The Pelasgian plain is bounded on the east by the foothills of Pelion and Ossa, which rise abruptly from the marshy flats. Among these hills, at the head of a secluded valley some twenty km. from Larisa, lies the modern village of Marmáriane. On the northern side of this valley, at a point about twenty minutes' walk below the village, rises a conspicuous table-topped mound, surmounted by a cornfield from which the grassy slopes fall steeply away.

Most of the vases and fragments here published are from North Central Crete—Episkopi and Arkhanes in the province of Pedhiadha, Fortezza and Kephala near Knossos, various parts of the Palace and Little Palace at Knossos; a few pieces are added from Eleutherna, further west.

The Fortezza vases were found by Mr. Payne in 1927 in an almost completely destroyed chamber tomb of the type described in B.S.A. xxix. p. 226, Fig. 2, in the side of the hill about a mile from Knossos. They are of the protogeometric, geometric, and orientalising periods.

The type is found in some numbers at Knossos, Fortezza, Anopolis and Episkopi; there is an example in Candia Museum from Kavousi, the only specimen from Eastern Crete; the shape does not occur anywhere in the protogeometric period. In these pithoi from Fortezza, the clay varies from light yellow to buff and brown, the varnish is black, the decoration is arranged in panels; the lower part of the body is decorated with broad and narrow bands; there is a small ring foot.

By invitation of the Rask-Oersted Foundation a conference was held at Copenhagen in July 1931. Plans for the study and publication of Byzantine hymns with music were put forward; and a resolution was passed recommending a uniform method for the transcription of Byzantine melodies. This was as follows:

'1. Agreement has been reached with regard to the values of the Byzantine interval-signs in the Middle (Round) and Late (Cucuzelian) systems.

'2. Byzantine musical handbooks afford some indication of the dynamic effect of certain signs. These signs affect the length of the notes, the stress or the rhythm.

Since the first account of Thermi was written for Vol. XXX, a large area has been excavated, completing, more or less, the Early Bronze Age settlement, and defining, as far as is possible, a settlement belonging to the Late Bronze Age.

As space is not unlimited, I have here omitted questions dealt with in Vol. XXX, and, when discussing new aspects of the site, have published less detailed evidence than I could wish. In short, this report must be supplemented, not only by the earlier one, but by a separate and complete publication. In the meantime, I have done my best to give a general outline of the new developments.

The staff consisted of Miss Six, Mr. Hutchinson, Mr. Brock, Miss Mitchell (who was responsible for the maps during one season), myself and, for a shorter period, Mr. Cuttle of Downing College and Miss Horner of Newnham College.

Antissa, now Ovriokastro, 16 km. south-west of Methymna, is, of all ancient sites in the island of Lesbos, the loveliest and the most isolated. On the land side it is cut off by the lower slopes of the massif which culminates in Mt. Ordymnos; on the sea side it is unsheltered and provided with the shallowest anchorage. Nowadays, a small caïque can only call during the hours when the wind drops: long ago, before the change of coast level, deeper water may have provided easier approach.

Koldewey has proved the identification of Ovriokastro with Antissa beyond dispute, and must be referred to for general discussion and for comments on the Genoese and Turkish fortifications. For our own purposes, the site, which is extensive, may be divided into four parts : (1) The Castro. This is a round, hilly promontory, almost separated from the mainland by the mediaeval moat, and built over with Genoese and Turkish walls.