Large quantities of imported Mycenaean pottery are found in Cyprus between the late fifteenth and mid-thirteenth centuries BC, usually in ceremonial or funerary contexts. This article examines the role and value of the Mycenaean imports in Late Cypriot contexts. It is suggested that the incorporation of certain elements of the Mycenaean ceramic repertoire within Late Cypriot funerary ritual had a dramatic impact on the indigenous pottery industry.

This article argues that a holistic approach to documenting and understanding the physical evidence for individual cities would enhance our ability to address major questions about urbanisation, urbanism, cultural identities and economic processes. At the same time we suggest that providing more comprehensive data-sets concerning Greek cities would represent an important contribution to cross-cultural studies of urban development and urbanism, which have often overlooked relevant evidence from Classical Greece. As an example of the approach we are advocating, we offer detailed discussion of data from the Archaic and Classical city of Olynthos, in the Halkidiki. Six seasons of fieldwork here by the Olynthos Project, together with legacy data from earlier projects by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens and by the Greek Archaeological Service, combine to make this one of the best-documented urban centres surviving from the Greek world. We suggest that the material from the site offers the potential to build up a detailed ‘urban profile’, consisting of an overview of the early development of the community as well as an in-depth picture of the organisation of the Classical settlement. Some aspects of the urban infrastructure can also be quantified, allowing a new assessment of (for example) its demography. This article offers a sample of the kinds of data available and the sorts of questions that can be addressed in constructing such a profile, based on a brief summary of the interim results of fieldwork and data analysis carried out by the Olynthos Project, with a focus on research undertaken during the 2017, 2018 and 2019 seasons.

The fine white-slipped pottery decorated in a lively East Greek style which was first found in quantity at Naucratis in Egypt was soon dubbed ‘Naucratite’ and considered the local product of Greek craftsmen. Subsequent excavations on the island of Chios showed that the same pottery and the same techniques were known there from Late Geometric times, long before the Greek settlement at Naucratis, and more recent excavations there have made the Chian character of the pottery even clearer, and have carried the story on into Hellenistic times. The pottery was promptly therefore rechristened ‘Chian’. Dissenting voices have, however, been raised in support of the theory that Chian daughter-factories in Naucratis produced fine pottery for dedication there, particularly those vases embellished with inscriptions which had been painted before their firing and which named both dedicator and deity. This factor has complicated the issue far more than the Arkesilas Vase did the similar problem of ‘Cyrenaic’ and Laconian vases, which was neatly solved by the British excavations at Sparta. But there are also other complicating factors, some of which have not been openly discussed as yet, which it is my purpose to record here.

Since the publication of Brückner's Der Friedhof am Eridanos in 1909, describing twenty grave enclosures of fourth-century date aligning the so-called Weststraβe or Street of Tombs in the Kerameikos, numerous other periboloi have been discovered, not least in the course of rescue excavations carried out in and around Athens.

This paper represents an attempt to catalogue topographically all the periboloi which have come to light in Attica of Classical date. Although the reports of their excavation are often tantalizingly brief, such excavations as those conducted at Rhamnous under V. Petrakos of a group of periboloi extending for a distance of over a mile and a half, are beginning to clarify the more fragmentary impression which one inevitably obtains from Athens itself.

After the close of Mr. Heurtley's excavations, an attack on the site by illicit diggers showed that the deposit had not been exhausted and that there were still fine vases (e.g. 1023, Plate 22) to be found there. Moreover, some of the conclusions drawn from the facts observed at Aetos merited further investigation.

Date of Building 9: Bench mark for both excavations was the threshold of St. George's Church. Heurtley kindly allowed me to use some of his plans, so we uncovered part of Building 9, and were thus able to fit the plans of the two excavations together. I have included Building 9 on my plan (Fig. I ), also the ‘Cairns’ 1, 2, 4, and Wall 6. An undisturbed part of the foundation trench of Building 9 contained sherds of sixth-century Corinthian kotylai, so it cannot be the Protocorinthian temple as Heurtley suggested: no offerings were connected with it.

Pausanias' date (371) for the foundation/synoikism of the federal Arkadian capital, Megalopolis, is preferable to Diodorus' (368). But the process was spread over several years, beginning soon after the Battle of Leuktra. Diodorus' source here was not Ephorus but the ‘chronographic source’ from which Diodorus derived other material about city-foundations, synoikisms etc. The ‘battle’, after which Diodorus says the city was founded, may in the chronographer have been Leuktra itself rather than the ‘Tearless Battle’ of 368. There are no good military or political objections to the suggested dating, which avoids the need to postulate two Arcadian federalists called Proxenos, both active and prominent at much the same time.

This article argues that, by concentrating on a reading of the depictions of deities on the Athenian document reliefs as symbolic representations of states rather than as divinities, previous scholarly approaches to them have failed to explore the role they ascribe to the gods in collective decision-making and the exercise of public authority. This article resituates the interpretation of these monuments in the context of other monuments depicting the gods and recent approaches to them, and the other ways in which public inscriptions, both at Athens and elsewhere, make reference to divine actors, through their erection in sacred spaces and the use of the theoi heading. It then examines the range of possible readings of the relationship between divine agency and political decision-making which these monuments privilege and argues that they reflect a conventional understanding that, in general, Athenian decision-making was underpinned by the gods.

In this paper – the revised text of a public lecture given in Athens on 23 February 1989 – the author reviews both the historical and anatomical evidence for identifying the occupants of the royal tombs at Vergina as: Tomb I: not known; Tomb II: Philip II and either Cleopatra or Meda; Tomb III: Alexander IV. The case for Philip III Arrhidaios and Eurydice in Tomb II is shown to be anthropologically weak. The paper also includes a catalogue of the human remains from Tomb II antechamber (Cleopatra or Meda) and Tomb III (Alexander IV). The arrival of cremation in Greece, and both Homeric and later Macedonian attitudes to the rite are also discussed. The general conclusion is that cremations are a valuable source of biological and archaeological information.

This article seeks to construct a life table for the population of Athens during the Lycurgan period (338–322 BC). The total male citizen population in their twentieth year or above is mentioned in literary texts, and the number of ephebes in their nineteenth year can be calculated from the inscribed ephebic catalogues. The conclusions are that the total citizen population of Athens, male and female, may have been about 58,000, the average age at death was 54.11 years, and the growth rate was slightly more than 0.5 per cent.

The aim of this paper is to explore the physical connectivity of Attica by examining the realities of travel for Athenians wishing to engage with wider civic, social, economic and cultic institutions. This will be achieved by focussing upon the practicalities of short-, medium- and long-distance travel with the aim of differentiating aspects, modes and reasons for travel. This investigation will be realised through a series of computational scenarios created on the basis of a combination of ancient and nineteenth-century accounts of journeys through Attica along with the archaeological evidence of the Athenian road system. The results of this study shed light upon the constraints on, and opportunities for, participation in wider practices and the experience of travel for the individual traveller. Recent studies have shown there were many spaces in Attica that provided opportunities for Athenians to come together, to interact with each other and participate in civic, ritual and social institutions. The ultimate conclusions of this study will help to illustrate the fundamental connectivity and active engagement of the traveller with the Athenian landscape.

Archaeobotanical material was collected from the Bronze Age fill and the Protogeometric phases underneath the Roman Villa Dionysus, Knossos, Crete. The Bronze Age assemblage was poor, representing only accidental intrusions to a tight fill of sherds and stones. The Protogeometric data were more plentiful, providing a rare glimpse into the everyday life of the period. Glume wheat, barley, legumes, fruits, nuts and several wild species were present across two Protogeometric floors. No significant differences were observed in their spatial and temporal distribution. The plant remains, along with other bio-archaeological classes of material, indicated a series of domestic activities, including cooking and consumption events, the remnants of which gradually accumulated in the habitation floors. The archaeobotanical evidence from Villa Dionysus was then compared with other Protogeometric Cretan and Greek mainland sites. An overview of these sites allowed some general trends to be observed, tentatively suggesting a picture more similar to Bronze Age than Iron Age archaeobotanical assemblages. It also highlighted differences, which would both dictate and be shaped by different socio-economic systems, and the need for more contextualised studies.

This article reviews the evidence for built tombs in Macedonia prior to the construction of the royal tombs at Vergina. It considers earlier cist tombs with slab roofs, and evidence for architectural embellishment: it proceeds to discuss the evolution of the vaulted form, with architectural facades. In a second part, the identity of the occupants of Tombs I–III at Vergina is discussed, followed by a consideration of the arguments against the identifications proposed.

The ancient remains in the Heraion Valley at Perachora are arranged in three groups. Firstly, by the little harbour the group including the West Court, the sixth-century temple of Hera Akraia (and, before that, the earliest temple), the altar, and the angled stoa. Secondly, above the first, rather steep section of the valley, and partly concealed behind a spur of the hill to the south, the double apsidal cistern and the hestiatorion. Thirdly, some distance behind this, and preceded by the ‘sacred pool’, the series of terraces, on the uppermost of which is the building identified as the Temple of Hera Limenia. This identification has led to the idea that there were, in effect, two sanctuaries; in publishing the double apsidal cistern and the hestiatorion I include them in ‘remains outside the two sanctuaries’

In 412 B.C., when the Peloponnesian War had reached its most critical stage for Athens after her Sicilian losses, Chios and Erythrae revolted from the Athenian League and appealed to Sparta for armed assistance. This was sent, despite Athenian attempts at interception, and the revolt spread up and down the Asia Minor coast. The Athenians reacted quickly, sent ships to Samos, recaptured Lesbos, and opened operations against Chios by raiding the countryside near Chios town. A hostile Chios with her war fleet constituted the major threat to Athenian interests in the East, and stronger measures, which might also provide more permanent security, were needed. Thucydides tells (viii. 38, 2) how the Athenian ships ‘crossed from Lesbos to Chios with armed force, and, in command of land and sea, fortified Delphinion, a place strong on the landward side, served by harbours, and not far distant from Chios town’.

By adopting the chaîne opératoire approach as a dynamic theoretical and methodological framework for studying ancient technologies, this paper investigates the modalities behind the appearance of the potter's wheel in the Aegean during the Early Bronze Age II (c. 2550–2200 bc). Based on the comparative examination of ceramic assemblages from different Aegean sites, an extended technological study has been carried out in order to track the earliest wheel-made pottery and reconstruct the craft behaviours perpetrated by the use of the potter's wheel across the Aegean. The paper presents the results of this multi-site study and aims to (a) trace out the wheel-based technological traditions, (b) explore the contexts of the learning and transmission of the new tool, (c) shed light on the connectivity among Aegean and western Anatolian communities that enabled the transfer of the new craft knowledge, and, finally, (d) bring into view the mechanisms behind its emergence and appropriation. By considering technologies as representing an entire social system of knowing, perceiving and acting on the material world, it will be argued that the spread of the potter's wheel in the Aegean does not reflect a moment of linear diffusion of a technological innovation, adopted thanks to certain techno-functional advantages. Instead, it discloses the resilience of social identities and values embedded through the practical engagement of individuals in the production of their material culture. The potter's wheel, in fact, emerges as a socially and culturally mediated practice, specific to small groups of potters trained within a technological tradition of Anatolian origin, performing their craft in the Aegean socio-cultural milieus. Furthermore, its transfer reveals a multidirectional and dynamic crossing of material cultures that designated a navigable world where traditions, objects and people travelled, mixed and merged in unpredictable ways.

The results of a surface survey of the site are described. Mikre Vigla was a small coastal settlement, occupied from EC I or II until some time in LC III (perhaps the equivalent of mid-LHIIIC). There is a minimal amount of later material, of Geometric to Frankish date. The closest external relations in the Bronze Age, as indicated by the pottery, seem to have been with Melos, and Protopalatial Crete. Apart from building remains, pottery and some domestic and other objects (two fragments of marble artefacts, obsidian, painted plaster), the finds include an important series of small terracotta figurines, unique in the Cyclades. Some of these seem to be Early Cycladic, others related to Cretan pieces, mainly of the Protopalatial period.

The single ceramic phase of the Aegean Early Bronze Age known as the ‘Kastri group’ has been dated by scholars either to an early phase of EB 3 or to the late phase of EB 2. However, careful examination of the contextual associations of the characteristic pottery of this group in the Cycladic islands and the mainland, and detailed analysis of the ceramic forms and features first appearing in this phase, show the ‘Kastri group’ pottery to occur, as a rule, with forms of EB 2. It is also shown that either this pottery itself, or certain forms with which it occurs, present features heralding EB 3. It is thus proposed that the ‘Kastri group’ constitutes a transitional phase of apparently short duration, intermediate between EB 2 and 3, overlapping in date with both the last stages of the former and the early stages of the latter and ‘bridging’ these two periods.

The Finds

In 1971 the Archaeological Service of Eastern Crete undertook an extensive programme of cleaning and consolidation (plates 15, a, 16, a) in the important Early Minoan cemetery on the island of Mochlos, which had been excavated by Richard Seager at the beginning of the century and had been abandoned since, becoming overgrown and partly or completely re-buried. During the course of this work several pieces of Early Minoan gold jewellery and a number of seals were recovered from the earth spoil of the tombs, or from incompletely excavated areas inside the tombs. The new finds, which considerably enrich the material from Mochlos, are now exhibited in the Hagios Nikolaos Museum.

Ancient tradition, as recorded by Strabo and Pausanias, placed the Seven Cities offered by Agamemnon to Achilles in the area of the shores of the Messenian Gulf, between Kardamyle on the south-east and Methone on the south-west. The phrase πᾶσαι δ᾿ ἐγγὺς ἁλός roughly confines them to the coastal area, but it need not exclude identifications with sites farther inland, provided that these are not too far distant from the sea, and are connected with it by easy routes. For example, Kambos (?Ἐνόπη) and the site of the classical Thouria (?Ἄνθειαor Αἴπεια) lie 5 kilometres and 6 kilometres inland respectively, but their territory may have extended towards the coast, and the distance from the sea is not great. I have assumed as a working hypothesis that the Seven Cities actually existed in the Late Mycenaean Period, although possibly with slightly different names, and although they are not mentioned in the Achaean Catalogue of Ships in the Iliad; and I have taken the position of Mycenaean sites in the area to be the most relevant factor to the problem of locating the Seven Cities.

I have carried out surface exploration in south Messenia over a period of five to six weeks with the purpose of finding out the pattern of the Mycenaean and earlier occupation of the district on the shores of the Messenian Gulf, and I shall give an account of the results obtained at each site, together with a discussion of previous work carried out by others, and then compare the facts with the testimony of the ancient writers, in particular Strabo and Pausanias, before stating my conclusions as to the locations of the Seven Cities, and attempting to reconstruct their history. The relevant sites will be discussed in geographical order from south-east to south-west. (See the map of the area, Fig. 1.)

The material for a study of Lakonian pottery may be roughly divided into two classes; first, the vases scattered through the museums of Europe, mostly found outside Greece, in tolerably good preservation, but covering a comparatively short period of time; secondly, the mass of pottery unearthed during the excavations of the British School at Athens in Lakonia itself. The latter consists mainly of fragments, but represents the continuous product of about four centuries, and in the sanctuary of Orthia we have the inestimable advantages offered by a well-stratified site.