¹ See Kopaka, K., ‘Μίνωος Καλοκαιρινῦ, ἀνασκαφαί στὴν Κνωσό’, Παλίμψηστον, 9–10 (1989–1990), 5–69.Google Scholar The project was carried out by the author with the assistance of a BSA centenary bursary. I am most grateful to Dr Hector Catling and Dr Elizabeth French for giving me the opportunity to undertake this study. My warmest thanks are due to Ann Brown, for all her generous help in the Ashmolean as well as during the preparation of this article; to Sinclair and Rachel Hood for their kind encouragement and advice; and to Mervyn Popham for his pertinent comments. My work owes a great deal to Eleni Banou, Nota Dimopoulou-Rethimiotaki, Giorgos Rethimiotakis, and Daphni Gondika for their valuable comments on the drawings. Last but not least I thank Christine Morris for revising my written text, and Sophia, Lisa, Vanessa, Giorgos, and J. Loukas for being there. The following special abbreviations are used in the catalogue and notes:

Fabricius = Fabricius, E., ‘Alterthümer auf Kreta, IV: Funde der mykenäischen Epoche in Knossos’, MdI 11 (1886), 135–49, pls 3–4Google Scholar

Furtwängler-Loeschke = Furtwängler, A. and Loeschke, G., Mykenische Vasen: vorhellenische Thongefässe aus dem Gebiete des Mittelmeeres (Berlin, 1886)Google Scholar

Hallager = Hallager, E., The Mycenaean Palace at Knossos (Stockholm, 1977)Google Scholar

Haussoullier = Haussoullier, B., ‘Vases peints archaïques découverts à Knossos (Crète)’, RA n.s. 39 (1880), 359–61, pl. 23 (reprinted from BCH 4 (1880), 124–7)Google Scholar

Myres = Myres, J. L., ‘On some pre-historic polychrome pottery from Kamàrais, in Crete’, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, 15 (1895), 351–6, pls 1–4Google Scholar

Niemeier = Niemeier, W. D., Die Palaststilkeramik von Knossos (Berlin, 1985)Google Scholar

Popham 1970 = Popham, M., The Destruction of the Palace at Knossos: Pottery of the LM III A Period (SIMA 12; Göteborg, 1970)Google Scholar

Popham 1984 = Popham, M., The Minoan Unexplored Mansion (BSA supp. vol. 17; London, 1984)Google Scholar

Pottier 1897 = Pottier, E., Vases antiques du Louvre: salles A–E (Paris, 1897), i Google Scholar

Pottier 1922 = id., CVA France I: I: Louvre, i (Paris, 1922)

² Brown, A., ‘I propose to begin at Gnossos’, BSA 81 (1986), 37–44.Google Scholar

³ Ibid. 41; Chatzidakis, J., Ἱστορία τοῦ Κρητικοῦ Μουσείου κκαὶ τῶν ἀρχαιολογικῶν ἐρευνῶν ἐν Κρήτ̢η (Athens, 1931), 21 (where Myres's name is misspelled).Google Scholar

⁴ Myres (n. 1). In the same year Mariani, L. also published a note on the Kamares Pottery, : ‘Antichità cretesi III: note sulla ceramica cretese. 1: vasi di Kamares’, Mon. Linc. 6 (1895), 333–42, 347, pls 9–11.Google Scholar

⁵ Probably πεδινὰ παγώνια (‘peacocks of the plain’? cf. Latin pavo, ‘peacock’); the adjective perhaps specifying the type of peafowl. For some designs reminiscent of the peacock's plumage, see Figs. 1. 4; 2. 9; 7. 22; and even 3. 11 and 6. 17.

⁶ Evans's travel diary for 1894 (Ashmolean archives).

⁷ The letter is kept together with the drawings in the Ashmolean.

⁸ The italics are my own.

⁹ This labelling has misled some recent scholars. See Kanta, A., The Late, Minoan III Period in Crete: A Survey of Sites, Pottery and their Distribution (SIMA 58; Göteborg, 1980), 112 Google Scholar, where the late character of a number of sherds among Myres's drawings is recognized, but the whole group has been attributed to the Kamares material. This leads the author to comment on ‘the continuation of cult into the Late Minoan times at this early cave’.

¹⁰ Some plates with the above features do not bear the word ‘Minos’. But they must be part of the same set, since they are either attached to those which bear the characteristic name (Figs. 2, 4), or are detached but clearly depict Knossian and not Kamares ware (Figs. 6–7).

¹¹ The numeration of the plates is my own; it follows the order in which I saw the drawings in the archives. The sherds on each plate are numbered from top left to bottom right; Myres's handwritten remarks are quoted in the same way.

¹² Myres pl. 2. 7.

¹³ Haussoullier pl. 23.

¹⁴ Fabricius 135–49. pl. 3.

¹⁵ Niemeier 240, 241, 244, 245, 248, pls 13, 14, 16, 17, 19.

¹⁶ Furtwängler-Loeschke 22–4, figs. 9–13 (reproducing Haussoullier); Pottier 1897, 21, pl. 19; Pottier 1922, II A c, pl. 1; Hallager 81–7, figs. 59–61 (reproducing Fabricius and Haussoullier).

¹⁷ The six sherds in the Louvre (AM 617 to 622) were offered by Kalokairinos to Charles Clermont-Ganneau, who spent twenty-five days in Crete between January and March 1895. With other antiquities, they were taken to the Academy of Inscriptions in Paris (‘Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres pendant l'année 1901’, CRAI 1901, 7, 42–3. They entered the Louvre in 1898 according to the museum catalogue. I thank T. Vakirtzian for interesting information about Clermont-Ganneau.

¹⁸ Fabricius mentions forty sherds, most of which have rosette and spiral motifs, perhaps of the type of Myres's 2, 3, and 12 (Fabricius 144). Evans mentions sherds decorated with rosettes, discovered in the 8th Magazine ( Evans, A., ‘Knossos: summary report of the excavations in 1900’, BSA 6 (1899–1900), 25).Google Scholar Four such pieces were photographed by P. Wolters on his early visit to Evans's, excavations, and are illustrated in AA 3 (1900), 149, fig. 6Google Scholar (see also Driessen, J., An Early Destruction in the Mycenaean Palace at Knossos (Acta Archaeologica Lovaniensia, 2; Leuven, 1990), 46 n. 168.Google Scholar

¹⁹ For the existing links between LM II–III pottery deposits in these three Palace areas, see Popham 1970, 67.

²⁰ For two recent points of view on the subject, see Catling, H. W., Some Problems in Aegean Prehistory c. 1450–1380 BC (14th J. L. Myres Memorial Lecture; Oxford, 1989), 3–21 Google Scholar; Warren, P., ‘The destruction of the palace of Knossos’, in Karageorghis, V. (ed.), The Civilizations of the Aegean and their Diffusion in Cyprus and the Eastern Mediterranean 2000–600 BC (Larnaca, 1991), 32–7.Google Scholar