The Minoan settlement of Myrtos–Pyrgos on the south coast of Crete has produced five seals (and one unfinished seal), 11 seal impressions on clay vessels, two roundels and one nodulus, as well as two Linear A tablets and two inscriptions on clay vessels. Dating between Early Minoan II and Late Minoan IB, these documents form valuable evidence for the development of sealing, marking and writing practices at a small but important rural settlement, including a penchant for using antique seals for stamping jars. They contribute too to understanding the regional hierarchical and, probably, political cultures of Crete throughout this long period, especially in the late Protopalatial phase of Middle Minoan IIB, when there seems to have been a special relationship with Malia on the north coast, and again in Late Minoan IB, when there was a relationship with Knossos. Finally, the paper discusses a pithos fragment from Tel Haror in Israel, which appears to have an inscription in Cretan Hieroglyphic or Linear A, and may well have been a product of Myrtos or nearby.

Sinclair Hood (1917–2021) was one of the two leading archaeologists of Minoan Crete of the second generation after Sir Arthur Evans, the other being Nikolaos Platon (1909–92). He spent much of his life researching the history of Knossos, including a major programme of excavations during his Directorship of the British School at Athens (1954–62) to test Evans’ chronological system for Knossos and Crete in the Bronze Age. He also directed excavations at prehistoric Emporio in Chios, and was versed in the archaeology of Central Europe and the Near East, as well as every aspect of Aegean prehistory, on which he wrote profusely. In Greece he revolutionised methods for British archaeologists and trained many students who later became project directors. His monumental study The Masons’ Marks of Minoan Knossos crowned his career. It was published in 2020, when he was 103.

Hugh Sackett (1928–2020) was a leading figure of the British School at Athens and British archaeology in Greece for over 60 years, while teaching throughout that time at Groton School in Massachusetts in the USA. He was best known for being a meticulous excavator, who almost always worked in collaboration with other scholars, a great teacher, and a generous and modest person, and also for his unusual breadth of vision. His interests – and field projects – ranged from Classical Attica to prehistoric and Early Iron Age Euboea (where he co-directed excavations at Lefkandi with Mervyn Popham) and Minoan Palaikastro and Roman Knossos in Crete: all of them have been major contributions to the history of Greece. He was Assistant Director of the British School at Athens in 1961–3 and, later, became a Vice-President; he was also the first President of the British School at Athens Foundation in the USA. His greatest honour was to receive the Gold Medal of the Archaeological Institute of America, the only schoolteacher to do so. It was a just reward for his research and for introducing Greece to many generations of schoolboys and girls.

This article presents some unpublished inscriptions from excavations of the British School on Crete: a law or decree of the Classical period from Knossos, which possibly refers to pastoral activities; a Hellenistic boundary stone of a sanctuary of Hermes and Aphrodite from Myrtos-Pyrgos; and four graffiti on clay cups of late Hellenistic date, also from Myrtos-Pyrgos. These items are presently in the Stratigraphical Museum at Knossos.

Σε αυτό το άρθρο παρουσιάςινται ασημοσίευτες επιγραφές από ανασκαφές της Bρετανικής Σχολής στην Kρήτη: ένας νόμος ή ψήφισμα της κλασικής περιόσου από την Kνωσό που ίσως σχετίςεται με ποιμενικές σραστη-ριότητες ένας ελληνιςτικός οροθέτης ιερού του Eρμή και της Aφροσίτης από τον Μύρτο-Πύργο και τέσσερα χαράγματα σε πήλινα αγγεία της ύστερης ελληνιστικής περιόσου, επίσης από τον Μύρτο-Πύργο. ´Oλες αυτές οι επιγραφές φυλάσσονται σήμερα στο Στρωματογραφικό Μουσείο στην Kνωσό.

Nicolas Coldstream, archaeologist of Greece and the Mediterranean in the 9th and 8th centuries bc, was born in India, educated in England, and carried out the research for his first masterpiece Greek Geometric Pottery (1968) while Macmillan Student at the British School at Athens (1957–60). In 1960 he began a long career at the University of London, culminating with the Yates Chair of Classical Archaeology at University College. Renowned as a teacher, he drew many graduate students, especially from Greece and Cyprus. As a prolific scholar, he also wrote Geometric Greece (1977), many articles, several reports on excavations including The Sanctuary of Demeter at Knossos (1973), the Knossos North Cemetery (1996) with Hector Catling, and Kythera (1972) with George Huxley, as well as the revised editions of his two fundamental monographs.

O Nicolas Coldstream, αρχανολόγος της Ελλάδας και της Μεσογείου του 9ου και 8ου αιώνα π.Χ., γεννήθηκε στην Ινδία, σπούδασε στην Αγγλία και πραγματοποίησε έρευνα για την πρώτη του εξαιρετική μονογραφία Greek Geometric Pottery (1968) ως Macmillan Student της Βρετανικής Σχολής Αθηνών (1957–1960). Το 1960 ξεκίνησε την πολύχρονη σταδιοδρομία του στο Πανεπιστήμιο του Λονδίνου, αποκορύφωμα της οποίας υπήρξε η εκλογή του στην έδρα Yates της Κλασικής Αρχαιολογίας στο University College. Διάσημος πανεπιστημιακός δάσκαλος, προσέλκυσε πολλούς μεταπτυχνακούς φοιτητές, ιδιαίτερα από την Ελλάδα και την Κύπρο. Επιστήμονας με μεγάλο ερευνητικό και συγγραφικό έργο, δημοσίευσε επίσης τη μονογραφία Geometrie Greece (1977), πλήθος άρθρων και αρκετές ανασκαφικές εκθέσεις μεταξύ των οποίων The Sanctuary of Demeter στην Κνωσό (1973), Knossos North Cemetery (1996) με τον Hector Catling, Kythera (1972) με τον George Huxley, καθώς επίσης και τις ανατεωρημένες εκδόσεις των δύο βασικών μονογραφιών του.

This short article corrects the details of the author's memoir (2003) of Mervyn Popham for one important episode in Popham's life. It also adds two entries to his bibliography.

The authors report on radiocarbon data derived from carefully selected organic material from Late Minoan IA and IB contexts. The results suggest that the accepted chronology of the period should be revised by 100 years and that the eruption of Thera/Santorini most likely occurred c. 1650–1620 BC.

Extensive radiocarbon data are examined, including results from short-lived samples contemporary with use-contexts. An absolute date range for the main Late Cypriot IIC period on Cyprus, from c. 1340–1315 BC to c. 1200 BC, is proposed.

In 1967 N. C. Flemming of the Institute of Oceanography discovered a submerged settlement, probably of the Bronze Age, off the south coast of Laconia opposite Elaphonisos Island. The following year the Cambridge Underwater Exploration Group formed an expedition to investigate the site. The main aims of the expedition were:

1. To survey the visible remains of the site in order to produce the plan of a prehistoric town on a larger scale than is possible on land, where the time and cost of excavation are normally prohibitive.

2. To investigate sea- and land-level changes in the area, in particular by seeking traces of old shore-lines or of harbour-works.

3. To experiment with methods of planning extensive remains underwater, and especially with photography from a balloon.

The tholos tomb on the Kephala ridge near Knossos, which R. W. Hutchinson excavated in December 1938, contained in the fill several deposits of skeletal remains and of L.M. IIIC pottery. These belong to a period long after that of the construction and original use of the tomb, which Hutchinson dates to L.M. IA. In his report he describes the bone deposits and mentions and illustrates some of the pots. V. Desborough, who was one of Hutchinson's assistants in the excavation, has discussed briefly more of the L.M. IIIC pottery, but it has never been published in full. So, when Vronwy Hankey, Hutchinson's other assistant, recently produced her fieldnotes and Hutchinson's catalogue of the whole or nearly whole pots, M. Popham suggested that, with the excavator's permission, I should publish the pots listed in the catalogue—the publication of more L.M. IIIB and C pottery being an urgent need in Minoan archaeology.

The original catalogue records seventeen pots, of which two are missing (5, a conical cup, and 7, a deep bowl); to these has been added 18, a coarse-ware bowl, restored but not hitherto catalogued. From the catalogue and from Vronwy Hankey's notes it has been possible to place most of the pots approximately in their find-spots and relate some with the various secondary burials in the tomb. The excavation report gives five L.M. IIIC deposits inside the chamber: three bone deposits at less than a metre's depth below the datum, with which no pots can be associated, although the stirrup-jar 1, which is typologically late, was found just below this level; lower still were the plain deep bowl 4 and the krateriskos 14, perhaps to be associated with the fourth deposit of two skulls close together in the area of shaft grave δ between 1·0 and 1·70 m. below the datum. At about the same depth the deep bowl 11 was found near the entrance.

In January 1965 Mr. Sinclair Hood came upon a flint knife in a box of pottery in the Stratigraphical Museum at Knossos from the West ‘kouloura’ house in the West Court, which he kindly referred to me to publish. The knife is unrecorded, and is a unique import of its type into the Aegean in the Bronze Age, if it did reach Crete in Middle Minoan times. On the assumption that it did, it must have been passed over by Pendlebury, who excavated with his wife the ‘kouloura’ houses.

These travels occupied us during four weeks of July and August 1962. Our initial intention was not to look for new sites, but to visit those already known, in order to revise the lists in Pendlebury's The Archaeology of Crete (1939).

Crete has perhaps been more thoroughly explored than any other part of Greece. Pashley (Travels in Crete (1837)) and Spratt (Travels and Researches in Crete (1865)) identified many ancient Greek and Roman cities. At the end of the nineteenth century came Evans, and the Italians Halbherr, Mariani, Savignoni, and Taramelli, who began the search for Bronze Age sites continued by Pendlebury, Kirsten, and others between the wars. Much has also been contributed by a series of distinguished Antiquities Officers, I. Hatzidakes, St. Xanthoudides, and Sp. Marinatos; and since the war by N. Platon, whose very full annual reports in Kritika Khronika have provided a valuable record of current excavations and discoveries. In recent years P. Faure has located many new sites in the course of exploring the caves of Crete.