Boeotia, and at the same time throw some light on trading relations between the two sides of the gulf in pre-Hellenic times.

Of the three possible harbours from which Thebes could be reached from the south, the nearest to Thebes is Kreusis, or, as it is now called, Livadóstro. The difficulties of the journey from there to Plataea are vividly described by Mr. Gomme (op. cit., p. 204), but there is reason to think that communication between Livadóstro and Thebes has always passed through Parapoúngia or its ancient representative Eutresis, rather than through Plataea. At the present day there are two paths to Parapoúngia, which serve the east and west sides respectively of the Livadóstro plain.

By the kindness of the Editor of the Annual I am allowed to append to Dr. Schäfer's paper a brief note on two monuments representing likna which came to my knowledge too late for publication in my last article in the Hellenic Journal on the Mystica Vannus lacchi.

Dr. Schäfer's paper is naturally to me of great interestand importance. Egypt has yielded what would have been vainly sought for in Greece, namely an actual ancient liknon of precisely the shape so far evidenced only by representations in ancient art and by modern specimens. Mr. Bosanquet wrote to me last year from Berlin to tell me of the existence of such a liknon; and its publication by Dr. Schäfer in Fig. 15 of his paper makes further comment unnecessary.

The excavations of 1908 more than fulfilled expectations in the amount of light that was shed on the later history of the Spartan pottery, so that it is now possible to write an account of the development and decline of the Laconian fabric; which account, beginning in the ninth or tenth century, ends with the latter half of the fourth, when the pottery loses its local characteristics in the various styles that appear to have been common to the whole Greek world during the last three centuries before the Christian Era.

The following account is practically identical with section (a) of my Report to the Cretan Committee of the British Association (cf. Reports, Section H, 1903, Southport meeting). On the 26th March, 1903, the day of my arrival at Palaikastro, I commenced work on the ossuary discovered and partially excavated in the preceding year (cf. Report by R. C. Bosanquet, in Man, 1902). The work consisted in exposing the crania in the several compartments of that enclosure, and I soon found that the only reliable method of obtaining satisfactory cranial measurements was to clear away the surrounding earth from each skull and to measure while the specimen was still in situ. Subsequently, each skull (to the number of about thirty) was carefully removed, and then, moistened paper having been spread over and around it, a covering of plaster of Paris was finally applied: in this way it was hoped to render the skulls less liable to destruction in the transit to Candia or to such other destination as might be determined upon.

This contribution focuses on a study of the pottery assemblage deposited in the space occupied by the House of the Fallen Blocks and the House of the Sacrificed Oxen at the south-eastern corner of the Palace of Knossos. This deposit was crucial for Arthur Evans’ definition of the ‘Great Earthquake’ destruction at Knossos, because, together with fallen blocks, it was considered to be the consequence of a massive destruction. From the outset, the deposit associated with this event has played a de facto role in the definition of the New Palace era, and, in this respect, it is very important with regards to the history of the Palace of Knossos. There is no sign of stratification above the floor levels of the houses, with the material of the deposit usually interpreted as a post-destruction fill. The abundance of ceramic material and the broad representation of forms prompted Evans to call this deposit a storehouse of Middle Minoan (MM) III domestic pottery. Here, the nature of the deposit will be examined, taking into consideration information from the excavation notebooks and a detailed study of the retained pottery. The main conclusion is that the material is not MM IIIB as ascribed by Evans, but can be dated to an earlier part of the period, i.e. MM IIIA. This is significant because it might contribute to a critical reassessment of the destruction horizon generally attributed to MM IIIB. The large quantities of pottery from these houses also provide a fuller picture of what types and styles were prevalent in MM IIIA, given that there are not many published deposits of this date from the palace or town of Knossos.

I. The Ayiofarango Valley

E1 (M, GR, BM)

A terrace at about the 200 m. contour, east of and above the road from Kaloi Limenes to A. Kyriaki, c. 100 m. from the point where the road crosses the watershed into the catchment area. The terrace is c. 150 m. (N.-S.) by 50 m. (E.-W.), bounded on the east by steep, bare upward gradients, and on the west by a steep downward slope covered only with low scrub. Two possible stretches of wall were found on the western slope, but the only certain structural remains were a modern sheep pen and a circular wall, c. 1–5 m. in diameter, which appeared to be a filled-in well. Abraded sherds were quite common on the western slope, but scarcer on the terrace.

Although Chios and its antiquities have been visited and described by many travellers from the earliest times, it is only recently that any serious archaeological investigations have been carried out in the island, and up to the present only two sites have been thoroughly excavated. Dr. Kourouniotis, who carried out the first excavation on Chios, gives a list, in ἈρΧ. Δελτ. I, p. 64, of the more important references to the island up to the time of that article, and for a complete list the reader is referred to the Bibliography of Chios by Dr. Philip Argenti (Oxford, Clarendon Press).

Since Dr. Kourouniotis wrote there have been several articles published in various periodicals, almost all on the epigraphy of Chios, and his list should now be supplemented by the following: Plassart and Picard, BCH XXXVII 193; A. Reinach, REG XXII pp. 193–4; Rehm, Gnomon II p. 124; Evangelides Ἀpχ· Δελτ. IX παράρτημα p. 51; Αρχ· Δελτ. XI παράρτημα 23 (and cf. Keil, Jahreshefte XIV p. 54); Arch. Anz. XLV p. 144; Peek, Ἀρχ. Ἐφ.

The Kamares cave on Mount Ida has been known now for more than twenty years as a prehistoric sanctuary, but its full excavation was only carried out in the summer of 1913 by a party from the British School, which thus resumed the work in Crete discontinued since Palaikastro gave way to Sparta in 1906. This early fame of the cave was due to the discovery in it in the early nineties of a number of vases and a few figurines, which Dr. Hazzidakis secured from the shepherd who had found them and placed in what was then the Museum of the Archaeological Syllogos at Candia. Some of the vases bear the marks of the rivets with which their peasant owner mended them.

The results of our excavation have so greatly supplemented this first instalment that the authorities of the Candia Museum have been able to do a great deal in the way of the reconstruction of vases, of which until now only small pieces were available, and these restorations have been put at our service for the photographs which accompany this report.

As soon as these vases were discovered they were at once recognised as belonging to a kind until then almost entirely unknown, and the name ‘Kamares,’ which was at once given to them, still remains current as a general description of that kind of Cretan pottery which has a black ground and white or polychrome ornament, although at the present stage of research rather as a convenient name for the technique than with any chronological meaning.

Although the MM III B and LM I A ceramic phases of the Neopalatial period have in central Crete recently been subjected to refinement and revision, some of it controversial, in the east of the island they are still not very clearly defined. It is often argued that these phases see important changes in Minoan political geography, with Knossos seemingly extending its influence farther afield than ever before. Thus closer definition of these phases in east Crete in relation to the centre of the island represents an important step. It is in this light that three deposits from Palaikastro are here fully presented and discussed, with a view to clarifying the nature of the MM III B and LM I A phases in east Crete. The deposits in question were excavated during the recent programme of British School excavations conducted between 1986 and 1996. They are from three different contexts, in Building 6, Area 6 and Building 2 respectively, and contain abundant pottery (447 catalogued pots in total). The pottery from these deposits consists largely of cups, stored in some quantity in what seem to be small storerooms or ‘pantries’. Although east Cretan Neopalatial pottery does exhibit its own stylistic and typological traits, there are sufficient comparisons with material in central Crete to assign the deposits from Building 6 and Area 6 to MM III B, and the one from Building 2 to LM I A. It is hoped that the publication of this material will serve as a clear basis for future discussions of these significant phases in east Crete.

The stratification of cults at famous sanctuaries of the ancient world, reflected for the most part in their local mythology, has long been interpreted as evidence of the invasion of older by newer gods and religious systems. A religion carried by a conquering race or by a missionary priesthood to alien lands superimposes itself, by force or persuasion, on an indigenous cult: the process is expressed in mythological terms under the figure of a personal combat between the rival gods or of the ‘reception’ of the new god by the old. Eventually either one god or the other succumbs and disappears or is relegated to an inferior position; or, again, the two may be more or less completely identified and fused.

Of the religions of antiquity it is seldom possible to do more than conjecture by what methods and processes these transitions were actually carried out. The paper which follows is an attempt to examine some phenomena of the superimposition of cult in the case of a modern Mahommedan sect—the Bektashi—acting on the sanctuaries of the mixed populations of Turkey and in particular on Christian saint-cults. So far as we can see, where Bektashism has gained ground at the expense of Christianity this has been accomplished without violence, either by processes analogous to that known to the ancient world as the ‘reception’ of the new god by the old, or simply by the identification of the two personalities.

The building accounts of Epidauros are among the most interesting architectural and economic records of the Classical and Early Hellenistic period. It has rarely been recognized that they deserve to rank alongside the Athenian, Delphian, and Delian inscriptions, but although the Epidaurian material is slighter in bulk than the Delian, and covers a smaller area (politically and economically speaking) than the Athenian, it provides a far more comprehensive picture of that most important cultural activity, temple building. The Epidaurian inscriptions indicate the means by which one Greek city converted its sanctuary into a panhellenic cult-centre, that of the healing god Asklepios, during a period of a hundred years or so from about 370 B.C. onwards.

Three small examples of shoulder-lekythoi in museums in Western Crete are described and discussed. Though evidently derived from the Attic Series, it is suggested that they are the products of a local workshop.

It is the aim of this note to publish, as soon as possible after its discovery, a single kernos found in the Laureion. The significance of the piece is that it is another example of an uncommon type of pot recently studied and thought to be in effect confined, in Greece, to Eleusis and Athens— apart from one lone stray also found somewhere in that same Laureion district. A further interest is that both Laureion kernoi came from mining sites, but whereas the first was a surface find from a slag heap, the new kernos was found in the course of excavations, in a closed archaeological context.

The following abbreviations have been used, in addition to those already used in the Annual.

Arias. P. E. Arias, Il teatro greco fuori di Atene, Firenze, 1934.

Bieber, Denkmäler. Margarete Bieber, Denkmäler zum Theaterwesen, Berlin and Leipzig, 1920.

Bieber, H. T. Id., History of the Greek and Roman Theater, Princeton, 1939.

Bulle. H. Bulle, Untersuchungen an griechischen Theatern, München, 1928.

D-R. W. Dörpfeld and E. Reisch, Das griechische Theater, Athens, 1896.

Defrasse. A. Defrasse and H. Lechat, Epidaure, Paris, 1895.

Fiechter, A I, A III. E. Fiechter, Das Dionysostheater in Athen, I, III (Antike griech. Theatergebäude, Stuttgart, 1930–37).

Fiechter, Eretria. Id., Das Theater in Eretria (same series; similarly Fiechter, Megalopolis, Oropos, Sikyon).

Guide Bleu. Guide Bleu, La Grèce, 1935 ed.

Thera. F. Hiller von Gärtringen, Thera, 1899–1902.

Thanks are due to the editors, and to Mr. A. M. Woodward (on the subject of the theatre at Sparta), for their kind help and criticism.

This article is intended to form a supplement to The Greek Theatre Cavea in BSA XLIII, 125 ff. In the case of the theatre of Dionysus at Athens a detailed description is not necessary, as the works of Fiechter and Pickard-Cambridge cover nearly all the ground; comment is therefore confined to measurements of seats, etc. Theatres visited in Greece and the Aegean only are included.

During the Archaic period in Greece, many small centres were at work, producing bronze statuettes for local use. The existence of these centres has only been partially recognised and their history has still to be written. By the second quarter of the fifth century, most of them had been absorbed by the large industries, such as Argos, Corinth and Sikyon; just so, at a somewhat earlier date, the manufacture of vases in nearly all other Greek towns gave way before the vases of Athens.

The bronzes of Arcadia belong to one of the few local groups that has not been overlooked. Sections of it have come under the notice of more than one scholar, though it has never been surveyed completely.

It is one of the most vital, since it began to show its independent character as early as the seventh century, and it survived the competition of such overpowering neighbours as Argos and Corinth throughout the fifth. In the sixth century it was very productive and very individual in style. It is, therefore, easy to recognise. All these points claim our interest. But the bronzes themselves, peasants carrying their sheep and calves, dressed in high hats and embroidered cloaks, gods and goddesses in the likeness of Arcadian shepherds and Arcadian girls,—these not only interest but also delight us by their naïve charm and their fitness to the Arcadian uplands from which they come.