there is no unbroken sequence of development such as is found at Cnossos and elsewhere in. Crete: that is to say, the Mycenaean civilization was not native to Greece proper, but was imposed there in a mature form upon a more backward culture. The earliest Cretan settlements in Greece belong to the end of the third Middle Minoan period, about 1800 B.C. Pre-Mycenaean civilization in Greece varied in different localities. The results of researches on numerous prehistoric mounds in Thessaly were exhaustively pub- lished by A. J. B. Wace and M. S. Thompson in 1912. Sites have also been explored in Phocis (Hagia Marina) and Boeotia, in Aetolia (Thermon) and the Ionian Islands, in Attica, at Argos, Mycenae and Tiryns, in the neighbourhood of Corinth, and in the islands of Aegina, Cythera, Euboea, Melos, Paros, and Rhodes.
The results show that Thessaly was free from Cretan or other southern influence until the late Mycenaean period developed in isolation an advanced neolithic culture until the rest of Greece and the Aegean Is. had come almost to the end of their age of bronze. Western Greece appears to have been more barbarous than Thessaly, and its outward connexions, if any, before the Mycenaean period, were with Italy rather than with Greece. South-eastern Greece and the Peloponnesus show (in their sequence of pottery fabrics) : (i.) An Early Bronze Age culture (black-varnish ware, Urfirnis) similar to that of the Cyclades and Crete but of meaner development, which was dominated in turn by (ii.) its more progressive neighbours of the Cyclades (dull-paint ware, Mattmalerei) and perhaps of Asia (Minyan ware), and ultimately (iii.) of Crete (Mycenaean).
For the mainland cultures a new term " Helladic " has lately been invented, and three chronological divisions, Early, Middle and Late Helladic, are proposed to correspond with the parallel Cycladic and Minoan periods. Mycenaean pottery is found to contain elements which do not belong to Crete, but which must be attributed to the influence of the fabrics established in Greece before it. The same development is looked for in Mycenaean architecture. Early Hella- dic house walls have lately been found by the American School at Corinth (A. W. Blegen, 1921). Prehistoric buildings of the semi- elliptical plan, which previously appeared beneath classical remains at Olympia and at Orchomenos in Boeotia, have now been discovered under the Mycenaean palace of Tiryns, under an Hellenic temple at Thermon in Aetolia and in Levkas.
This new and unexpected knowledge, and modern improvements in the science of excavation, have led to the reexploration of several old sites. Tiryns was dug again by the German Institute (until 1914), Phylakopi in Melos (1912) and the Kamares Cave in Crete (1913) by the British School at Athens, who also began in 1920 a further excavation on the acropolis of Mycenae. What is chiefly sought by such revision is better evidence for the chronology and inter-relation of the different cultures, but much new information has been gained in regard to plan and structure of the palaces and fortifications of Mycenae and Tiryns. Fragments of painted wall and floor decoration have also been recovered on these sites. Those from Tiryns are a most remarkable series; the figure frescos which have been reconstructed represent women in procession, a chariot group and a boar hunt. A fresco bearing the figure of a woman hold- ing lilies and a vase was also found in the " Palace of Cadmus " at Thebes (1916), where many Early Mycenaean graves were also excavated. Other discoveries at Tiryns were a beehive tomb, per- fectly preserved and used throughout the classical period, some Eottery vases which bear painted inscriptions in characters said to e derived from the Cretan script, and an accidental find of My- cenaean treasure in 1915 by a labourer employed in the agricultural school. This consisted of bronze swords and vases, gola jewellery with agate and other gems, bracelets, collars, a seal cylinder and two engraved gold rings, one of which, the largest known, bears a religious scene. Mycenaean pottery and a carved steatite vase were found in caves in the island of Cythera in 1915. The Italian occupation of Rhodes in 1911 was followed by a general exploration of the island, in the course of which some graves were opened in the Mycenaean cemetery of lalysos, which had been dug in 1868-72, and important material is said to have been obtained. This should be useful for establishing the date and classification of the earlier finds, which are in the British Museum. Some Late Mycenaean remains have been found in association with products of the local culture in the Ionian Islands. Doerpfeld sees in the crude settle- ments in Levkas the works of Homeric Achaeans, and continues to identify the island with Ithaca. A search by rival theorists for evi- dence which will prove that Cephallenia is Ithaca, has produced nothing more convincing, and efforts to find the city of the Phaea- cians at Cape Kephali in Corfu were also unsuccessful.
Crete. In Crete there were many excavations in progress at the beginning of the war; at Tylisos (by the Greeks), Hagia Triada, Phaistos and Gortyna (Italians), Pachyammos and other sites in eastern Crete (R. B. Seager and the American School). Sir Arthur Evans conducted supplementary excavations at Cnossos in 1912, and the British School reexamined the Kamares Cave, where the typical Middle Minoan polychrome pottery were first found in Crete, in 1913. During the war only the Greek excavations were continued, and no foreign work has yet begun again (1921). Tylisos was the most productive site. Khatzidakis found there three large houses, each with some twenty rooms and upper storeys, and a unique col- lection of bronzes, an ingot, some enormous cauldrons, and a statu-
ette of a praying man. This curious figure served to identify a similar but much finer piece of unknown origin, which had lain for many years unrecognized in the British Museum. Another new bronze from Crete had been lately acquired (1921) by an English collector. It represents a man in the act of turning a somersault over the horns of a charging bull, a unique rendering of a familiar theme in Minoan art. Both these pieces were published in the new volume of the Journal of Hellenic Studies (1921). The Museum of Fine Arts at Boston also obtained in 1914 a masterpiece surreptitiously excavated and smuggled out of Crete, an exquisite gold and ivory statuette of the snake goddess or her votary.
The Kamares Cave was found to be a sanctuary, not a dwelling, but the offerings consisted almost entirely of pottery of M.M. styles, and there were no specifically votive objects such as other cave sanctuaries have contained. The Italians at H. Triada in 1913 found a portico bordering a courtyard of the palace, a large deposit of inscribed clay tablets, and a well-preserved L.M. III. shrine. Two beehive tombs, said to be Early Minoan, were found near Phaistos. They had been plundered and were destroyed to within a metre of the ground, but still contained some pottery and stone vases, bronze blades, seals, and ivory fragments. At Gortyna the first pre- historic finds of neolithic and Minoan periods were made in 1913. The other discoveries on this site have been nearly all of Roman date. The so-called Odeum, a circular building in which the famous code was found, was completely cleared in 1912, and five small fragments of the inscription were recovered.
Minoan finds were made on several lesser sites: at Plati in the Lasithi Plain in 1914, houses and burials; in eastern Crete at Sphoungaras in 1912, and at Pachyammos in 1914, E.M. to L.M. cemeteries with numerous pithos burials, at Damania, in 1915, an L.M. III. tomb of rectangular plan with converging walls closed at the top by a single course of stones. At Gournes, near Cnossos, in 1914 an E.M. cemetery containing hand-made vases of strange fabric was opened by Khatzidakis, who also found in 1911 fragments of bucchero cups, in a cave sanctuary at Arkalpkhori near Lyttos. Similar'grey pottery was found by Xanthondidis in a large E.M. tomb at Pyrgo in 1918. Seager's brilliant discoveries at Mokhlos were published (with coloured plates of the Early Minoan stone vases) in 1912.
" GEOMETRIC " PERIOD
Remains of the still problematic transitional period of the Early Iron Age were found in Crete at Atsipada in 1912, and in a settlement at Vrokastro in 1912-3 (R. B. Seager and E. M. Hall). Several sites of the Early Iron Age have also been excavated in Greece, but nothing has been found to prove the origin of the " Geometric " culture, though accumulating evi- dence still indicates a northern source.
A Geometric cemetery was dug by the Germans at Tiryns, and their finds have been accurately published (1912). Some graves were opened at Eretria in Euboea in 1915. More important are the remains of buildings of this period. A temple built of sun-dried brick and timber has been found at Thebes underlying an archaic temple of Ismenian Apollo and standing on Mycenaean tombs (Keramopoullos, 1916), and a more extensive settlement was found at Thermon in Aetolia (Romaics, 191 1-3). This lies similarly under- neath an archaic Greek temple of Apollo, which was built apparently in the 7th century to replace the " Geometric " temple, an elliptical structure with an exterior ring of columns. Smaller elliptical houses were found near by, with geometric potsherds, bronzes, and a few iron weapons. Below again are Mycenaean and pre-Mycenaean settlements, with houses built of sticks and mud. The value of the site is its continuity from prehistoric to Hellenic times. The strati- fication is said to be like that of the settlements at Olympia, but undisturbed.
Halos was added to the number of Early Iron Age sites in Thessaly in 1912 (Wace and Thompson). A tumulus and cist graves were dug containing weapons, fibulae, and pottery of sub-Mycenaean type like that previously found at Theotoku. In Macedonia during the war some finds of the same period were made by British troops on mounds in the Vardar valley, and a cemetery was opened by the Y.M.C.A. at Chauchitsa (Causica) near Lake Doiran. These graves have been further examined since the war, and have yielded material which is said to connect with Thessaly and Hallstatt (S. Casson, 1921). Some bronzes from Chauchitsa are in the Royal Scottish Museum at Edinburgh.
CLASSICAL PERIOD
Recent excavations of classical sites in Greece proper have been of minor importance. At Argos, A. Vollgraff continued his researches, but found little besides inscriptions. These are always the most numerous finds on classical Greek sites, and their importance is mainly historical. New inscriptions and the general progress of Greek epigraphy have been minutely recorded from year to year by M. N. Tod in the Journal of Hellenic Studies.
