The British School's work in the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia at Sparta was in its day generally hailed as a classic example of carefully observed stratigraphic excavation in Greece. Equally general has been the reluctance of scholars to accept the dates which were proposed by the excavators for their finds on the basis of their observations on stratigraphy and pottery contexts. In this the excavators were at fault in their choice of absolute dates for the main periods; and, equally, critics have been at fault in failing to adjust their dating. Kunze pointed out the major inconsistencies and the results of accepting some of the excavators' dates in his review of Artemis Orthia (published in 1929 by the Hellenic Society) in Gnomon ix (1933) 1–14. In their answer to another review the excavators gave an excellent account of their method and of the use and abuse of stratigraphy (JHS 1 (1930) 329–36). By reconsidering the absolute dates they proposed I think it is possible to recover much of the value of the observations they made about the stratigraphy and the relative chronology of the finds, and to make some new suggestions about the history of the site and dating of some Laconian objects.

The main feature in the stratigraphy of the sanctuary was a blanket of sand which covered the whole area, and which, according to the excavators, sealed deposits earlier than about 600 B.C. Beneath the sand there was a succession of deposits down to virgin soil, which clearly represented a gradual, although by no means even, accumulation of earth and discarded votives. The only significant physical difference in levels which could be observed was offered by the presence of a pebble pavement which was associated with remains of the earliest altar on the site. This pavement, preserved only in small patches, was embedded in the main ‘Geometric’ level, as it was defined by the excavators. This contained much burnt material. The pavement was assigned to the ninth century.

Many clays and stones contain particles of magnetic oxides of iron. These particles, if heated above their Curie points, which range up to 670° C., lose whatever magnetism they have; and when they cool back through their Curie points, they acquire a new ‘thermoremanent’ magnetization under the influence of the surrounding magnetic field, which generally is the magnetic field of the earth. That field is changing continuously, both in direction and intensity, and the course of its secular change is not yet understood; the change is compound, one factor being the main field, which may be fairly stationary over long periods, and the other being the numerous minor regional fields, which move and alter relatively quickly and largely determine the local variations in the magnetic field. So it is dangerous to extrapolate values for local variations either for more than a century or two in time or for more than five to ten degrees in space. At present the best hope for discovering past changes in the earth's field is from the thermoremanent magnetization of burnt clays and stones, where the date of the burning is reasonably closely fixed from other evidence. Such knowledge is obviously of interest to geophysicists, but for periods and places where the past course of the earth's field has been ascertained, archaeomagnetism—that is the study of the thermoremanent magnetization of archaeological remains—can help archaeologists too. It should be evident on reflection that if an archaeomagnetic specimen is to be useful certain requirements are necessary. First, the locality where it was magnetized must be known. Secondly, for the study of direction, the sample's orientation at the time when it was magnetized must be recorded, so that the inclination [or dip] and declination [or compass bearing] of its own thermoremanent magnetism can be related to the horizontal and to true North respectively.

Perhaps the most popular vase shape in Euboea in the fourth century was the lidded lekanis. A number of specimens, decorated with floral motives on the lid and simple leaves or linear patterns on the receptacles, may be seen in BSA lv, pls. 54–57 passim. They show considerable variety in the shape of the knobs and in the treatment of the handles, but the receptacles remain fundamentally the same. Akin to these are little bowls of similar shape, lidded, but without handles. Such are the vases of a kernos of unknown provenience in Athens with a vaguely anthropomorphic central handle consisting of a long loop surmounted by a moulded head and with small arm-like projections recalling those of a herm (Plate 1, 1). The lids of three of the four little vases are preserved, the two nearest the handle having horizontal rims, while the two outer vases both had lids with rims turning vertically down, as is shown by the one extant lid and by the flanges on both the receptacles. The knobs of the two lids with horizontal rims are of a shape similar to the stemmed foot of a cup or dish; the surviving lid with down-turned rim has a ring like the footring of a stemless cup to serve as a knob. Each kind of knob, stemmed or stemless, functioned as a foot when the lid was set upside down on the table and became a dish. The low footring knobs were not unknown in Athens, but they were commoner in Euboea. One was noticed in BSA lv. 212, no. 8 on a lid, not figured, belonging to the Bonn group of floral black-figure, which is undoubtedly of Euboean, and very probably of Chalcidian manufacture. We shall see more of them later on.

1. Edessa. This inscription is still where Leake first reported it, in the courtyard of the Metropolitan Church, the Dormition of the Virgin, built into the south end of the west wall of the Γραφεῖον of the Δεσπότης. Although it has been published half a dozen times, the text has never been read correctly in its entirety, largely because its height from the ground makes the taking of a photograph or the making of a squeeze, let alone a study of the letters, very difficult. I was fortunate to be able to examine it in situ, and the accompanying photograph of a squeeze will facilitate the establishment of the text (Plate 5).

It is a rough block, c. 0·46 m. in height and 0·50 m. in width, with a moulding all round, the first line being engraved on the upper moulding. The letters are irregular, measuring on an average 0·025 m. in ll. 1–6 and 0·01 m. in ll. 7–18. The letter-forms, especially important in a dated inscription, are noteworthy. Alpha, delta, and lambda have short tails on the apex; in ll. 1–6 epsilon is square, in ll. 7–18 lunar; similarly in ll. 1–6 sigma is square, in ll. 7–18 lunar. The forms of mu and omega are to be noted; see the accompanying photograph. There are no ligatures.

On the east slope of Lower Gypsades hill, about 100 metres west of the Temple Tomb, a chamber tomb came to light in August 1958, when a cutting for a new water pipe was driven through the area (A in Plate 9 a). In the course of this operation, part of a plain larnax (iii) was sliced off, and much earth removed from the west end of the collapsed chamber: at no point, however, had the municipal workmen penetrated to the tomb floor.

The chamber was approached by a sloping dromos (Plate 9 a: length 2·80 metres; max. width 1 metre), roughly cut into the natural kouskouras rock: its walls were approximately perpendicular. Although the gradient varied a good deal, there was no suggestion of a stairway.

The blocking wall was found in good condition. Of especial interest were the numerous fragments of larnakes that had been built into its fabric: some of them could be recognized as belonging to each of the three fragmentary larnakes (i, ii, v) whose scattered pieces were found below and around the two undisturbed burials in the chamber (iii, iv). We may thus distinguish two periods in the history of the tomb: larnakes i, ii, and v were evidently smashed up in order to make room for iv and iii, which must have been deposited in that order. The debris of v was found under iv, with a few adult bones in its wreckage. Part of i lay on the floor near the south-west corner, where two plain vases (2, 3) were found in situ, hence, also, came most of the fragments of the fine L.M. IIIA 2 stirrup vase (1), although its other pieces were scattered all over the floor of the tomb. This small group of offerings may belong to the disturbed adult skeleton, whose skull lay up against the lower edge of iii. Curiously, some fragments of i and ii were also found above the broken lid of iv (Plate 9 b): perhaps the lid of the later larnax was accidentally smashed at the time of the funeral, in which case the debris from earlier burials could have been piled up above it, as a rough and ready means of protection.

The possibility of establishing the sequence and chronological development of Mycenaean pottery by excavation on a well-stratified site is remote. Remains of the Mycenaean period are, generally, found either on rocky outcrops or in the eroded upper levels of mounds which have been inhabited for many centuries, and there is, thus, little scope for true stratigraphic excavation. The very considerable quantity of Mycenaean pottery which has been discovered in the Mediterranean area and the studies of it which have been published in the last twenty-five years have produced the impression that Mycenaean pottery is ‘well known’. Indeed, such pottery is, on the whole, easily recognized but there is often great difficulty in dating it. Pottery from settlements has largely been neglected, on the grounds of its fragmentary condition, in favour of better-preserved examples from tombs. The result is that, in his volume dealing with chronology, Furumark was able to use, for the L.H. III period, only ten groups of pottery from domestic contexts. Moreover, if the student of today wishes to compare new material with these groups, he will find that the evidence from Mycenae (four of the ten groups) was almost completely lost during the war and that of the rest only the pottery from Athens and from Zygouries is available.

The plains of Pyrgi, Kalamoti, and Dotia, in the south-east corner of Chios, form a single geographic unit, bounded in the east by the hills which run inland from the promontory of Agridia, in the west by the low range of Kampia, Aradhopetra, and Kakopetria, and in the north by the more formidable barrier of the central mountains of the island. In them there are traces of several ancient sites, at Pindakas, Dotia, and elsewhere, but these appear to have been little more than isolated farmhouses or small sanctuaries and it is almost certain that most of the inscriptions from the area came originally from the major sites at Emporio and Phanai. From these they have been transported, some as far as Chios town, most to other local sites, to country churches or to the medieval towns of Pyrgi and Kalamoti. In many cases it is now impossible to trace their origin (even those which have reached the comparative safety of the Museum are often without record of their provenance), and it would therefore be pointless to try to isolate the inscriptions of any one ancient centre. For this reason I have collected here, in addition to the few inscriptions discovered in the British School excavations at Emporio, all the other material known to have been found in the area. For convenience I reproduce all but the most accessible texts in full. Generally it has been possible to check earlier readings on the stone (in which case the text is my own without any note of alterations unless they are significant); those which I have not seen are marked with an asterisk.

This article is a continuation of that published in BSA lvii. 46–74, and the same principles have been followed in editing the present series of fragments. The three sections deal with the tablets found during excavations at Knossos in 1961, two small fragments preserved in the British Museum but hitherto unrecorded, and a collection of pieces in Iraklion which had previously been overlooked or thought unworthy of publication. The new numbers assigned run from 8210 to 8332.

The system of transcription has been slightly modified to conform to the latest version of the ‘Wingspread Convention’ dated 1962 and published by Professor E. L. Bennett as a supplement to Nestor. The use of hyphens between groups of letters representing Mycenaean signs has been continued, as allowing in some cases a more accurate account to be given of the state of the text. The expansions of the abbreviated names of the ideograms will be found in the index of ideographic signs on p. 88. The comma has been used as the transcription of the word-divider, as it seems inadequate, especially in fragmentary texts, to leave it to be inferred merely from the spacing.

In the course of studying Late Minoan pottery in Crete the author came across two sherds which were clearly of Cypriot origin. The first was found among material from the 1901 excavations of the British School at Zakro and the second in the boxes of the Stratigraphical Museum at Knossos. Since there is only one other definite occurrence in Crete of a Cypriot Bronze Age import, they seemed to merit attention and publication. It is particularly opportune that they should have been found so soon after the recent study of Minoan imports in Cyprus.

This investigation into the compositions of Minoan and Mycenaean pottery fabrics was carried out in Oxford at the Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art by permission of the Director, Dr. E. T. Hall. Mrs. E. E. Richards, co-author of this report, was in charge of the investigation, latterly with the assistance of Mrs. A. Millett. The potential importance of the work undertaken was first suggested by Mr. M. S. F. Hood, then Director of the British School at Athens. Mr. Hood has maintained lively interest in the investigation, and has made many valuable suggestions about the course it should take, as well as providing much of the sherd material. In this connexion we are greatly indebted to Dr. J. Papadimitriou, Director-General of Antiquities in Greece, for granting the necessary export permits. We are also grateful to Mr. M. R. Popham, for scraping selected sherds in the Herakleion Museum and in the Stratigraphical Museum at Knossos, and to Dr. N. Platon, then Ephor of Antiquities in Crete, for allowing this to be done. Sherds from Thebes in the University Museum, Reading, were loaned by Mrs. A. N. Ure; the Rev. Dr. A. J. Arkell provided a set of Mycenaean sherds from Tell el Amarna from the collections in University College, London. Fragments from Rhodes were given by the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities in the British Museum through the kindness of Mr. D. E. L. Haynes and Mr. R. A. Higgins. Other sherds were provided from the reserve collection in the Ashmolean Museum. The sherds tested in the course of the investigation are now housed in the Ashmolean, with the exception of the group from Thebes (Reading).

This ancient instrument, which is, for the student of Greek music, one of the most significant finds of recent years, came to light during excavations at Brauron, on the east coast of Attica, in August 1961. These excavations, under the direction of Dr. I. Papadimitriou (Director-General of the Greek Archaeological Service), are still in progress, and a full report has not yet been published: so far as this item is concerned, it was found in a sacred spring near the north-west corner of the ancient temple, along with a number of objects which are dated by Dr. Papadimitriou to the late sixth or early fifth century B.C. They were perhaps in situ, buried or hidden, when the Persians sacked the site during the Salamis campaign.

The find (item 1059 in the catalogue) comprises the two lower sections of an aulos: there is no apparent reason to doubt that they belong together. The central joint is of the usual type—spigot and socket—and at one end (A in the diagram) there is another socket for the attachment of the next section. At the other end (C in the diagram) there is no spigot or socket: as Hole V is manifestly a vent-hole (see below) this must have been the lower end of the instrument.