ARCHAEOLOGY IN GREECE, 1900-1901. THERE is so much to record from Greece proper and the islands, that it will be necessary to omit Asia Minor from the scope of the present article. It has been a year of surprises, from the episode of the sponge-diver knocking at the door of the Minister of Education to report a shipload of statues lying under the sea, to the rediscovery of Aphaea, the unknown goddess who emerged the other day from the pages of Pausanias and Antoninus Liberalis to receive the honours due to her in the famous temple on Aegina. In describing the results of excavations it is convenient to begin as I did last year with the prehistoric period and with Crete, where a number of workers, two Italians, two Americans, seven Englishmen, have been exploring early sites. The French School has not excavated there this year, but has organized a geographical expedition under the leadership of M. Ardaillon which is to make a much-needed survey of the island. I am indebted to Mr. Arthur J. Evans for the following summary of his latest discoveries :— " The renewed exploration of the prehistoric Palace at Knossos has produced results not inferior in interest to those of last year. I was fortunate in securing the continued services of Mr. Duncan Mackenzie as my assistant in directing the works, and of Mr. D. T. Fyfe for the execution of the architectural plans and drawings. The building itself turns out to be considerably more extensive than could be foreseen from the parts of the ground plan already brought to light. The Western Court has apparently an almost indefinite extension. Ten more magazines, some of them full of the huge store-jars, were opened, in addition to the eight explored last year, and the outer wall beyond these was traced to its north-west angle. To the north, the small portico discovered last year was found to communicate with a distinct quarter of the building containing a large bath with a descending flight of steps and a parapet with column bases. The northern entrance way also proved to be much deeper, and to have a further extension than had at first been supposed. " What had been described in the provisional report of my last year's excavations as the 'Eastern Paved Area,' is now seen to be in reality a great Central Court. East of this a whole extensive quarter of the Palace is now revealing itself, and it even appears that the principal State Chambers were on this side. Towards the north-east were smaller magazines fitted with stores of vases of various forms. In other chambers were presses for wine or oil. In one room a sculptor had evidently been at work at the moment of the destruction of the building, and a beautifully carved stone ARCHAEOLOGY IN GREECE, 1900-1901. 335 amphora of finished execution stood beside another just roughed out. Near this was another chamber, which, from the arrangement of the. stone benches within it, had the appearance of a school or class room. About the centre of this eastern quarter of the Palace the walls were found suddenly to descend to a much greater depth, and here was made the great architectural dis- covery of the season. Stone stairs began to appear which were followed down a triple flight—the lowest flight beneath the first—to a columnar hall or megaton, with walls rising some twenty feet. A side passage leads from this to a second similar hall opening to a kind of forehall with eleven door- ways, and this in turn on an outer portico. The staircase leading down to the first mentioned hall is flanked above and below by a breastwork, showing the sockets of the original wooden columns, and with this double tier of colonnades the hall itself (which at this end seems to have been partly hypaethral) must have presented somewhat the appearance of the court of an Italian Eenaissance Palace. There are traces of the beginning of a fourth flight of stairs, and the unique character of these remains can be appreciated when it is remembered that even at Pompeii staircases one over the other have not been brought to light. The connexion of these princely halls with the part of the building immediately to the south can only be made out by a fresh campaign of excavation. " It is impossible to make more than the most summary mention of the numerous individual finds of interest made in the course of this season's work. The early connexion between Crete and Egypt has received a striking illustration from the discovery of a lid of an alabastron finely engraved with the name and divine titles of Khyan the Hyksos king, whose monuments are rare in Egypt itself. A magnificent ' draught-board' of ivory, partly plated with gold, and of crystal plaques backed by silver and blue enamel, or hjanos, seems to be based on the Egyptian form of the game. What appears to be another game is provided with bone fishes engraved with various scores and a series of characters many of them identical with those of the later Greek alphabet. This is in fact a third Knossian ' signary.' A fresco fragment representing a hand holding a gold necklace with pendants in the shape of negroes' heads, takes us as far afield as Nubia or the Libyan Oases. A very beautiful Babylonian relic was also found in the shape of a gold-mounted cylinder of lapis lazuli, engraved with mythological subjects. " Of the inscribed tablets exhibiting the prehistoric linear script of the Mycenaeans, several important deposits were found, including one tablet larger than any yet discovered, with twenty-four lines of inscription con- taining lists of persons under various headings. Many clay seals of great interest were also found with them. Some of these present cult-scenes. In one case a Goddess is seen on her sacred pyramidal rock between lion supporters while a votary appears in front and a shrine with consecrated columns behind. In another case a female votary bears a cup to a seated Goddess beneath the Solar orb. Another seal shows a kind of Minotaur seated on a ihrone and others Mycenaean ' daemons.' Parts of fresh wall- 336 R. C. BOSANQUET paintings were also found, some of them giving entirely new versions of Mycenaean costume—such as a lady with a high looped dress, and male figures, perhaps priests, in banded, stoles. Some very remarkable fragments of bull-hunting scenes show girls taking part in the dangerous sport, dressed like the male toreadors of the period. But of still higher interest in their bearing on the history of ancient art are the parts of human figures in painted stucco relief now for the first time brought to light. The modelling of the limbs and muscles shows a power and naturalism descending to the most minute details, such as the delineation of the veins, which seems more in keeping with the spirit of the Italian Renaissance than with classical antiquity. No face has yet been found, but the back of a male head claims a quite exceptional interest. It is surmounted by a crown, in the same stucco relief, representing a succession of slanting fleurs de Us with an upright one in the centre,—copies from an original in inlaid metal-work. A part of the body, though possibly not of the same figure, has also been preserved with a kind of chain of honour of the same lily pattern round the neck. We seem to have here parts of the actual effigies of Mycenaean kings and princes. Some fine specimens of the ' Palace Style' of Mycenaean painted ware were also found, and others with naturalistic designs of plants and grasses, worthy of Japanese art. " The exploration of the extensive Neolithic settlement that underlies the Palace also produced interesting results. Numerous so-called ' idols' of clay and stone were discovered of types antecedent to those hitherto known from the islands and mainland of Greece. These, and the stone- maces seem to point to very early Anatolian influences. The lowest limits of this settlement—the first of pure Neolithic Age explored in Greece,— hardly come down later than 3000 B.C." From Knossos to Phaestos, the second great palace, is a long day's ride to the south past the lower spurs of Ida. Or a tour of a week, combining fine scenery with notable sites, may be made by way of Psychro, Goulas, Gournia, Hierapetra, Viano, and Gortyna. The traveller coming this way will realise the extent and natural fertility of the domain from which the lords of Phaestos drew their wealth, as he descends upon it from the east and rides the full length of the Messara, the only plain in Crete worth the name. It is twenty monotonous miles of deep cornland, in great part lying fallow since the- Moslem exodus. A fence of low hills shuts off all seaward view. At last the bay of Matala lifts into sight, due west, with the Letoan islets on its horizon, and beyond the olive-groves which now fill the foreground a steep yellow cone rises and cuts the sea-line in two. That is the acropolis of Phaestos. It is girdled by the river Electra, whose lingering waters account alike for the sudden luxuriance of the western Messara, and for the malaria that is its scourge. The acropolis descends in three great steps from west to east. Evidently the builders were not burdened by any consideration of defence, for they set their palace on the lowest of these contiguous heights.