Although it had been intended to close the excavation in 1905, a few days were spent in 1906 in clearing up doubtful points. Work was carried on for only eight days with about ten men, but in spite of this small scale of operations a good deal of fresh light was thrown on the nature of Late Minoan II. burials. I was assisted throughout by Mr. J. P. Droop, of Trinity College, Cambridge.

Our first object was to test the field in which were found some years ago two stone moulds for making castings of female figures, double axes, and other objects. The field lies on the left of the road from Siteia to Palaikastro, just before the first houses of the hamlet of Haghia Triadha are reached. The results were disappointing: a day and a half's trenching exposed the scanty remains of a Minoan (probably Late Minoan III.) house, but as no signs of wealth were found, the work was discontinued.

The next site tried was Pláko, a mountain dairy a little south of Palaikastro, high up between the hill of Petsofá and Cape Pláka. Two years before the owner had cleared out a hollow underneath a projecting ledge of limestone, in order to make a cistern, and in the small deep cave so opened had found two ‘blossom’ bowls, a fine lentoid gem, a bronze ring and human remains. The objects, except the ring, which had been destroyed, were secured for the Candia Museum.

It is only recently that the ritual object κέρνος or κέρχνος described by Athenaeus has been discovered, recognized, and explained by the labours of Philios, Kourouniotes, and Rubensohn. It was a clay vessel, to which were attached a number of small cups containing various grains and liquids, offered as first fruits of the harvest, especially in the Eleusinian worship, to the divinity. It was carried in procession on the head of the priestess (κερνοφορεῖν, κερνοφορία) to the accompaniment of ritual dancing (κερνοφόρον ὄρχημα) Besides the grains, the liquids and the unwashed wool, in the central bowl of the kernos was placed the παλάθιον upon which was set a lighted lamp or candle.

There is thus no doubt about the form and use of the kernos of the Greek period. But its existence and use have been traced also to the prehistoric period by Mr. Bosanquet, who has described similar Pre-Mycenaean vessels found many years ago in Melos, and now preserved in various European museums. He has also described and explained as a kernos another vessel consisting of three small vases, found in a tomb at στὸν Κάπρο near Phylakopi in Melos, and belonging to the so-called Cycladic (Early Minoan) period, and also in the excavations of the British School at Phylakopi prehistoric kernoi were found. Further, Mr. Dawkins considers that forty-four conical cups, which he found broken off some such complex vessels, together with idols and other ritual objects, in a Minoan house at Palaikastro in Crete, belonged to kernoi.

In the spring of 1906 I spent some time in the Museum at Candia, studying the Cretan Geometric pottery. In particular my attention was devoted to two large groups hitherto unpublished, the one from Praesos excavated by Mr. R. C. Bosanquet and Mr. J. H. Marshall in 1901 and the other discovered by a local tomb-hunter, ᾿Ιωάμμης Χατζιλάρης in 1902, in a tomb near Adhromyloi, two hours south-west of Praesos, and confiscated by the local authorities.

To these I added two groups, the one of five vases from Vavelloi, a village almost on the site of ancient Praesos, and the other, consisting of four vases, from a field on the road between Haghios Nikolaos and Mirabello, which latter group I have to thank Dr. Joseph Hazzidakes for permission to publish.

The clay of the large majority of the vases is of a rather soft nature and buff in colour, often, however, especially in the Adhromyloi group, slightly tinged with pink. The paint used is generally a sepia without much glaze, varying in shade according to its thickness and the amount of baking which it received. This normal clay and paint is to be assumed in what follows, unless there be a note.

Professor Bosanquet has kindly asked me to publish the contents of the following tombs found on the east side of the gravel ridge, west of the road from Vavelloi (modern village) to ancient Praesos. The description of the objects is derived in the main from notes made at the time of excavation by Mr. J. H. Marshall in 1901 (cf. B.S.A. viii. pp. 231 ff.). I have added remarks on some of the ornaments (chiefly in gold and silver) which were discovered.

Tomb 2.—Small b.-f. kylix.

Tomb 3 (unbuilt).—Corinthian vase with four projecting handles; two pyxides, one broken.

Tomb 6 (unbuilt).—Burnt b.-f. fragments; amphora of common ware; two toilet vases, red clay, sepia slip; small common juglet with two handles.

Tomb 8 (burnt).—Bones; a few beads; b.-f. toilet vase; jug with high neck, of common ware.

Tomb 9 (roughly built).—Two silver pins (one illustrated below, Fig. 4, on the r.; long-necked amphora with high shoulder handles, intact (25·8 cm. high); toilet vase with rounded sides; shell; iron axe above tomb, which was 1 m. deep.

Tomb 10 (built of square blocks; floor ·71 m. down).—Silver ring; b.-f. fragments; common vase fragments, some incised with cross-hatchings; flat vase, like upper part of toilet vase, in bright red clay with sepia slip.

Tomb 12 (roughly outlined and covered with irregular slabs; cremation).—Beads; burnt silver pins (?); part of iron strigil; fragments of b.-f. toilet vase; bronze ring and more beads near the tomb, probably belonging to it.

When I was in Athens during the session of 1903–4, Mr. Bosanquet handed over to me for study from the collection of antiquities in the British School a number of pithos-fragments decorated with bands of ornament in relief. Two of these (Nos. I., II. Figs. 1,2), the only ones showing exclusively geometric designs, form the subject of the present paper, the others I hope to publish subsequently. The pithoi, of which they are fragments, were enormous barrel-like jars of earthenware, used for storing corn, wine, oil, etc. They were frequently large enough to hold a man (e.g. the ‘tub’ of Diogenes was a pithos), and ranked as immovable furniture, being in general, either wholly or partially sunk in the ground. Apparently they were constructed in sections, the joins being cemented and concealed by raised bands of clay (in principle not unlike the hoops of a barrel), decorated, as was only natural, in some rapid mechanical way. In the earliest times this decoration consisted of incised lines, later, a mould or stamp was used to print the ornament either directly on to the clay before firing, or on to bands previously cut out, which were then cemented on to the surface of the vase; finally a method of decoration almost ideal for its purpose was supplied by the introduction from the East of engraved cylinders, which by simple rolling along the clay produced a continuous recurring pattern.

In the spring of 1896, a small excavation conducted by Mr. Cecil Smith, then Director of the British School, resulted in the discovery of the site of the Kynosarges gymnasium on the left bank of the Ilissus below Callirrhoe.

The excavation also brought to light a considerable number of ‘Dipylon’ tombs. It is unfortunate that, according to the law as it then stood, the larger part of the vases found in these tombs passed into the hands of the owner of the site and are now beyond reach, but a certain number are preserved in the Museum of the British School, and these, to judge from a photograph of some of the lost vases, I believe to be good representatives of the whole group. I have to thank Mr. Cecil Smith for permission to publish them.

There are in all forty-four vases, many unfortunately very fragmentary. Besides these there are three pieces which show traces of later oriental influence. The numbers are those of the Museum Catalogue.

These excavations arose out of the discovery by Professor Burrows, of an inscription built into the wall of the church of H. Dimitrios near Schimatari Station. This inscription, which was published by him in the last number of the Annual, was the base of his provisional identification of this site with that of the Temple of Apollo at Delium. Excavation was rendered possible by a grant from the Craven Committee at Oxford and proved that the identification was not supported by archaeological evidence. The excavation of other sites in the more immediate neighbourhood of Dilisi, a village on the coast which has generally been considered to occupy the position of the ancient Delium, led also to purely negative results, but as the sites excavated at Dilisi included all the places at which ancient remains are known to have existed, and most of the places which might naturally have been chosen as temple-sites, the excavations have at least cleared the ground for future investigators.

The mountain-road from Megara to Thebes has always been a highway of some importance. Rising from the Megarian plain, it wound upwards among the hills until it topped the pass leading to the harbour of Aegosthena, passing on the right the site of the modern Vilia; near this pass it joined another road running up from Pagae, the other Megarian harbour. From the nature of the ground the old road and the modern mule-track must have followed much the same lines. The rocky range of hills, over which the pass already mentioned leads, is Mount Carydi. The need of guarding such a strategic point, whence the Megarian plain and the land round Pagae could easily be overlooked, is clear at first sight; and in fact there are still standing two fine Greek towers on the southern side of the pass. These were first described by Buchon: they are also marked in the map accompanying a dissertation by Lebègue, and mentioned in his text.

Our knowledge of Damophon of Messene is primarily derived from the fragments of the great group made by him for the temple of Despoina at Lycosura, and discovered there by M. Cavvadias during the excavations undertaken in the summer of 1889. The best known fragments are the three heads and the piece of embroidered drapery in the National Museum at Athens, but a great number of smaller pieces exist in the magazines at Athens and in the museum recently erected at Lycosura.

From Pausanias we learn that Damophon erected many statues in Messene and in the sanctuary of the Great Goddesses at Megalopolis; that he worked at Aigion and Lycosura; and that he was entrusted with the repairs of the Zeus of Pheidias at Olympia. There is no mention of Damophon in other classical writers.

In November and December 1906 I travelled in the south of Italy in order to examine Messapian inscriptions. These inscriptions, believed by Mommsen to belong to the first and second centuries B.C., have been rather neglected of late, but rumours of forgeries, accepted and published with too little criticism, made some investigation desirable. Ten years ago Sig. Bartolomeo Nogara ascertained the number of these inscriptions then known to exist, but without, I think, any detailed criticism of them. I followed in his footsteps, and my enquiries, which were directed to everyone likely to be interested in such matters, covered the whole ground, so that I believe that I saw all still extant. Of course other inscriptions, of which nothing has yet been heard, may have been found lately in country places, but my time, unfortunately, was too limited to allow of my searching through every village in that crowded district, though I was fortunate enough to light on some as yet unpublished, and not widely known.

These notes are part of the results of a journey undertaken by us in the summer of 1906. We have been led to put them together in the hope that they may be of some service to other travellers, and perhaps serve as a basis for a fuller and more perfect account of the islands concerned. Any references not given in footnotes to the text will be found in the Bibliography at the beginning.

During a visit to Bizye (modern Viza) in February 1906, I gathered the inscriptions which are here published. Mr. Hasluck has supplied the initialled notes and restorations, and I am responsible for the texts only.

R.M.D.

Viza lies seventy miles to the north-west of Constantinople, and twenty miles to the west of the Black Sea. It was the seat of the chiefs of the Astai (whence ᾿Αστική as a subdivision of Thrace), and afterwards of the Thracian kings whose relationships are discussed below.

The course of the Roman road along the southern shore of the sea of Marmora between Priapus and Cyzicus has hitherto been known only from the Peutinger table and from a single milestone (the thirteenth) found in a Turkish cemetery above Tchaoush-keui, not far therefore from its original position. The Peutinger table notes only one point between the places named—the crossing of the Granicus. That of the Aesepus, a much more important river, is still marked by the considerable remains of a fine Roman bridge, which, owing to its secluded position at a turn of the valley, has hitherto escaped the notice of such travellers as have passed along the coast road. Hearing at Boghashehr, where I had shewn an interest in the fast-vanishing ruin of Ak-kupru, that a similar bridge existed on the road to Gunen, I took that route and was rewarded by the discovery of the best-preserved ancient bridge in the district.

‘The boats which come down the river to Babylon are circular and made of skins. The frames, which are of willow, are cut in the country of the Armenians above Assyria, and on these, which serve for hulls, a covering of skins is stretched outside, and thus the boats are made, without either stem or stern, quite round like a shield. They are then entirely filled with straw, and their cargo is put on board, after which they are suffered to float down stream. Their chief freight is wine, stored in casks made of the wood of the palm-tree. They are managed by two men, who stand upright in them, each plying an oar, one pulling and the other pushing. The boats are of various sizes, some larger, some smaller; the biggest reach as high as five thousand talents' burthen. Each vessel has a live ass on board; those of larger size have more than one. When they reach Babylon, the cargo is landed and offered for sale; after which the men break up their boats, sell the straw and the frames, and loading their asses with the skins, set off on their way to Armenia. The current is too strong to allow a boat to return up-stream, for which reason they make their boats of skins rather than wood. On their return to Armenia they build fresh boats for the next voyage.’

A not unprofitable search among the manuscripts of the British Museum for travellers' accounts of Cyzicus and its neighbourhood, has persuaded me that an annotated list of those manuscripts which deal with Levantine geography may be a useful contribution to the bibliography of travel. It is needless to say that this paper has no palaeographical pretensions; such points as the dates of handwriting have been for the most part supplied me by Mr. J. A. Herbert, to whom I am also indebted for much other assistance.

The MSS. I have examined fall generally into one of three rough classes:—

(1) Isolarii and accounts of individual Aegean islands.

(2) Voyages and travels to Constantinople.

(3) Travels in Asia Minor.

In my previous paper on Cretan Palaces and the Aegean Civilization I sought to give a general account of the architectural evidence resulting from excavation, in its bearing on the disputed question as to the continuity of Aegean culture throughout the course of its development.

It will now be advisable to consider the problems involved on a wider basis, in the light of the objects other than architectural, found in Crete and elsewhere in the Aegean world.

The Carian Hypothesis as to the Origins of the Aegean Civilization.

That the implications of the question are of an ethnological character will at this stage in the inquiry be generally admitted. And here it will be convenient to take as our point of departure a standpoint that may now perhaps be regarded as pretty general, though negative in its bearings, and which is to the effect that the originators of the Aegean civilization, at any rate in its pre-Mycenaean phases, were not ‘Achaeans’ in the vague general sense of being a people from the mainland of Greece. But the attempt to give a positive form to this conclusion has led to the revival of an old hypothesis which is perhaps not so entirely out of date as has lately been supposed. According to this hypothesis, the originators and representatives of the Aegean civilization were Carians from southwest Anatolia, and it was they, according to Doerpfeld, who built the earlier palaces of Crete. The later Cretan palaces, on the other hand, according to the same authority, were built by people of Achaean, and so of Hellenic race.

The troubled state of the Peloponnesus during the Middle Ages left its mark on no buildings more evidently than on its castles. Each successive owner obtained his title at the cost of some part of the building, and his first thought on gaining possession was either to strengthen the fortress he had just captured, or to dismantle it utterly and leave behind him a useless pile of ruins. Military architecture too, is little influenced by respect for the past and the more important castles must have been frequently modernised, so but little is left of their original structure. The lack of those ornamental details which are the main clue to the age of more elaborate buildings renders a classification of the different types of plan and of masonry of some importance; where mouldings or other details are found their evidence is usually conclusive, but in their absence we must be guided by the form of the plan and by the masonry.

The year 1906 was marked by the inception of what seems likely to be the most extensive and productive piece of work yet undertaken by the British School at Athens. We take this opportunity of expressing our thanks to the Hellenic Government and the Ephor-General of Antiquities for the liberality with which permission to undertake the excavation of this important site was accorded to us, and for the constant support given to us in all the stages of the work. Among the officials of the Department of Antiquities we are particularly indebted to Dr. Soteriades, the Ephor appointed to reside at Sparta during the excavations, and among local officials, to the Demarch, the Treasurer and the Chief Engineer, thanks to whose co-operation many difficulties and obstacles were overcome, and to Mr. G. D. Kapsales, the efficient Curator of the Museum.

From the 3rd till the 26th of May a series of trial excavations was made along the river bank, north of the precinct of Artemis Orthia. These resulted in the discovery of the Greek wall of the city and of traces of an, at present, nameless Heroön close to it. The following description begins from the south. (General Plan, Pl. VII.)

The part of the wall found south-east of the Artemisium is, as far as it has at present been uncovered, of a normal type (Plate VII.). It is three metres thick, built of hewn limestone blocks laid in courses with irregular jointing. Not more than two courses are preserved, and they rest on a foundation of small stones and rough blocks. Most remarkable is the deep drain running out through the wall, which here comes obliquely from the cliff to the south, between the Roman building and the river. Where the Eurotas has eaten into the bank and destroyed part of the Roman arena, the wall also has been carried away. On the cliff (General Plan, O 16) a few trial pits produced one tile-stamp (of type 17, see p. 348), and revealed a long block of hewn rock, but the line of the fortification has still to be found here.

South of the well mentioned above and inside the city wall a series of trial pits produced important results (P 13). At a distance of 1·80 m. from the city wall another wall was found which varies from ·50 to ·65 m. in width. Between this, which was followed for some distance, and the city wall, traces of a pavement of beaten earth came to light at a depth of 1·40 m. On the outside of the inner wall a drain was found running parallel to it. We have here, most probably, a street that followed the city wall on the inside. The depth at which it was found agrees very well with that of a similar pavement to the west of the Altar (1·82 m.). The lower level there perhaps indicates an earlier date. In any case the level of the road was raised in a later period, as proved by the tile drain referred to above. Within the inner wall we found distinct traces of a shrine, probably a Heroön. Everywhere, except in the neighbourhood of the well, where the lower strata are composed of gravel, regular stratification ranging from the Geometric age to late Greek times was distinguishable. The Greek layer, which cannot yet be divided into early and late periods, begins at an average depth of a metre. At about 1·90 m. Corinthian pottery was found, which between 2·15 and 2·45 m. was sometimes mixed with Geometric fragments. The Geometric stratum commences at an average depth of 2·30 m., and at three metres or a little deeper the soil is virgin.