Published by: British School at Athens
Supplementary Volumes No. 42
Editors: Neil Brodie, Christine Morris, Chris Scarre

Authors: Robin Barber, John Cherry, Jack Davis, Alec Daykin, Rachel E Evans, Lyvia Morgan, Penelope Mountjoy, Sarah Vaughan, David Williams, Nick Winder
The excavations undertaken by the British School at Athens at the Bronze Age site of Phylakopi in the Cycladic island of Melos from 1896 to 1899, under the immediate supervision of Duncan Mackenzie, have been described (by no less an authority than Carl Blegen) as: ‘the first really serious effort to understand stratification, the first really good excavation in Greece’. Since that time Phylakopi has been a key site both for the study of the Cycladic Bronze Age and of prehistoric Aegean interconnections. This volume completes the authoritative account of the excavations undertaken for the British School of Archaeology from 1974 to 1977 under the direction of Colin Renfrew. Leading specialists contribute full descriptions of the stratigraphy, of the pottery of successive phases and of the other finds, now making Phylakopi one of the most comprehensively documented and published sites of the Aegean Bronze Age. Phylakopi was a settlement in close touch with other areas, notably Minoan Crete and Helladic Greece, from the Early Bronze Age onwards, with a marked increase in Minoan imports during the Middle Bronze Age. The chronology of the fortifications is here re-assessed in the light of stratigraphic associations. The painted plasters, now assigned to the Late Bronze I period, are also re-evaluated, as is the important central building of the time (with the find of a tablet fragment in the Minoan Linear A script). Significant material of the Mycenaean period is described in detail and supplements finds from the 1974–77 excavations published in The Archaeology of Cult: The Sanctuary at Phylakopi. BSA Suppl. 18 (London 1985). The growth of settlement in Melos has been outlined in C. Renfrew and J.M. Wagstaff (eds.), An Island Polity: the Archaeology of Exploitation in Melos (Cambridge 1982). With this new volume publication of the project now reaches completion, offering the documentation upon which earlier and more recent conclusions must rest. This work should stand for many years as the definitive account of this important Bronze Age site, one of the first proto-urban centres of the prehistoric Aegean. It offers much of the evidential basis needed for assessing the role of the Cyclades in the developing field of Aegean Bronze Age studies. Approx 540pp., 202 figs, 47 tables, 1 colour plate; 3 fold-outs; 61 half tones

ISBN: 9780904887549

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Published by: British School at Athens
Supplementary Volumes No. 41

The crucial earliest phases of palatial Knossos are not well known, in part due to over-building by neopalatial structures and floors. This volume represents the first complete publication of substantial deposits dating to this period, specifically the Middle Minoan IB and IIA phases. This is a first not only for Knossos but for Crete as a whole, and will act as a crucial point of reference for future work on these key phases in the island’s prehistory. The five Protopalatial deposits in question, excavated in 1973, 1987 and 1992–93, are fully published with their contexts, the stratified pottery and ‘small finds’ — including the earliest inscribed clay document from Crete, clay sealings, horn-cores and chipped stone; radiocarbon dates are also presented. The deposits come from the south-west of the palace area, and provide evidence for a range of activities such as ceremonial feasting, workshop production and administration, as well as showing the early development of individual town dwellings on terraces just a few metres from the palace. The volume concludes with a full discussion of the form and function of the Old Palace, stressing that the plans laid down in the first 150 years were far more closely followed over the next 400 years than has hitherto been suspected. xiv+204pp., 49 plates

ISBN: 9780904887532

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Published by: British School at Athens
Supplementary Volumes No. 40

Authors: Lila Marangou, Colin Renfrew, Christos Doumas, Georgios Gavalas
Markiani in Amorgos is the first rural settlement of the Early Cycladic period to be excavated systematically and published comprehensively. Most of our knowledge of the Cycladic islands of Greece in the third millennium BC comes from the well-known Cycladic cemeteries, with their fine decorated pottery, marble vessels and striking marble figurines. Early Cycladic remains also underlie the proto-urban trading centres of the Aegean Bronze Age, such as Phylakopi on Melos or Ayia Irini on Kea. Now, for the first time, we glimpse the life of a country farming community with its rural crafts, including spinning and probably weaving and metallurgy. The stratified culture sequence, with its radiocarbon chronology, documents clearly a thousand years of peasant life in this rather isolated island community. The site, overlooking the sea on the south coast of Amorgos, was fortified already towards the beginning of the Bronze Age. The abundant finds contrast strikingly with the elite products recovered from the Cycladic cemeteries. The abundant pottery is local and undecorated. There is a full repertoire of tools and artefacts of stone and bone, and the metal finds include a lead seal, an indication (with the clay sealings) of some organisation in production and exchange already in this modest community. Written by an internationally recognised team of Greek and British scholars, and with its clear documentation and abundant drawings and photographs, this volume establishes a new direction in the study of Cycladic prehistory. It should become an indispensable work of reference for every archaeological library. 312pp., 107 figs (2 fold outs), 58 tables, 56 plates

ISBN: 9780904887525

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Published by: British School at Athens
Supplementary Volumes No. 39
Editor: Don Evely

This volume, the last planned by Mervyn Popham, describes the settlement of Xeropolis at Lefkandi during the LH IIIC period. Following excavation between 1964 and 1969, a series of interim reports and articles played a pivotal role in revealing the history of this part of the Aegean, as well as supplying much of the early framework for the present division of LH IIIC ceramics. Lefkandi IV now presents a detailed account of the site’s three main phases of occupation and many important finds. An initial chapter sets out the stratigraphical history of LH IIIC Xeropolis as documented in the Main Excavation Area and Trials (Don Evely and Hugh Sackett). This is followed by specialist reports on the pottery (Mervyn Popham, Elizabeth Schofield and Susan Sherratt), the pictorial pottery (Joost Crouwel), the terracotta figurines (Elizabeth French) and the small finds (Don Evely). Finally a summary of the most important observations emerging from the volume is presented by Susan Sherratt. A CD-Rom makes available reports on the intramural burials (Jonathan Musgrave) and shells (David Reese), as well as statistical tables for chosen ceramic contexts and concordances. The entire volume is copiously illustrated with plans, line drawings and photographs. 350pp., 103 plates, 104 figs + CD 121pp., 7 figs.

ISBN: 0 904887510

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Published by: British School at Athens
Supplementary Volumes No. 38

The Little Palace at Knossos was excavated by Arthur Evans in 1905, 1908 and 1910, but published only in preliminary form. Located northwest of the Kephala hill, it remains after the Palace the largest building at Late Bronze Age Knossos, and one of the finest examples in design and execution of elite Neopalatial architecture. Stratigraphical and artefactual evidence demonstrates that in the Final Palatial period the building was part of the Linear B administration of Knossos. It was destroyed by a devastating fire, which happened to preserve a small group of Linear B clay tablets together with numerous seal impressions preserved as clay sealings. Thus in the early 1960s, when the dispute began over the date of the destruction of the last Palace at Knossos, the Little Palace became part of the debate. Less notice was paid to its earlier history. Drawing on evidence from the excavation notebooks of Duncan Mackenzie and Evans, the architecture, and a wealth of artefactual data, Eleni Hatzaki provides a detailed analysis of the building's long history and use. The Little Palace, together with the adjacent (and fully published) Unexplored Mansion, makes one of the most detailed datasets for tracing continuity and change in occupation and urban activities in Late Bronze Age Knossos. It helps to demonstrate the complexity of the largest and longest-lived ancient settlement on Crete, which was also a key site for the whole prehistoric Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean. xvi + 273; figs 41, plans 53, BW plates 55

ISBN: 0 904887 502

Price: £67 + post/packing (£47+ post/packing to individual Subscribers and Friends of the British School at Athens).

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