In Volume XII of the Annual of the British School were published two fragments of stamped pithoi (Nos. I. and II.) from Kameiros, part of a series of such fragments in the collection of the School. The remaining examples, mainly from Melos, are described below, the drawings having been made at the same time as those published in 1906.

No. III. (Pl. XI. A) ·105 × ·12 × ·02 — ·03 m. From Melos.

Coarse reddish clay.

Decoration : border of arches; border of double plait with three strands in each twist and bosses between; frieze projecting ·004 m. with lion and Centaur. The lion's mouth is open, shewing the tongue, his left forepaw is raised. The motive of the paw is a common one: cf. the lion on the Ionic B.F. bowl, Pfuhl, Malerei und Zeichnung der Griechen, iii. Pl. XXVIII. No. 128, and the kylix, Louvre, A. 478. The Centaur, likewise, is a common type. He is the vanquished Centaur begging for mercy, made popular through illustrations like those of Herakles and Nessos, and used here because he was a familiar figure which fitted the space. An excellent parallel is on a steatite lentoid intaglio from Melos. The Centaur has equine, not human fore-legs, as on other pithos fragments from Melos: contrast the type with human fore-legs from Kameiros and Asia Minor, where it seems never to have been superseded.

A Minoan potter's wheel is published, with the peculiar element of appliqué relief sea-shells. The object was found by chance a few years before World War II near the village of Skhinias, in the Upper Mirabello region of NE Crete, and remained unknown until now. It is the first instance of real decoration on a potter's wheel. It can be dated between MM II and LM I and could have come from Malia.

The two unusual fragments illustrated in Plate 14 and Fig. I were found at Mycenae in 1950, but were not identified until 1957, when the pottery from the Cyclopean Terrace Building Area was being restudied for the publication which appears in this volume. They come from the East Trench which ran east-west immediately east of the east wall of the Cyclopean Terrace Building proper and which disclosed the drain marked in the plan. They were found at a depth of more than 2·40 m., i.e. below the level of the drain. It seems likely that the fill of this area dates mainly from the period of the building of the Cyclopean Terrace Building (when the drain also must have been built) in the early part of L.H. IIIB, but the pottery in all layers of this trench was contaminated by stray sherds of later Mycenaean, Geometric, and Hellenistic wares. Therefore, though a date in the period preceding early L.H. IIIB is very likely, it cannot be assured.

The pieces, which are 0·02 m. thick, are made of a heavy buff clay with considerable grit and chaff covered with a light wash through which the grit shows, giving the appearance known as ‘oatmeal’. The paint is a semi-lustrous red-brown. This fabric is similar to, though heavier than, that of the stirrup jars from the nearby House of the Wine Merchant. It is clear from the scene on the outside that the two fragments are not adjoining, but come from the opposite sides of the same vessel. The shape, fabric, and schemes of decoration seem to indicate that these are fragments of a bath larnax (FS 1).

The published corpus of LM IB Marine Style pottery from Knossos is small. It includes:

1. 1. A jar from the Royal Road, AR (1961–2) 28 fig. 36.

2. 2. A jar from the South-west Corner of the Palace, PM iv 280 fig. 215.

3. 3. A ewer from the House of the Sanctuary, ibid, iv 215 fig. 165.

4. 4. A tall alabastron from the Tomb of the Double Axes, TDoAx. 87.

5. 5. A bridge-spouted jar from a chamber tomb near the Temple Tomb, PM iv 279 fig. 214.

6. 6. A fragment from a jar, ibid, ii 506 fig. 310a.

7. 7. A fragment from a flower-pot, ibid, ii 506 fig. 310b–c.

The veneration of stones seems to have been world-wide at an early stage in religious development, and has left traces everywhere in the magical and ‘folklore’ practices of civilized peoples. Over the Semitic area stone worship, as such, survived later and more generally than among peoples more prone to anthropomorphism; and Islam, so far from being able to displace it, tacitly sanctioned it by allowing the reverence paid already by pagan Arabs to the Black Stone of the Kaaba to be perpetuated on the rather far-fetched hypothesis that the angel Gabriel had brought it to, Mecca.

Christianity, somewhat in the same way, has permitted or encouraged the paying of reverence to stones associated by tradition with saintly personages, the Stone of Unction at Jerusalem being a typical example. In both the great religions of the Near East the arbitrary association of certain stones with sacred persons and events has been allowed to replace or mask the more primitive idea of worshipping stones as fetishes with independent power.

In 1969 the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, purchased fifty-five fragments of relief disci from Athenian terracotta lamps of the 3rd and 4th centuries AD. They comprise thirty discus types, and the presence of at least one waster may suggest that they are discards from a kiln site. Recent excavations in the Kerameikos have provided some parallels for the material, especially from the Roman kilns which were built in the ruins of Building Y, to the east of the Sacred Gate.

In an article on ‘The Greek Numeral Notation’ published in this Annual, xviii. 98 ff., I restricted myself to a discussion of those systems which compose the so-called ‘acrophonic’ group, promising for some future occasion an article dealing with the second, or ‘alphabetic,’ group of numeral systems. This promise has not been forgotten, though the greatness of the undertaking and the lack of adequate leisure have led to delay in its fulfilment; I have, however, collected considerable materials and hope before long to prepare them for publication. Meanwhile, the accession of fresh evidence relative to the acrophonic numerals, while it does not appear to me to invalidate my main conclusions, calls for the addition of a few notes to my previous article with a view of bringing it up to date and rendering it less incomplete.

The column drums of the temple at Phanai and the blocks and mouldings of Emporio have attracted a number of occasional scribblings; some of these are cut, many are scratched or punched in rows of single or multiple dots, for others the surface of the stone has only been ‘slightly stunned’. Most are memorial and need no general comment after Rehm's treatment of the Μνήσθη formula. Those that are complete are all of Rehm's ‘motherland’ type and the rest should no doubt be restored on the same pattern.

In general they are of little interest and less importance; indeed the main thing we should like to know about them is their date since in several cases the text has run on from block to block (nos 25, 28 (a), (b), and (c), and 29 (a)) and was therefore inscribed while the blocks were still in their original position. At the moment we have a terminus ante quem in the sixth century A.D. for the destruction of most of the pagan buildings on the site when the basilica church, in which most of the surviving fragments have been found, was built.

The writer assisted at the excavation of the upper strata of the Toumba in 1925, and in 1926 excavated upon the High Table. The results obtained in 1925 by Miss W. Lamb are here incorporated with those of 1926, from notes furnished by her. The remarks on the pottery are based in detail upon the 1926 finds, supplemented by a general study of the material obtained, both from Table and Toumba, in 1925.

On the road from new Sparta to Magoula the most noticeable remains of the ancient city are the extensive brick ruins called ‘Arapissa,’ from the localization here of a legend common in all parts of Greece of a negress or a negro guarding buried treasure. Since so large a building, if it existed in the time of Pausanias, is not likely to have been omitted by him in his description of the city, it was decided to test this site to determine its nature and date. Accordingly from April 20th to the 30th twenty-five men were employed digging round the walls visible above the surface, and sinking trial-pits in other parts to obtain some idea of the plan. Owing to the apparent want of symmetry and to the loose nature of the soil, which was full of rubble, the work proved more difficult and dangerous than had been anticipated.

While accepting A. J. Graham's interpretation of the ‘stèle du port de Thasos’ (SEG 42. 785) as presenting regulations aimed at checking prostitution and associated soliciting in late Archaic Thasos, this article seeks to clarify some specific issues in the text. It urges (i) that the correct reading at l. 31 is κατοικιῶν, with the meaning ‘dwelling’; (ii) that θῆς ἓνεκεν (l. 32) should bear a passive sense, ‘for the sake of being seen’, and, likewise, θήσθω (l. 33), which necessarily picks up θῆς ἓνεκεν, should be regarded as conveying not only the idea of looking out but also of being seen by prospective clients; thus ll. 30–3 are to be rendered ‘no one shall go up onto the roof of maisons publiques in order to be seen, nor shall any woman either show herself from the windows’; and (iii) that προïστάσθω (l. 45) is not to be taken in conjunction with ἐσβαλλέτω (ll. 44–5) as governing the object κόπρον, nor as intransitive in the sense ‘solicit as a prostitute’, but rather as transitive middle, with the subject ὁ ἐνοικέων (l. 34), in the sense ‘exhibit women for sale’.

Even the sites of the Eretrian colonies Methone, Dicaea and Mende in the area of the Thermaic Gulf were unknown ten years ago. Topographical research and excavation reports by Greek scholars have now provided much information on which this article is based.

A very large proportion of the statues that fill our museums are liable to be dismissed somewhat curtly in descriptions as belonging to the ‘School of Praxiteles.’ It would be interesting to know exactly what percentage of the total number of ancient statues which have come down to us is formed by the Aphrodites, Satyrs, Erotes, and others usually classed under this head, but it must certainly be a very large proportion.

Considering the very large number of statues which we treat in this way, it is startling to discover that our literary evidence contains no record at all of any such school ever having been in existence. We know of followers and pupils of Pheidias, of Polycleitus, and of Lysippus, but we hear of no followers or pupils of Praxiteles or of Scopas, in spite of the undoubted and obvious influence of their style upon the sculpture that now fills our museums. It is true that we know of two sons of Praxiteles, Cephisodotus and Timarchus, but the list of their works, though containing a Leto, an Aphrodite, and two statues of Artemis, includes a greater number of statues which we should be inclined to call un-Praxitelean in character.

Les remarques ici présentées ne touchent qu'indirectement aux domaines où M. A. J. B. Wace est spécialiste et maître; qu'il veuille bien, pourtant, les agréer, en souvenir de notre longue et amicale communauté de travail dans l'Orient héllénique: ἐν εἰρήνῃ καὶ ἐμ πολέμῳ

En suivant récemment les études consacrées aux problèmes des agoras grecques, études qui n'ont pas cessé d'être nombreuses et intéressantes—je pense ici, par exemple, aux observations faites encore en 1949–1950, par R. E. Wycherley, en Angleterre, par R. Martin, en France1—je n'ai pas pu éviter l'impression d'une part peut-être trop insuffisante accordée à certaines découvertes, qui ont montré, il y a peu, l'importance des primitives ἀγοραὶθεῶν celles-ci ont été le modèle divin offert, je crois, dès la période archaïque, aux futures agoras humaines; les agoras humaines ne se sont constituées et organisées indépendamment qu'à une date relativement plus basse.

§ 1. A Welcome addition to our knowledge of this language, the pre-Hellenic speech of Praesos and therefore the direct representative, according to all the traditions, of that spoken at the Court of Minos, was made in the continued explorations of the Altar-hill of Praesos by the British School in June 1904. As the nomos-fragment was found among débris which had fallen from the temple on the top of that hill, Mr. Bosanquet set himself to explore a line of ‘pockets,’ or vertical cavities in the rock along the side of the hill, some distance below the summit. One of these was choked with large pieces of rock which he removed by blasting; and he was rewarded by the discovery underneath of the new and most interesting inscription reproduced here.

Evidence is adduced to show that the toponym Dikta and its adjectival form Diktaios, which have been applied to a variety of locations in Central and Eastern Crete, belong properly to the ancient site currently being reinvestigated by the British School at Palaikastro. Alternative identifications are attributed to the confusion of the various traditions concerning the birth and upbringing of Cretan Zeus which becomes evident in ancient sources in the Hellenistic period. The invention of a Diktaian cave is shown to be the product of a similar process of conflation. A further element of confusion has been added by the citation of a Hellenistic boundary text. The correct identification of Dikta provides a toponymic continuity linking the phases of occupation of the archaeological site at Palakastro.

Ephoros remarked in his history that Boeotia was unique among Greek lands in having a coast well provided with harbours and fronting three seas, open to the West, the North, and the East, to Italy, Sicily, and Carthage, to Macedonia and the Euxine, and to Egypt, Cyprus, and the islands; and that it thus had ample opportunities for education, and was marked out by nature for rule over others. Strabo quotes this with approval, adding a remark of his own about the permanence of the success of the Romans due to the education they had received from contact with civilized countries: if only Boeotia had known how to educate her sons! The author of the Periplus which passes under the name of Skymnos of Chios (about 90 B.C.) says the same in almost the same words; and Stephanos of Byzantium repeats it.

Nineteen Greek inscriptions from the recent excavations at the Roman stoa and Roman theatre at Sparta are published. They include two honorific inscriptions of imperial date, one for a previously unknown Octavia Agis, ‘descendant of the founder gods of the city Heracles and Lycurgus’, and at least four fragments from Romanperiod lists of civic magistrates. Two of these were found in situ and reveal that the proedria of the theatre, as well as the orchestra drain and east parodos, were inscribed with documents of this type.

On a low spur of the hills that shut in the Sitia valley on the east, immediately overlooking the sea and separated from the port of Sitia by nearly a mile of sand-bar, stands the unimportant hamlet of Petras, originally Venetian, afterwards ‘Turkish’ or Moslem-Cretan, and for the most part ruined and deserted since 1896. Mr. Marshall came here in January, 1901, and collected sherds which left no doubt about the early date of the remains, treated by previous travellers as Hellenic. Lying on a deep bay and commanding as it does the easiest route into the Eteocretan highlands, it seemed likely that Petras might furnish useful clues, if not to the indigenous culture of the district, at any rate to the foreign influences that were at work here during the Bronze Age. Later, when two months of work at Praesos had produced very little Kamáres pottery of the familiar mid-Cretan types and no Mycenaean, it seemed doubly desirable to examine this, the nearest definitely Mycenaean site, and to ascertain what had been the local varieties of early pottery.

A rock-cut tomb excavated in 1978 at the south-west end of Lake Vouliagmeni, Perachora, contained the remains of some ten skeletons, and a large quantity of EH II pottery. The best-preserved examples of the pottery are described, and parallels for them adduced. It is argued that the tomb is an ossuary rather than a simultaneous burial.