Papademetriou, in publishing a new grave-inscription from Zographo, has propounded a theory which, if true, has important consequences for our understanding of Attic comedy in general and of the Lysistrata of Aristophanes in particular. For convenience I reprint the text with two slight modifications.

In l. 4 the stone has ΜΥΡΡΙΝΕΗΚΛΗΘΗ I prefer to assume that the stone-cutter, uncertain of the correct use of eta (cf. πρώτε and Νίκες in l. 5), has transposed the letters, rather than assume with Papademetriou an unnecessary and unparalleled lengthened form and an omitted augment. After ἐτύμως the three dots of punctuation are clear. Even if they were not, metre and sense would suggest that ἐτύμως went with the previous sentence. ἐτύμως has nearly all its later meaning here. Papademetriou has illustrated the cult-significance of the name Μυρρίνη.

His thesis is this. We know the first priestess of Athena Nike was appointed round about 450, perhaps after the Peace of Kallias. Here is her gravestone, which, from the style of its lettering and the transition to Ionic which it illustrates, ought to be close to 400.

In BSA XLIII (1948), 121, G4 (pl. 46), I published a fragment of gold ornament from the votive deposit at Aetos in Ithaca. I described it as a pendant, but was unable to adduce any real parallel. Comparison with a complete object illustrated in BSA XLIX (1954), pl. 27, 1, shows that it is a snake-head finial from one of a pair of chains (or possibly one of a pair of such finials from a single longer chain) which supported a pendant. The broken end of the hook or ring on which the pendant hung is preserved under the snake's chin, and can be seen in the illustration.

The complete piece, excavated at Khaniale Tekke (Knossos) by R. W. Hutchinson and published by him, loc. cit. 216 f., formed part of a sealed cache, buried in a small pot in the floor of a tomb. Technically the work goes closely with that of another pendant from the same cache (loc. cit., pl. 27, 2), which on stylistic grounds appears, as Mr. Hutchinson points out, to be Cretan of the early or mid-seventh century B.C. The highly stylised snake-head from Aetos is more elaborate than those of the Khaniale Tekke chains, but extremely like them and quite unlike anything else. The treatment of the ‘necks’ is exceedingly similar, and is paralleled in the top bar of the pendant carried by the Khaniale Tekke snakes. The ornament from which the Ithaca piece is broken must certainly have been of the same period as the example from Khaniale Tekke, and quite possibly was also of Cretan origin.

Since Dr. Hamper's identification of epic scenes in eighth-century art twenty years ago opinion has been divided as to how far these can be accepted. To quote two recent opinions, Mr. G. S. Kirk ends his discussion of Hampe's identifications: ‘thus there is no Geometric representation which we can confidently describe as representing a definite scene from the heroic saga, let alone from epic as we know it’. Professor Kraiker, however, accepts the Aktorione–Molione and the Herakles fighting the Stymphalian birds. Mr. J. M. Cook has argued that the spread of the Homeric epic from Ionia to the mainland was responsible both for the institution of hero cults in Greece and for the appearance in post-Geometric painting (seventh century) of scenes derived from the epic.

The existence of epic representations in Attic, Corinthian, and Argive painting of the early seventh century is undoubted, and the list has recently been increased by a very fine Argive Odysseus and Polyphemos and a superb Attic vase with Odysseus blinding Polyphemos and Perseus pursued by Gorgons. The question is whether this is really a new beginning or a development of something already existing which is difficult for us to recognise. I do not wish to argue against the supposition that seventh-century painting was influenced by the spread of the Homeric epic to the mainland, although Boeotian epic would also have to be considered, since its influence on Boeotian fibulae in the seventh century can hardly be doubted; but Boeotian epic was no doubt itself affected by Ionian epic, as certain passages in Hesiod show. On the other hand, Athens was neither without poetry nor without contact with Ionia during the eighth century.

Throughout the history of figure-decorated pottery in Attica the artists also painted flat clay plaques for use as dedications. In addition, for a limited period of a little over a century we find from their workshops similar objects designed specifically for the decoration of tombs: it is with these that this article is concerned, and a catalogue of the surviving examples known to me is appended. All are painted in the black-figure technique and all figure the prothesis, the laying-out of the dead with the accompanying dirge, and many also the assembling of guests and preparation for the procession to the tomb, the ekphora. The plaques themselves have been found in the cemeteries of Athens as well as in outlying villages in Attica, though never in position on a tomb.

Zschietzschmann, in his study of prothesis scenes in Greek art, commented on the fact that these funerary plaques may be divided into those that form part of a series and those complete in themselves, without, however, distinguishing them in his list. We shall see that this division is not a meaningless convenience, for it reflects also their chronology, scale, and ultimate setting. For this reason I have distinguished between the plaque series and the single plaques in the catalogue below, and will deal with each class separately, detailed remarks about individual pieces being reserved for inclusion with their description in the catalogue.

In JHS LXIX (1949), 25 ff., I commented on various Greek inscriptions, mainly archaic. This is a second series on the same lines. The inscriptions are listed geographically, if possible under the relevant headings of Inscriptiones Graecae; when the inscription discussed is not in IG, the heading is bracketed.

[IG I2.] Attica. Graffiti on Attic ‘SOS’ amphorae (Fig. 1).

In Malerei und Zeichnung der Griechen I (1923), 127, Pfuhl described a type of amphora of which stray examples have been found in many parts of the Mediterranean world, in contexts of the seventh and sixth centuries B.C. The clay and paint resembled that of Attic pottery, some of the examples had actually been found in Attica, and, though describing it as ‘eine noch ungelöste Frage’, he was inclined to agree with those archaeologists who called the ware Attic. This was later proved beyond doubt by the American excavators of the Athenian Agora, when they found there numerous examples of the whole series, from its start in Geometric times to its decline during the sixth century. They are described thus by R. S. Young: ‘Their decoration is conventional and very simple; the body is glazed, with reserved bands around the shoulder, and the neck is reserved and decorated with wheels, concentric circles, or diminishing triangles between wavy lines.’ A typical and often-quoted example, showing the wavy-line-and-circle (‘SOS’) decoration of the neck, is that carried by Dionysus on the François Vase, painted by Kleitias c. 570.

They are big enough to carry wine or oil; after Solon's legislation they can have carried only oil to the far parts where they have been found. Their size made them useful, when empty, for urn-burials; most of our examples come from cemeteries.

The base of the peninsula, from the Karaova to Halicarnassus and the Karadağ, is of limestone and singularly devoid of water. It rises to heights of five and six hundred metres in the Kaplan Daği (Mt. Lide) and Karadağ, with steep slopes on the north side and little valleys opening southwards. The western part of the peninsula is said to be of volcanic formation with fundamental gneiss; the hills here are fearfully denuded and sometimes fantastically gnarled, but there are pockets of fertile land in the central valleys and a number of distinct little coastal plains. The peninsula from Halicarnassus westward belongs to the Aegean world and is capable of supporting a normal Aegean economy. The present population of the kaza of Bodrum, which extends on the east beyond Mumcular, is 24,000, of whom about 11,000 live in Bodrum itself on the site of the ancient Halicarnassus.

The sketch map Fig. 1 is based on the Turkish 1: 200,000 survey, but with some modifications. The field exploration which forms the basis of this article occupied about six weeks. We were throughout guided by the map and description of the peninsula published by Paton and Myres after their joint exploration sixty years ago, which laid secure foundations for the study of the geography of Western Caria and the antiquities of the Lelegian country; no subsequent work in this region can compare with theirs in thoroughness or acuteness of observation. We have at points been able to supplement or correct their descriptions, and in places we have judged differently of the evidence on the ground (particularly the chronological testimonies offered by the ancient potsherds), but always with a sense of our own fallibility in work of such a sort where the majority of observations are in fact unverified assumptions.

The British excavations of Mycenae in 1954 were conducted with research grants from the American Philosophical Society and Bollingen Foundation and with contributions from the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, the British Academy, and the British School at Athens, under whose auspices the work was carried out. The Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton has again provided an ideal base for preparing the material for publication.

The work began on June 21st and ceased on August 16th, but the next days up to August 21st were spent in studying and photographing the finds and transporting them to the Nauplia Museum. As before, the inscribed clay tablets and the carved ivories were taken to the National Museum at Athens, to the Director of which, Dr. Karouzos, we owe our best thanks for his friendly help, and the other finds to Nauplia.

The staff of the excavation, in addition to my wife, who again took charge of the records, and myself, consisted of Lord William Taylour of Trinity College, Cambridge, Mrs. R. Stillwell, Miss Elizabeth Wace of Newnham College, Cambridge, Mr. T. Leslie Shear, Jr., of Lawrenceville School, Miss Mary Pym of Girton College, Cambridge, Mr. Herschel Shepard of Princeton University, who was architect, Miss B. Kistruck of Edinburgh University, and Miss Helen Higson of Newnham College, Cambridge.

The exploration of the Grave Circle within the Cyclopean Walls near the Lion Gate, which we began in 1920, resulted in the discovery or identification of several groups of graves, which led us to the conclusion that a Prehistoric Cemetery had lain on the hillside at this point before the fortifications were constructed and that the Shaft Graves were a group of royal graves enclosed within that cemetery.

In 1939, following a suggestion made by Tsountas, we explored the area to the north-west of the Lion Gate outside the walls and found there fifteen graves belonging to the Prehistoric Cemetery which was in use from Middle Helladic to Late Helladic II times. Subsequent exploration outside the walls in this region has resulted in the discovery of yet more graves, and those so far noted and explored outside the walls now number forty. To these we should probably add one more, a disturbed grave found recently by the Anastelosis Section of the Greek Archaeological Service in its operations at the north-west angle of the bastion on the west of the entrance to the Lion Gate.

In 1950 the Anastelosis Section of the Greek Archaeological Service began the restoration of the ‘Tomb of Clytemnestra’, Fig., Plate 35. In view of our previous researches on the tomb, Dr. Papademetriou and the Anastelosis Section invited us to observe the work and to collaborate by a careful examination of the threshold and other points. Dr. Papademetriou has already published an account of the work himself, and the following notes with the plan and photographs are offered as a supplement to what he has written. We are much indebted to him for his friendly help.

The following is an account of several excavations that I undertook on behalf of Professor Wace during the seasons of 1952 and 1953 at Mycenae. These were roughly confined to the area between the so-called Tombs of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, but also included an extension to the east of the Perseia Fountain House, excavated in 1952. The excavations are dealt with under four sections which are as follows:

1. Area Z (the extension east of the Perseia Fountain House).

2. The East–West Wall (south of the Perseia Fountain House).

3. The area round the Tomb of Aegisthus.

4. The Great Poros Wall (on the east flank of the Tomb of Clytemnestra).

A visitor to Mycenae, perhaps in the middle or later part of the fourth century B.C., has left a record of his presence there in the form of a neatly-cut graffito written diagonally across a block of marble, probably a threshold found built into a wall near the Perseia fountain-house. The letters individually are well formed: they appear to diminish in size as the name progresses, but in fact do not do so: the deception may be due to a gradual rise from the horizontal line of the first three or four letters, plus a narrowing horizontal spacing. The cutting is broad and shallow, the name having, as it seems, been gouged out with some bluntish instrument measuring about 0·004 m. in width. Height of letters c. 0·03 m. Photograph (Fig.) from a squeeze now in the collection of the Museum of Classical Archaeology, Cambridge.

The name is ordinary enough, For Athenian examples see Kirchner, PA 5900–11, Hesperia, Indices s.v. etc. The best-known holder of it, not there quoted, was the potter of the late sixth century (Beazley, ARV 16, 34, 38). From the Argolid only one instance is quoted (IG IV 616.17), and that uncertain.

During the excavations at Mycenae in 1953, a Protogeometric cist burial was discovered in the House of Shields, sunk into the floor of its west room. This burial, numbered Tomb PG 601, was published, with other burials, in BSA XLIX 258 ff. In the summer of 1954 Professor Wace uncovered three further burials in the House of Shields. These, at his most kind invitation, I publish here.

General situation (Fig. 1). Whereas tomb PG 601 was found at the southern end of the west room of the House of Shields, these three, here numbered 602, 603, and 604, appeared in the north-western corner of this same room. Only a few feet separate the one from the others, as will be clear from the plan, and 602 and 603 seem to have been placed under the shelter of the west wall. The area had been to a certain extent disturbed, but whether there may have been further burials between 601 and this group of three I cannot tell. None was found in the excavation.

This research project of Roger Moseley, a fourth-year undergraduate student in Princeton University arose out of conversations between Sir Hugh Taylor, Dean of the Graduate College, Princeton, and Dr. A. J. B. Wace of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton at a meeting of the American Philosophical Society in April 1954 in Philadelphia. The questions were directed to the properties of ivory when subjected to the conditions obtaining in houses destroyed by fire as, for example, in the houses excavated by Wace in Mycenae, where, in one case, many fragments of ivory which had obviously been in the fire were discovered.

Samples of old ivories were subsequently provided by Wace and others for examination. These included:

(1) Ivory fragments from Mycenae from houses destroyed by fire. Date: thirteenth century B.C.

(2) Ivory fragments from Syria in the Metropolitan Museum, New York. Pratt Gift. Date: twelfth century B.C.

(3) Ivory fragments from Nimrud, Mesopotamia. Date: ninth and eighth centuries B.C.

An experimental programme on ‘modern’ ivory was put into effect to provide data against which the properties of the ancient ivories could be examined.

A Recent number of this Annual (BSA XLVIII 191 ff.) included an account of a lengthy graffito, which was tentatively interpreted as a product of the political ferment in Athens in 411 B.C. The graffito was on a fragment of a fish-plate, and round the rim was a second inscription, part of a dedication, the latest possible date for which appeared to be c. 435 B.C.; however, the evidence at present available indicates that plates of this form were not produced before the fourth century. This discrepancy was pointed out, but as the content and execution of the graffito seemed to exclude the likelihood of forgery, the only remaining explanation appeared to be that the evidence for the chronology of Attic pottery had been misinterpreted; more specifically, that fish-plates were in fact already being made in the third quarter of the fifth century, and that the shape remained stable, without any perceptible variations for over forty years. A conclusion of this kind would have far-reaching implications, since the dating of buildings or objects in an excavation often has to be inferred from the pottery discovered with them; accordingly when further material came to light which proved beyond all doubt that the graffito concerned must be rejected as a forgery, it was felt that the subject is of sufficiently general concern to warrant a detailed exposition.

In i.1–21 Thucydides gives a brief interpretation of early Greek history. This is important not only for the critical standard of its author, but also because in ten instances he says what his evidence is. Twice his evidence is archaeological. The two passages deserve careful study.

Mycenae had been destroyed by the Argives in the 460's and was deserted till the third century B.C. Thanks to modern archaeologists and Pausanias we can form some idea of what was to be seen in the time of Thucydides. Much of the Bronze Age wall, including the Lion Gate, should have been above ground; it was anyhow visible to Pausanias, and before him the Hellenistic fortifiers had made use of it. Some of the tholos tombs were open, to judge by finds made in their excavation and by Pausanias's mention of ‘underground treasuries of Atreus and his sons’. Of the Bronze Age palace and houses nothing was left above ground, so the stratification suggests. But the ruins of the city demolished in the 460's must still have survived, and its sanctuaries may have been intact; it would have been natural enough for the Argives to spare them, and there is some positive evidence that the temple on the summit of Mycenae and the sanctuary near the fountain house outside the Lion Gate were both kept in repair and that the Agamemnoneion over half a mile to the south was still visited.

Mr. D. M. Lewis has made a valuable contribution to our understanding of this decree relating to the Praxiergidai and their ancestral ritual, but his restoration of the last line (l. 25) is far from satisfactory. In his version the last two lines are given as follows:

In stating that the restorations are ‘virtually compulsory’ he has failed to realise that [με]δίμνον is not the only possible explanation for the six letters that survive, and he does not discuss the unlikely construction with a genitive plural following ἀμφιεννύ[ναι].