Seventy years after its first investigation, Karphi (Karfi) on Crete was the subject of a new pilot excavation in 2008. The main aim was to provide the first up-to-date detailed contextual records for the site across a representative area, thus filling in interpretative gaps left by the original extensive excavation. This paper presents and analyses these records with the aim of investigating the likely complexity of social systems at one of the largest new communities founded in Crete after the collapse of Bronze Age states c.1200 bc. Recent research has tended to focus on small villages, or on sites which later developed into poleis, meaning that crisis-period remains are poorly preserved. Occupied only between the crisis horizon of c.1200 bc and an important nucleation of Cretan communities at large ‘proto-polis’ settlements occurring in the early tenth century, the large Karphi site offers insight into the special challenges of creating large, potentially diverse new communities in crisis circumstances. It has one of the most dramatic of the new settlement locations, on steep-sided peaks 1100 m above sea level in an area which had never previously been settled. The social and economic adjustments needed here were particularly sharp and urgent, and the paper examines the structures which enabled them, using preliminary analyses of bioarchaeological data from the new project to assist reconstruction of the economy. The site has had other, highly specialised uses in its history, on which the new excavation has thrown light. The results highlight not only the resonance of this landscape in ancient consciousness, but also the ways in which such resonance could be exploited, both in the socially volatile post-collapse period and in the context of enhanced social and economic complexity as polis states started to come into being. Finally, a first set of radiocarbon dates from the new excavation is presented and assessed with regard to the dating of the Cretan Bronze to Iron Age transition and its wider ramifications.

Together with politics, economics and religion, war is one of the fundamental factors that can shape a society and group identities. In the prehistoric world, the sources for the study of war are disparate and their interpretation can be inconsistent and problematic. In the case of Crete in the Bronze Age, a systematic analysis of the evidence will be undertaken for the first time in this paper, and this opportunity is used to critically evaluate the most effective ways of employing the widely agreed sets of physical correlates for ancient war in the archaeological record. A further objective in exploring the diachronic roles of war in these societies is to move the discussion from a niche field to a more integrated, and systematic, social analysis. The existence and character of a warrior identity is examined, and it is proposed that it often constituted a conspicuous element of male identity. The varying scales and time spans through which war can influence a society are discussed, and a broad framework for understanding war in social process, practices and events is proposed.

Considered here is the ‘Labyrinth Fresco’ (or ‘Maze Fresco’), fragments of which were found by Sir Arthur Evans in the Minoan palace at Knossos. Interestingly, the pattern was rendered through engraving, with the exclusively red colour used applied within the grooves. Oddly, this design is very similar to one shown as a patterned floor in a recently excavated wall painting discovered by the Austrian excavator Manfred Bietak, at Tell el Dab'a, in the Nile Delta area of Egypt, where it depicts an arena used for bull leaping. The present article therefore raises the question of whether the ‘Labyrinth Fresco’ from Knossos was actually decoration on a patterned plaster floor rather than a wall, and could have acted as the model for the one depicted in the Tell el Dab'a painting. One possible explanation for this phenomenon is that the Tell el Dab'a painters were Greek expatriate artists – a matter that prompts questions about actual international contacts between the Aegean and Egypt in the mid-second millennium bc The paintings in Egypt clearly imply travelling Aegean artists, though further and more formal contacts probably also existed between the two countries.

This is the fourth and final part of the series inspired by the rediscovery in 2003 of two skeletons excavated in 1877 in Shaft Grave VI in Circle A at Mycenae by Panayiotis Stamatakis. The contribution of Stamatakis to the excavations, the discrepancies between his unpublished reports to the Archaeological Society and Schliemann's account, and the reliability of that account, are discussed. This is followed by a survey of what can now be said about Grave Circle A, following the restudy of the surviving bones from Graves III–VI and the publication of various details of the arrangement in the graves reported by Stamatakis, and by a final somewhat speculative discussion of what the graves contribute to the study of the development of Mycenae at the time of its rapid rise to prominence and the accompanying major changes in the structure of society, at Mycenae and elsewhere on the Greek mainland.

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.

The significance behind the imagery of the padded dancer, or komast, traditionally has been connected to early drama, Dionysos, or ritual practices. Most Archaic Corinthian vases that include these figures portray them dancing, and a percentage of those dancers also illustrate a deformity of the foot. This article attempts to contextualise the clubfooted padded dancer within its political, cultural and geographic boundaries by offering an explanation for the end of production of these figures in Corinth. The lame padded dancer may have been a localised symbol offering political commentary on historical traditions of lameness within the tyrannical family of Corinth. Its production and discontinuation may be connected to the rise and fall of this family.

This paper deals with the cult and myths of the daughters of the mythical king of Athens, Erechtheus, who lived on the Acropolis. The myth, preserved in Euripides’ tragedy Erechtheus, establishes the deceased daughters as goddesses who are owed cult by the Athenians. It further equates them with the Hyades, a prominent star cluster in the constellation of Taurus, which they form after their deaths. We examine here the possibility that this myth not only narrates the placement of the girls after their death in the sky in the form of the Hyades, but also may have bound the constellation to certain festivals held on the Acropolis, which through their aetiological myths were connected to the daughters of Erechtheus and in which the participation of young girls (arrhēphoroi) was important. To explicate this cult, we explore its context on the Acropolis as fully as possible, through the visual arts, the literary myth, the festival calendar, and the natural landscape and night sky, so as to determine whether the movement of the Hyades was indeed visible from the Acropolis during the time when the young maiden cult rites were performed on the hill. This study investigates for the first time the role of the night sky and astronomical observations in the performance of the nocturnal festival of the Arrhēphoria.

The small Greek island of Antikythera has a long history of human exploitation, of which one of the most interesting episodes is represented by a fortified settlement on the north coast of the island that can be plausibly identified as a centre of Hellenistic piratical activity. Hellenistic ‘Aegila’ has left both impressive standing remains and a range of portable finds that have attracted academic interest over much of the last two centuries. This paper examines the pottery assemblage from this period recovered during a recent intensive survey over the island's entire extent. We consider the spatial and typological character of this material as well as the implications it has for the Hellenistic community's wider social, economic and political connections.

Lead slingshots discovered on Cretan sites carry considerable weight regarding the nature of warfare on the island in the Late Classical and Hellenistic periods. On Crete, inscribed lead sling bullets have been reported from nine archaeological sites while a further inscribed slingshot, issued by the Phalasarnians, has been discovered on the neighbouring island of Antikythera.

Text on slingshots was conceived of, and cast as, an integral component of the weapon, thereby representing a fundamental aspect of the weapon's design. Slingshots bearing text are illuminating artefacts as not only can they reflect military action, leadership and civic affiliations, but they also raise questions regarding literacy levels within the forces and prompt debate concerning the psychological potential of such communications. It is the purpose of this paper to present the growing corpus of Cretan material against a wider backdrop of evidence, with a view to understanding the overarching role and purpose of such inscribed communications and to assess the degree of Cretan conformity with, or deviation from, broader military trends.

Four inscriptions of Hellenistic to Early Roman date were found in rescue excavations undertaken during the construction of public housing at the location Bedevi, east of Leophoros Knossou in the suburbs of modern Aghios Ioannis (Heraklion). These four inscriptions constitute an intriguing group as they provide evidence of a rural installation where a vessel with an inscribed lid was stored, a sepulchral site and private worship of Artemis, as well as a point between ancient Heraklion and Knossos where a Roman road crossed the Chrysopigis stream. In antiquity this area was part of the greater Knossos area, albeit closer to Heraklion than to Knossos. These four inscriptions provide new evidence for the nature of this area and for the northern road connections of Roman Knossos, particularly the road that linked Knossos with its harbour at Heraklion.

The metamorphic geology of Greece and the Aegean produced a wide range of coloured stones which were used in antiquity. In the second half of the nineteenth century several of the ancient quarries were rediscovered and reopened by Greek and British companies within the developing economy of the young Greek state. One such stone is the fine maroon marble rosso antico, emplaced at several locations in the Mani. It had first been exploited in the Late Bronze Age and exploitation continued extensively during the Roman Empire. The new quarryings of the nineteenth century resulted in much export to Britain, where the marble was used in churches, notably St Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Cathedral in London, in commercial and university buildings, in private houses and, as a gift of the Greek government, for the plinth of Byron's statue in Park Lane, London.