The Temple Area, mentioned several times in these reports, was cleared in the course of our third and fourth seasons. Of the temple itself not a stone was found standing and almost the whole of its materials had been removed, but from fragments of architectural details we may recover some notion of its proportions and decoration. Only one inscription came to light, but that—the Hymn to Dictaean Zeus—is of capital importance, not only as enabling us to identify the remains with those of the temple mentioned in the Praisos-Itanos frontier-award and to restore to Palaikastro its ancient name of Heleia (Dittenberger, Sylloge 929, 1. 78), but as illustrating an obscure side of local religion and ritual.

In the last volume of this Annual (xxiii. 206 ff.) I attempted to restate the arguments for the view that the provincial era of Macedonia dates from 1st Dios, 148 B.C., and the Actian (or, to give it the name which it bore in Macedonia, the Augustan) era from 1st Dios, 32 B.C.

I mentioned (p. 210) Prof. M. Holleaux as having expressed in 1914 a doubt of the continued existence of separate Macedonian and Achaean eras running concurrently and a desire for further investigation of the question. This was, indeed, the starting-point of my own inquiry. I regret, however, that I overlooked a later statement of the same scholar (Rev. Et. Anc. xix. 81), who in 1917 accepted as fully established the Macedonian era of 148 B.C., and pointed out that the Oxyrhynchus Epitome of Livy proves that the defeat of Andriscus and the submission of Macedonia took place in that year (cf. Kornemann, Die neue Livius-Epitome aus Oxyrhynchus, 91 f., 113 f.). Further, in an article which became accessible to me only after my own discussion was already in print, Pomtow himself has declared in favour of the earlier starting-point of the Macedonian era, on the ground both of the Macedonian and also of the Delphian documents.

A noticeable feature with regard to sacred localities (sacred springs, trees, wells and the like) not only in Ancient Greece, but also in other lands, is the frequent association of the sacred spot with the supposed grave of a saint, prophet or holy man. For example, a long list of sacred localities in the Punjab was published by Miss Burne and Mr. Rose in Folklore, xxi2 and it will be seen that the feature to which I have alluded, is as prominent here as in the traditions of Ancient Greece. It has, of course, attracted the attention of the authors, who offer two slightly different explanations of the phenomenon, (1) ‘The power of the original healer has passed into his tomb instead of into his descendants, or has been communicated by him to a well instead of to a disciple.’ This explanation, it will be observed, admits the existence of the buried prophet and his holiness as the ultimate source of the power of the locality. (2) It may be doubted whether those legendary Fakîrs, who are said to have given power to the wells, are not in reality early devotees of the wells in question, whose memory lingers at the places they themselves worshipped, and beside which they were frequently buried.

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 traveller who approaches Sparta from the north and crosses the Eurotas by the new bridge (P. 12) sees before him a series of low rounded hills which extend across his path in the form of a crescent and hide from his view the modern town. Straight before him the ragged core of the Byzantine fortification wall rises on the crest of the hill, and a bridle-path which climbs the steep slope to the old North Gate of the Byzantine Acropolis (M. 13. 14) is still the shortest way from the bridge to the modern town. The carriage road bends to the left, and runs parallel with the Eurotas for over half a mile through low-lying meadows, then rises to cross the south-eastern horn of the crescent and forthwith turns inland. It is at this point, where the line of heights sinks towards the river and ends in a tongue-shaped precipitous promontory, that the Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia has been found (O. 15). North and north-west of this rocky tongue the ground between high-road and river sinks towards a hollow which in luxuriant fertility surpasses even the water-meadows, with their deep crops of vetch and clover, that line the bank higher up. Olives give place to mulberry-trees, and we enter a garden full of cucumber- and melonbeds, oranges and young peach-trees.

In 1995, the authors carried out a geophysical survey (resistivity) within the lower part of the ancient city. This trial survey successfully identified buildings and streets (including the junction of the Via Egnatia with the ‘diagonal road’). It was confirmed that the city had been planned according to two different street-grids, one respecting the Via Egnatia and the other aligned upon the ‘diagonal road’. Included is a new plan of Philippi, taking into account the evidence provided by the latest excavations.

Stone carvings in the context of Ottoman-era Greece play an important role in folklore studies as well as vernacular architecture. They are associated with the history of itinerant stonemasons, their beliefs, as well as the cultural milieu of the building’s owners. However, research rarely contextualises them within the framework of the Ottoman era and the identities of local people who dwelled in these spaces. This contribution first provides an overview of interpretations put forward by scholars in diverse disciplines (folklore, architecture, heritage). It then offers a critical evaluation of these interpretations according to contemporary trends in Ottoman studies, combining methodologies from multiple disciplines, ranging from innovative theoretical concepts to interpretive drawings and photogrammetry. To do so we focus on case studies from the Ottoman-era Bektashi heritage of Konitsa (north-west Greece), including the house of Hussein Sisko, Hamko’s mansion, as well as the gate of Hagios Nikolaos, which incorporates stone carvings from an Ottoman-era mansion in secondary use. We advance an interpretation of stone carvings as narratives reflecting the multiconfessional identities of the liminal Ottoman provinces of the south-west Balkans. Taking as an example the two series of stone carvings from the gates of Hamko’s mansion, we propose that they are best viewed as forms of storytelling, reflecting the identity of the Bektashi owners, as warriors of the faith, while also vaguely expressing the values of the in-house rituals of the same dervish network (tarikat). Furthermore, on the basis of a proposed rearrangement of the stone carvings at the church of Hagios Nikolaos to reflect their original meaning when they were adorning the mansion of Elmaz Bey, we argue for potential multiple and multiconfessional understandings of such carvings, as well as temporal connotations that are easily forgotten, arguments that open new research avenues when placed in the context of the body of literature that argues for the long-lasting survival of meanings.

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).

This paper deals with a bronze sword found during repair work on a road close to the Hittite capital of Hattusas in central Anatolia. It carries an Akkadian inscription stating that it was taken as booty by the Hittite king Tuthaliyas II during his campaign in the Assuwa country of western Asia Minor, c.1430 BC. The content of the inscription may be evidence of Ahhiyawan-Mycenaean Greek warfare in western Asia Minor in the Late Bronze Age, and/or of a historical background for the Trojan war.

While the development of the Mycenaean goblet and kylix has been studied in some detail, comparatively little work has been done on their Cretan equivalents. We are still, in the main, dependent on the remarks of Evans in Palace of Minos, who was mainly concerned with the L.M. II examples; on brief comparisons made by Furumark, who was basically considering Mycenaean pottery; and on some general observations by Mackeprang. Though in part this is due to neglect of L.M. III pottery as a whole, a main reason is no doubt the scarcity of intact decorated kylikes in Crete. Leaving aside the L.M. III goblet, only thirteen have been illustrated in publications and a similar number of other unpublished decorated kylikes are on display in the various museums of Crete. A list of the published vases and of others is given at the end of this article. Even allowing for unpublished kylikes not on display, this small number is unlikely to be an accident of excavation; it is evident that the decorated kylix was rare in Crete in L.M. III, though plain examples are much more common, particularly in central Crete. In the east of the Island, however, both kinds appear on present evidence to be exceptional.

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.

In 1939 we cleared away the prickly oak scrub and excavated the rock ledge below the north temple terrace on the north summit of the acropolis of Mycenae. Here we found on the edge of the steep rock remains of a wall of largish blocks of limestone. These we believe to have been part of a Middle Helladic fortification wall running round the upper part of the acropolis. Behind this and held up by the wall were the ruins of two rooms and a thick deposit of M.H. pottery. Over this lay another stratum in which L.H. IIIB pottery was found. Here we found the splendid ivory group of two women and a boy which has already been published. Associated with it were a number of other objects, a male head in painted stucco, a sword pommel in white stone, some ornaments of gold and ivory, a number of beads of stone, paste, and faience including a lantern bead, and a cylinder of faience. The pottery, as stated, was of the L.H. IIIB style, but it was unfortunately lost in the Nauplia Museum during the war.

This collection of precious objects we suggested might have belonged to the Shrine of the Palace, which we believe can be be recognized in a small room with a cement floor underlying the western foundations of the temples built here in classical times over part of the ruins of the Mycenaean Palace.

The distinction between L.H. IIA and L.H. IIB as stylistic and historical phases was set out by Furumark over twenty years ago, but the terms have still not come into general use. Instead, L.H. II is treated as a unit, roughly equivalent to the fifteenth century B.C. Yet it is now generally agreed that there was an important historical ‘break’ in the middle of the century, marked by the destruction of many sites in Crete, which roughly coincides with the suggested division between L.H. IIA and L.H. IIB. The distinction between material preceding and following this ‘break’ on the mainland is likely to be of importance for the general history of the period.

In his discussion of these phases, Furumark was forced to rely very largely on tomb-groups, and his total material was not very great. He was conscious that additional evidence was needed for L.H. I and L.H. IIA, and commented on the general dearth of stratified material, accepting only one site, Korakou, as showing a L.H. I–II stratification.

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.

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.

The six ‘Geometric’ tombs excavated by D. G. Hogarth at Knossos in April 1900 are hitherto known only from his brief report in BSA 6 (1899–1900), 82–5, with massed photographs of pottery from two rich tombs. This article offers a full publication of the fifty vases from these tombs, stored in the reserves of the Herakleion Museum. Although excavation records do not survive, all the extant pottery can be assigned with reasonable certainty to individual tombs by collating various sources, including Hogarth's own personal diary. By today's terminology, only tomb 3 contains truly Geometric material, all the others date from the Subminoan and Protogeometric periods. The tombs lie along a well-known ‘Via Appia’ of Minoan times, where Early Greek families, of at least moderate wealth, made much reuse of Minoan chamber tombs. With some evidence of continuity from the latest Minoan burials in this cemetery area, Hogarth's tombs seem to form a small nucleus with origins quite independent of the main North Cemetery under the Medical Faculty site.

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.

A terracotta Minoan figurine of a horned beetle from the Peak Sanctuary on Mt Prinias is discussed. It is shown to be a rhyton, and presumably made for cult purposes. The reasons for offerings of such beetles is investigated, and the connection with Egyptian scarabs is raised.

It is more than twenty years since John Boardman with his ‘Pottery from Eretria’, published in Volume xlvii of this Annual, aroused a fresh interest in the study of Euboean pottery. A certain amount of work has been done on the subject since then, but there has been no controlled digging of cemeteries from which the main lines of the development of Euboean vase-painting in the sixth and fifth centuries can be established. So owing to the lack of external evidence, research on the subject continues to advance in a haphazard fashion and consists to a great extent in guesswork based on scanty material, as has recently been pointed out by Dietrich von Bothmer in his ‘Euboean Black-figure in New York’, the latest contribution to the subject. I wish here to add some more to the small corpus of vases already attributed, observing their relationship to the three great Eretrian amphorae in Athens and to one another.