One of the most interesting phenomena in the history of ceramic art is the absorption of the market of the world by Attic ware. The sixth-century tombs of Italy, Sicily and elsewhere show a gradual decrease in importations from Corinth, Chalcis, Cyrene and Ionia, and by the time of the beginning of the fifth century the Attic black- and red-figured ware has acquired a complete monopoly. The area over which these Attic vases were distributed comprises almost the whole of the world as known at that time—Greece Proper, the Aegean Islands, the Cyrenaica, Egypt, Asia Minor, the Crimea and above all Italy and Sicily. The question suggests itself how far this large and varied export was influenced by the special demand in various localities; how far, in fact, each locality had its own definite needs for special vase forms, which the ceramic trade of Athens was to supply.

With the larger terracottas excavated by the British School of Athens at Praesos in 1900 I have already dealt elsewhere (B.S.A. viii. pp. 271 ff.). My purpose here is to treat of the interesting series of plaques discovered during the same excavations, of which I was then only able to give but a summary account. Their interest lies not so much in their artistic merit as in the light they throw on the customs and beliefs of the Eteocretan people during a long period extending from the archaic to the Hellenistic age.

Work began on March 29th, and continued, with the usual break for Easter, until June 17th, with an average of about sixty to seventy workmen. Mr. W. A. Kirkwood of the University of Toronto was present for the first few weeks, rendering valuable assistance, and later Mr. C. H. Hawes of Trinity College, Cambridge, in the course of a journey in Crete undertaken for anthropological work, came and superintended the excavation of a Middle Minoan ossuary and some larnax-burials at Sarandári, of which his report is given below (§ 7). At the end of the season Mr. Guy Dickins of New College, Oxford, came, and, besides other work, undertook the laborious task of packing the finds for transport to the Candia Museum and there unpacking them.

Of the various antiquities found from time to time in the district, which we have been accustomed from the beginning of the excavation to buy for the Candia Museum, by far the greater number have always been neolithic stone axes, some entire, some broken, but nearly all bearing marks of weathering due to exposure on the surface. Thus in 1902 six, in 1903 twenty-one, in 1904 twenty-eight were acquired in this way, and this year, when the habit of noticing them was well established, forty-three. From the first it was noticed that nearly all came from the high limestone plateau that rises south of Palaikastro and forms the centre of the easternmost section of Crete.

Further trial-pits were made this year at the foot of the northern slopes of the Kastri at the site called τὰ ῾Ελληνικά where the two ossuaries described in B.S.A. x. pp. 197 and 202, were found, resulting in the finding of another of the same type, which, with this year's discovery on the top of the knoll of Sarandári makes a total of seven, plans of five of which are given in Fig. 4. Of these, numbered chronologically, I. is described in B.S.A. viii. p. 290, but was too much destroyed for a plan to be possible; II. (Fig. 4, No 1) in B.S.A. x. p. 197; III. (Fig. 4, No. 3) is the one in question; IV. (Fig. 4, No. 4) is the ossuary discovered this year on the top of the rocky knoll of Sarandári, surrounded by Late Minoan III.

This block of buildings, covering some 1300 sq. m. (see Key plan, Pl IX.), has now been fully excavated, and although no more Greek inscriptions or anything in the nature of a Minoan shrine were found, a layer, in some places as much as a metre thick, of archaic terracotta architectural fragments and bronze objects and the lower courses of what was probably a temenos-wall of the temple were uncovered, whilst the Minoan strata were deeper than anywhere else on the site, except parts of Block π, and ranged from Early Minoan to the end of Late Minoan.

The completion of work on this block consisted almost entirely or examining lower strata in the northern and eastern quarters. Whilst in one part of the block (26 on Plates XII. and XIII.) the rocky subsoil rises so high as to have led to the total destruction of all remains, in the immediately adjacent regions to the north and east it sinks so low as to leave some three or four metres of deposit with four clearly separate strata of walls. Plate XII. gives a plan shewing the two earlier sets, Middle Minoan and, above this, but on different lines, Late Minoan I., and Plate XIII.

The ridge of conglomerate and gravel, on the lower stretch of which the Middle Minoan ossuary was found in 1902, descends from the slopes of Petsofá, parallel to a second ridge a little to the west. Between the two the ground sinks, and the overhanging ledges seemed likely to harbour tombs; and indeed several interesting objects were found here last year when a good many trenches were made on these slopes. This year trialpits were dug all round this sunken area. In two of them worked stones were found in disorder, but nothing else.

I visited Crete in the spring of 1905 chiefly for the purpose of making anthropometrical observations on living subjects. At Palaikastro I hoped to obtain fresh data also from ancient skeletons or crania and made some trial-excavations with men put at my disposal by Mr. Dawkins, first without result among the plundered ossuaries on the slopes of Kastri, then with more success in the plain. A larnax had been discovered some years before at a spot called Sarandári, midway between Kastri and Roussolakkos, where a low knoll of conglomerate breaks the level of the surrounding fields. Its bare rocky surface shows through a scanty covering of wild thyme and sage, and is fringed by lentisk-bushes and carob-trees. Fig. 4, No. 4, p. 270, gives a plan of the whole, to the north-east the house-like walls of the ossuaries, to the south-west the larnakes described below.

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.

The Hellenic remains scattered in the surface soil or accumulated behind the temenos-wall included quantities of tiles and architectural terracottas belonging to an earlier and to a later period of the sanctuary. Of those which may be assigned to the archaic entablature the most important are the following:—

(1) Leg of a crouching or running human figure in high relief, probably from the pediment (Fig. 18). The upper part of the thigh is covered with reddish-brown paint representing a tightly-fitting garment, with a white border on which again are dark dots.

The votive offerings, though much scattered and broken are numerous and homogeneous enough to furnish interesting information. The bulk of them belong to the archaic period and testify to the popularity and prosperity of the Dictaean sanctuary from the seventh to the fifth century. The scarcity of later objects is in harmony with the scarcity of architectural remains of the later temple. It is clear that the terracotta decorations and votive offerings of the earlier period must have been buried at the time of rebuilding, while those of the later period have only survived by exception. Among these earlier anathemata bronze shields both large and small and bronze tripods and bowls predominate precisely as they did in the cave of Zeus excavated by Prof. Halbherr and Dr. Hatzidakes on Mount Ida.