In a general review of the associations between the British School at Athens and the Society of Antiquaries 100 years on from the School's foundation, a review is given of the excavations of Sir Arthur Evans in the Zapher Papoura and Isopata cemeteries at Knossos, and of Professor A. J. B. Wace in the Kalkani cemetery at Mycenae (both projects published by the Society in Archaeologia).

By tradition this annual address is something of a miscellany, not to say a farrago. Among the many ingredients that may go into it, there is one element which is fairly constant, namely a certain amount of comment on the activities of the Society during the year just concluded, on changes in the staff and officers, and on any other notable events which have occurred. Any custom as time-honoured as this one should surely be regarded as venial, if not commendable, in this Society. However, it seems to me that in this case it can also plead a very positive justification and practical utility in that it brings to the notice of the Fellowship generally much which would otherwise be buried in the Minutes of various committees. At all events, I give notice that I intend to follow custom in this matter this evening.

The discovery in 1719, at Brough-on-Humber [North Humberside, SE 93 26], of a hoard of Late Bronze Age weapons and casting matrices is described from contemporary manuscript and printed sources. The subsequent passage of its component artefacts through antiquarian collections is carefully documented, and four pieces are recognized as surviving in the British Museum. These comprise two rare two-piece casting moulds together with one example of each casting product. One mould is a Welby, the other a Meldreth, type, formerly provenanced respectively to ‘Yorkshire’ and ‘Quantock Hills, Somersetshire’. All are described in detail and suggestions made as to the casting techniques in which they were employed. The hoard, possibly originally comprising more artefacts than were recorded, was accompanied by a spearhead, a socketed chisel and a tanged awl or spike, now lost. These are attributed to Burgess's ‘Ewart Park phase’ of LBA2, with parallels scattered throughout the north-east, east, south-east and south of England.

A review of the post-glacial geology and geomorphology of the Severn Estuary provides a context for the description and evaluation of eight sites on the margins of the Severn upstream of the Rivers Avon and Wye where Romano-British occupation debris has been recovered. This evidence provides further confirmation of the extent of the reclamation and settlement of the wetlands of the Severn during the Roman period. In addition, all sites produced clear evidence of ironmaking, employing Forest of Dean ore, and one site produced indications of glassworking. In conjunction with a comparative study of the pottery assemblages from riverside and inland sites, the role of the river as a trade route is reviewed.

Much archaeological and historical research has recently been devoted to the study of the early Swahili communities inhabiting the East African coast during the late first millennium a.d. The practice of Islam can be shown to date back to perhaps the beginning of the ninth century from when the first mosques have been excavated. The economic importance of East Africa for the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean world is apparent from the wealth of imports and exports found in a large number of these coastal sites. African trading systems brought to medieval society high-value commodities ranging from gold, rock crystal and ivory, to slaves and timber. The items were carried across large distances sea by traders following the seasonal monsoon system around the coasts and across the Indian Ocean. is argued that the trading settlements were African in culture and origin, but then attracted Muslims who were responsible for occasional local converts from a very early period in the history of Islam.

The archaeology of two Iron Age sites, ‘Loughey’ in County Down, Northern Ireland, and Meare Lake Village, Somerset, is discussed. Changes in the archaeological interpretation of the sites are considered in the light of recent research into Iron Age sites in Britain and Ireland. Consideration of the chemical composition of the glass from ‘Loughey’ and Meare helps to add weight to the existence of suspected links between Ireland and the Continent in the first century B.C., and not, as has regularly been assumed, specific links with south England. The compositional characteristics of the glass from Meare are found to be totally different from those of the ‘Loughey’ glass and it is suggested that glass raw materials were imported to Ireland for the manufacture of Iron Age glass beads there. We can not now be as confident that the person buried at ‘Loughey’ was of ‘foreign’ origin.

This paper describes the context and nature of an assemblage of forty-four Palaeolithic hand-axes from a Roman religious site at Witham, Essex. The hand-axes are considered to have been derived from several sources, and it is suggested that the Romano-British occupants of the site deliberately selected them for their shape and placed them in the bottom of two large man-made depressions. In the light of stone axe finds on continental temple sites, and of classical Roman texts and traditions, the possibility arises that the Witham finds may have represented ‘thunderbolts’ in the worship of Jupiter or a local Celtic equivalent.

The seventeenth-century lantern clock in the possession of the Society of Antiquaries of London is shown to be one of the products of the post-Civil War boom in London domestic clockmaking. Its maker Thomas Knifton is found to be one of a close-knit group of house clockmakers working in the Parish of St Margaret's, Lothbury. His relationship with both the Clothworkers' and the Clockmakers' Company is explored. The clock is described, its founder's marks and unique dial-plate noted. The construction of its movement and subsequent alterations are explained in simple terms.

Cardinal Alessandro Albani was probably the most renowned collector of antiquities in eighteenth century Italy. His Roman villa, planned to display them, was built at various dates here discussed in the light of Albani's antedecents, upbringing and career as diplomatist, antiquary and amateur architect. The stylistic origins of the villa are considered together with its influence on later architects, notably Percier and Fontaine and the brothers Adam. Excerpts are given from the course of visits to Roman sites by the cicerone James Byres which illustrate the climate of informed opinion on architecture in late eighteenth-century Rome, where the works of the Cardinal's painter Mengs and librarian Winckelmann were receiving wide acclaim.

This paper describes the discovery, by geological and archaeological fieldwork, of a major Iron Age and Roman quern quarry which was supplying much of south-east and south-midland England. The debitage from the site is described and the chronological development of querns from the quarry assessed in the light of material found on habitation sites. It is argued that production reached a peak the first century A.D. The broad distribution of Lodsworth products during the Iron Age, and to a lesser extent during the Roman period, is discussed.

In 1792 the Society published in Archaeologia an engraving of ‘An antient Mortar at Eridge Green’, with the claim that it was the first gun made in England. Subsequent writers on the history of artillery, while noting the gun's importance as one of the first examples of a wrought-iron cannon or bombard (to give it its correct name), believed that it had been destroyed. In fact, by the date of its publication, the bombard had been removed to Boxted Hall, Suffolk, where it remained unrecognized until its transfer to the Royal Armouries, H. M. Tower of London, in 1979. This article traces the history of the bombard, the method of its construction and concludes that it was probably made in England, in the Weald, during the fifteenth century.

Newly discovered evidence, here printed, from the proceedings in an equity suit in the Exchequer shows that le Sueur's statue of Charles I was indeed buried underground in the Interregnum, and illuminates the circumstances of the burial. This fills a lacuna in the documentary history of the statue.

On the printed title-page to the Monasticon are the names of Roger Dodsworth and William Dugdale. The main body of the work was divided into sections, each dealing with a monastic order and the edifices which had belonged to it. It was Dugdale who commissioned Wenceslaus Hollar and his pupil Daniel King to make views of the cathedrals and churches for this enterprise. Since the development of the monasteries and the Church of England were inextricably mixed, this vast book in three folio volumes became a history of the foundations of all the principal churches in the kingdom.

Previously unpublished letters of William Stukeley (1687-1765) to Alexander Gordon (?1692-?1754) are printed with a commentary to commemorate the tercentenary of Stukeley's birth. The letters are important as being the only correspondence extant between Stukeley and Gordon, and because they sum up many aspects ofStukeley's personality and shed light on his early preoccupation with the Druids.