DE NOVIS LIBRIS IUDICIA 517 parts of Crete and dominated over Knossos as enemies. Their friendly immigration effected a mixed community there; linear B tablets from Knossos are written in the Greek language. The author refers to recent excavations in Zakro and Keos that corroborate her solution. The fall of Knossos can be explained from an earth- quake contemporary with the destruction in many other places about 1200 B.C. A new element in this book is the use made of the decipherment of linear B for understanding the Mycenaean way of life (Ch. VI: Life in a Mycenaean Palace; Ch. VIII: Society and History in the Mycenaean World). The hundreds of pots in the palace of Pylos together with the tablets of linear B found there demonstrate the economic activity of the princes, comically designed as "dealers in kitchen-ware"; various workshops were settled in the palace. The personal style of the author excels in Ch. IV, sketching the "furious splendor" of the Shaftgraves. The wealth of gold, silver and ivory, not prepared by preceding history, is ascribed to a military aristocracy, not to foreign invaders. In Ch. VII (Art in the Palace) the frescoes have priority. In spite of their fragmentary condition the scrupulous review, illustrated by many drawings and plates, accentuates their important function in the palace-architecture. The Mycenaean Heritage (Ch. IX) exerted an influence in many directions: on religion (a combination of the pre-Hellenic Aegean goddess and the Olympic gods) ; on burial customs; on tourism and mythology; on music and poetry. At the end of the book we find a chronological chart of 6 illustra- tions showing the evolution of pottery from 6200 till 1100 B.C.; a survey of house-types ; appendices on (I ) the physical world (plants and animals); (II) neolithic pottery; (III) building activities; 20 pages of notes to the text; extensive bibliographies; a glossary; an index; 48 excellent plates with reproductions ' from mostly new excavations.

UTRECHT, Ramstraat 5 G. VAN HOORN

J. BOARDMAN, The Greeks Overseas (Pelican Books, A 581). Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1964. 288 p. Pr. sh. 6/-. l his is an excellent mtroduction to the ever tascinating story ot the Greek overseas expansion that started at the beginning of the 8th century B.C. and finally led up to the heroic struggle of q.8o B.C. 518

against the great "barbarian" powers of East and West; this clash put an end to a period which made a fundamental contribution to the formation of classical Greece. By writing an admirably clear and well-balanced survey of the manifold and often widely scattered evidence Mr. Boardman has undoubtedly placed in his debt all historians and archaeologists who take a keen interest in this very period. In a short opening chapter on the nature of the evidence B. clearly expounds the principles that should govern the interpre- tation of Greek pottery finds and the significance to be attached to them; then follows a sketch of the historical background, viz. the development during the Dark Ages as reconstructed from the slight material remains; B. premises the archaeological record of the East Greek states, as these were first in resuming contact with the Anatolian and Near Eastern peoples and, together with homeland Corinth, were to play leading roles in Greek colonization. Next comes the main substance of the book, a most stimulating discussion of the Greek settlements established in Nearer Asia, Egypt, the Western Mediterranean, the Adriatic and the Black Sea-regions. Every site, every stray find has its own interest and accordingly gets due attention; the author was exceptionally qualified to give us a reliable survey of the material evidence for the early relations between Greeks and barbarians, as he made his name already by several preliminary studies on this subject'); his information is remarkably up to date, while his reasoning is generally sound and convincing. B. has been earnestly trying to fit the continuously cumulating evidence, which ranges from plain wine-jars to the most delicately worked jewelleries, into a coherent picture of a growing cultural exchange heralding the Alexandrian age. The examination of the "Eastern adventure" leads B. straight into a detailed but valuable discussion of the pottery found at Al Mina, the important transit-port on the N.-Syrian coast, which played a prominent part in transmitting eastern motifs and inven- tions (the alphabet) to Greece; B. makes the interesting suggestion, based on the supposed Euboean origin of four classes of geometric pottery, that it was Euboeans and esp. Eretrians who in search of raw material for their local metal-working industry were the first to venture so far eastward. Subsequently the Euboeans looked to the West and established an emporium on Ischia (where they 1) Pottery from Eretria, ABSA 47 (1952), 1-48; Early Euboean Pottery and History, ibid. 52 (1957), 1-29; Chian and Naucratite, ibid. 51 (1956), 55-62; Chian and Early Ionic Architecture, AntJ 39 (1959), 170-218; Greek Archaeology on the Shores of the Black Sea, Arch. Reports 1962/3, 34-51.