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It is argued that the composition of part of an Indian miniature painting in a private collection in Los Angeles is ultimately based on a late Roman ivory diptych panel, although the mechanism of transmission is uncertain.

Pichvnari lies on the Black Sea coast of Georgia, at the confluence of the Choloki and Ochkhamuri rivers, some 10km to the north of the town of Kobuleti in the Ajarian Autonomous Republic (fig 1). The site has been known since the 1950s, and excavations were carried out in both the settlement and its various cemeteries in succeeding years, under the auspices of the Batumi Archaeological Museum and the Batumi Research Institute. The site was surveyed and a notional grid-plan imposed, within which subsequent work was recorded. By the time of the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1989–90, the Pichvnari Expedition was a fixture in the Georgian archaeological calendar, but with the abrupt decline in the Georgian economy this happy state of affairs came to an end.In 1998, however, work started again in collaboration with the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. In the spring of that year, the dig-house (part of an oldkolkhoz, collective farm) was restored with the aid of the Seven Pillars of Wisdom Trust. The roof was mended, and water and electricity laid on. The first season took place in July and August, when work (briefly reported in Vickers 1998) was conducted in the areas of both the North, or ‘Colchian’, and West, or ‘Greek’, Cemeteries.

More than 100,000 lead figurines are reported to have been found in the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia at Sparta. It has been suggested that these mass-produced votives were obtained from locally mined lead. Lead votives in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, were selected as representative of each ‘layer’ from the British excavations of the early twentieth century. Lead isotope analysis of the votives was conducted in the Oxford Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art and demonstrated that the lead was apparently derived from Lavrion as a by-product of silver extraction. There is a possibility that Attic silver, as well as lead, could have been used in Archaic Laconia.

The Nabataeans were as famous in antiquity for their gold as they are today for their pottery. Their gold vessels have disappeared, but their red-on-red painted pottery survives in profusion. Both the forms and decoration of much of this pottery have analogies in extant Parthian silverware. Nabataean gold vessels may lie behind the pottery (which should no longer be called "luxury" ware). The same picture emerges from an examination of the sources relating to India: gold vessels were imported in quantity from the Roman world, but only red-gloss pottery survives to suggest what the range of imported and local goldware might have been. Judging from the evidence relating to Gaul and Carthage, the same model may have applied to Gaulish sigillata and African Red Slip ware, and by extension to red-gloss ceramics throughout the Mediterranean.*

‘Dear dead women, with such hair, too – what's become of all the gold’? ROBERT BROWNING, ‘A toccata of Galuppi's’ What became of most of the Classical gold and silver, argues Michael Vickers, is that it went into the melting pot, with exceptions like the Sevso treasure recently brought to public spectacle. Classical ceramics, more commonplace and with nil potential for recycling, have been luckier in their survival. Those accidents of later history need to be remembered as Classical Greece is envisaged; and it is perhaps even more important to bear in mind the reasons why many students of antiquity have until recently chosen to downplay the rôle of precious metal

Evidence relating to the prices of Greek pots in antiquity suggests that they can never have played the prominent artistic, economic or social role attributed to them and their makers in some current handbooks. Furthermore, the skeuomorphic role of ceramic (whereby both forms and decorative schemes were adopted from other, nobler, materials) suggests that the status of pottery can never have been high. In terms of ancient expenditure patterns, or of the expendable wealth of a rich Etruscan, pots can never have been objects of esteem. Their use in the tomb was as surrogates for vessels of precious metal, which were kept above ground for the living. Pottery played a context-specific role in providing the Etruscan elite with objects which evoked luxury and which at the same time provided images appropriate for the eternal banquet attended by the deceased., Les documents relatifs aux prix des poteries grecques dans l'Antiquité laissent supposer qu'elles peuvent ne jamais avoir joué le rôle artistique, économique ou social qu'on leur prête à elles-mêmes et à leurs fabricants dans quelques manuels bien connus. Par ailleurs, le rôle skeuomorphique de la céramique (en raison duquel les formes ainsi que les motifs décoratifs étaient adoptés d'autres matériaux plus nobles) suppose que la position de la poterie n'a jamais dû être élevée. Au regard d'exemples de dépenses dans l'Antiquité ou de fortune excessive d'un riche Étrusque, les poteries ne peuvent jamais avoir été des objets de valeur. Leur utilisation dans le tombeau était un substitut à la vaisselle en métal précieux, qui était conservée sur terre pour la vie quotidienne. La céramique sert à définir le contexte en procurant à l'élite étrusque des objets évocateurs du luxe et liés à l'imaginaire du banquet d'éternité auquel assistait le défunt., Gill David W.J., Vickers Michael. They were expendable : Greek vases in the Etruscan tomb. In: Revue des Études Anciennes. Tome 97, 1995, n°1-2. Vaisselle métallique, vaisselle céramique. Productions, usages et valeurs en Étrurie, sous la direction de Jean-René Jannot. pp. 225-249.

In recent articles the present writer has used the evidence of brickstamps in proposing new dates for the walls of Thessaloniki, for the mosaics of the second phase of the Rotunda (now dedicated to St. George), and for the Byzantine palace. In each case, reference was made to only two or three examples, and it is with a view to reinforcing and developing the arguments already expressed that all the published fifth-century brickstamps recognizable as such are assembled here (with the addition of some unpublished examples).

It is argued that the painting in the Stoa Poikile described by Pausanias as an engagement between Athenians and Spartans at Argive Oenoe in fact refers to Oenoe in Attica, and depicted the arrival of the Plataean contingent prior to the battle of Marathon. The dependence of Herodotus on the paintings in the Stoa Poikile for his account of Marathon is discussed.

The small Ionic temple that once stood on the banks of the Ilissus has now all but disappeared. Converted into a Christian church during the Turkish occupation, it was completely dismantled in 1778 to provide material for the new fortification walls of Athens. Fortunately, before its final destruction the temple was visited by the English travellers J. Stuart and N. Revett and its appearance, plan (Fig. 1), and dimensions have been preserved by their careful drawings.Scholars were immediately reminded of these drawings when, in 1834, the remains of the Temple of Nike on the Acropolis were discovered (Fig. 2). The close relationship between the two temples and the likelihood that both were the products of the same architect, Callicrates, have since then been generally acknowledged, and a detailed study of the points of similarity has been made more recently by I. M. Shear.

‘Most things in Greece’, so Pausanias tells us, ‘are subject to dispute.’ Nowadays, however, the chronological development at least of archaic and early classical art is no longer regarded as a matter for controversy. Indeed so little dispute remains that the art of this period is being used with increasing confidence to reconstruct the social, political and economic history of Greece. Before new orthodoxies arise, however, it may be in order to question some of the old ones by re-examining the ‘fixed points’ on which the chronology of Greek art is based. These points of contact between art and history are familiar. They include, for example, the sack of Hama in Syria, Thucydides' dates for the western colonies, the siege of Old Smyrna, the Greek occupation of Tell Defenneh and other Egyptian sites, the construction of the Siphnian Treasury at Delphi, the youthful careers of Athenian kaloi (notably those of Leagros, son of Glaukon, and of his son Glaukon), ostraca, the Marathon tumulus and the Persian sack of Athens.In this paper we evaluate the evidence of two well-known buildings which are generally thought to have been constructed in the sixth century BC. We argue that available evidence may not require this chronological conclusion. We begin by attempting to demonstrate that the marble Temple of Apollo Daphnephorus at Eretria with its pedimental Amazonomachy was erected in the aftermath of the Persian Wars, not in the sixth century. We then reconsider in the light of this suggestion the traditional date of the Siphnian Treasury (c. 530–25 BC).

Reasonable doubts exist with regard to the conclusions that have been drawn from the ostraca found in the Athenian Agora as well as those from the fill of the Rectangular Rock-cut shaft on the Agora Hill. These doubts extend to the dating of the buildings along the west side of the Agora. A re-examination of the published accounts leads to the conclusion that Buildings C and D, the Temple of Apollo and the shrine of Zeus were built before 480 and were destroyed by the Persians, who were also responsible for digging the Rectangular Rock-cut Shaft. Building F was erected soon after 479. By 450, the Heliaia, the Tholos, the Old Bouleuterion, a Public Records Office and the Royal Stoa were constructed. The public buildings in question all seem to have been built as a consequence of the political reforms brought about by Ephialtes in the late 460s. They are probably the few extant physical remains of the early days of Periclean democracy.

The name vase of the Painter of the Oxford Brygos, a fragmentary red-figure cup from Caere of the late archaic period, is well known (Plates I, IIa). Since it came to Oxford in 1911 it has been augmented from time to time by new fragments; the latest addition is a fragment formerly in New York, now on indefinite loan to the Ashmolean Museum, which was seen by Dr Dietrich von Bothmer to belong to the Oxford Brygos cup. This fragment has now been incorporated in the cup and several other pieces have been rearranged, on both sides, to good advantage. There seems to be no reason to question the identity of the artist as originally defined by Beazley. The cup is signed under the handle by Brygos as potter, but the style is quite different from that of Brygos' most frequent collaborator, the Brygos Painter. If A. Cambitoglou is correct in identifying the Brygos Painter and Potter as one and the same, we must assume that on this occasion Brygos potted for a second artist. The purpose of this article is primarily to draw attention to the restoration of the Oxford cup and to attempt a re-interpretation of the vase as a whole; it also, however, has a secondary purpose, to publish for the first time the only other vase securely assigned by Beazley to the same artist. The latter is a cup formerly on the Roman market and preserved in drawings in the German Archaeological Institute in Rome. While we do not suggest that the two cups are necessarily a pair, they do have some interesting features in common. First, the Rome cup (Plate IIb—d).

(1985). Greek Geometric Pottery at Hama and its Implications for Near Eastern Chronology. Levant: Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 131-138.

One of the most remarkable buildings to have been discovered in the area of the Tetrarchic palace at Thessaloniki is the Octagon. Although known since 1950, it has not really been granted the attention that it warrants. The following pages are an attempt to remedy this situation.I. A Description of the RemainsFirst, a brief description of the surviving remains which were found on the site of the Akçe Mecidiye mosque about 50 m west of the Hippodrome. The mosque was demolished many years ago, but even when it was standing, part of the Octagon was visible: O. Tafrali's plan of 1913 mentions ‘mines byzantines’ on the site. The following account is based on the reports of Ch. Makaronas, first excavator of the building, and of those who subsequently cleared the site, as well as on personal observation.

Why did Athenian vase-painters choose the colours they did for the vases they decorated? Why did they choose black figures on red, or red figures on black; why were lekythoi often decorated on white ground? These are basic questions, but have rarely been asked. Many books and articles deal with the technical aspects of how these effects were achieved, but never seem to ask why. A few minutes' conversation with a modern potter will dispel any illusion that the colours so familiar from Attic pottery were the only ones compatible with the local clay. Even the orange of that clay was made more intense by the addition of a thin reddish slip, and white-ground can scarcely be accidental. It is legitimate to enquire why a particular range of colour schemes was adopted.

The hippodrome at Thessaloniki is well known as the scene of the bloodbath of A.D. 390, so vividly described by Gibbon. This occurred when the emperor Theodosius, enraged that his magister militum Buthericus had been killed in a riot, enticed people into the hippodrome by the promise of games, and had between 7,000 and 15,000 put to death. But apart from the events connected with this incident, the ancient sources are silent concerning the hippodrome (with the exception of a single inscription which will be discussed below). This important monument of the ancient city must be reconstructed indirectly, therefore, by employing the accounts of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century travellers, and by examining recent archaeological finds in the light of the mediaeval city-plan and of what is known of hippodromes elsewhere in the Roman world.

SummaryIt would seem that the plan of Thessaloniki (fig. 4) was laid out at the time of the city's foundation by Cassander inc. 316b.c.and that it has close parallels in the plans of other early Hellenistic cities. There was possibly an agora in the upper city from the beginning, but the principal, commercial agora of the Hellenistic city was probably closer to the sea. A large open space to the west was possibly a ‘sacred area’ in Hellenistic times, but the only religious centre whose site is known with any degree of certainty is the Serapeum. A gymnasium is known to have existed to the north of the city from the late Hellenistic period at least, and a nearby stadium probably goes back to Hellenistic times as well.The Hellenistic fortifications probably followed the lines of those of the mid-fifth centurya.d.In common with many other Hellenistic cities there is an acropolis incorporated in the city wall, but the fortifications of Thessaloniki are slightly anomalous in that the lower stretches of the east and west walls run parallel with some of the streets of the city plan.Thus, even though the reconstruction of Hellenistic Thessaloniki may be an elusive and often a speculative business, the statement of an anonymous writer to the effect that ‘il ne reste à Thessaloniki aucun vestige de la ville hellénistique’ is certainly exaggerated.

In a recent important article on the mosaics of the basilica of St. Demetrius at Thessaloniki, R. S. Cormack proposes a list of churches in the city with mosaics ‘for which a late fifth century date must be considered.’ The list comprises the Acheiropoietos basilica, the first phase of the basilica of St. Demetrius, and Hosios David. The purpose of this article is to show that the mosaics of the second phase of the Rotunda (now known as the church of St. George) should be included in Cormack's list.The first thing to note about the Rotunda mosaics is that there has been less than unanimity concerning the date of their construction. Volbach, Lazarev and Cormack, amongst others, follow Dyggve and Torp in dating the mosaics to c. 400 or slightly earlier; Diehl and Dalton dated them to the fifth century, Weigand to the sixth and Holtzinger to the seventh or eighth century, all on largely stylistic grounds. What are obviously needed are some objective dating criteria, and these are to be found, not so much in the mosaics themselves, but rather in the building fabric and the furniture of the converted Rotunda. The conversion of the Rotunda, incidentally, consisted of the blocking of an opaion in the cupola and the addition of an ambulatory, a monumental entrance to the south, an apse to the east (Plate XXIII) and various subsidiary buildings to east and west. The mosaics were placed in the cupola and in the niches which connected the main body of the Rotunda with the ambulatory.

During the early years of this century University College, Dublin, acquired a sizeable collection of classical antiquities, largely through the efforts of the professor of Greek, the Rev. Henry Browne, SJ. Among the acquisitions he made for the College were a group of sherds from the excavations at Naucratis conducted by Sir Flinders Petrie and D. G. Hogarth which he obtained from the British Museum and the Ashmolean (but mostly the latter). As a result of their isolation in Dublin these sherds have not figured in the various publications dealing with material from Naucratis that have appeared over the years, but it is still perhaps not too late to draw attention to them, especially as they include some interesting pieces.There is no record of exactly when the Naucratis sherds went to Dublin or of what was given in exchange for them, but they must have arrived before 1913 for they are mentioned in a Report on the University College Museum published in that year. The following account is arranged according to styles.

The Ashmolean Museum has recently acquired a fragmentary, but none the less attractive Attic cup. The interior is decorated in the white-ground technique, but the artist has used red-figure on the exterior. The internal and external decoration do not differ merely in technique, however, but also in mood: the central tondo bears a cool, restrained scene of a girl pouring a libation, whereas outside we have a mildly drunken rout—a komos.The interior (Plate XVIIa) is mostly white. There is a broad black band around the edge, at some distance in from which is a dilute brown line which circumscribes the tondo itself. This is decorated with a scene of a girl standing between two altars, over one of which she pours a libation. She faces towards the left and much of her body is seen in three-quarter view. Unfortunately her face is damaged, but enough remains to show that it was once pretty and appealing. On her head she wears a broad cloth band through which her back-hair emerges in a kind of chignon. She wears earrings. A himation edged in red is thrown loosely over her left shoulder and hangs down to well below her knees. Beneath, she wears a flimsy chiton which is pulled revealingly tight over her right breast and is buttoned at the elbow. Bracelets in the form of snakes adorn her wrists, and in her right hand she holds an oinochoe. This last, in common with the bracelets, buttons and earrings, is rendered plastically (i.e. is in relief), and was perhaps originally gilded. To her left, a rod or sceptre leans independently, while on either side can be seen parts of two altars, which, if identical, consisted of two plain, swelling mouldings, somewhat archaic in character, above a row of ovolos, and beneath on the sides, a metope between two dark strips. Some preliminary sketch is visible. Much of the detailed drawing is done in relief line, reinforced around the edges of the garment and on the altar with applied red. Dilute paint is used for the hair, the hem of the chiton and the decoration immediately above it, and for the triglyphs (if that is what they are) of the altars.

In the Classical Museum of University College, Dublin, there is a small black glaze Attic cup (inv. no. V3020; provenance unknown) belonging to the Vienna-Cup group (Plate IV, 1–4). It is 7·7 cm high and 13·8 cm in diameter (20 cm at the handles). It has been broken and repaired at some time and parts of the handles are modern, and some of the lip is restored (apparent on Plate IV, 3 and 4). It might be as well to point out that the foot is whole and has never been broken. The cup is almost wholly black, except for the insides of the handles, the outside edge and resting surface of the foot, and the centre of the foot which are all reserved (Plate IV, 1 and 2). It looks quite normal, but if one picks it up and tilts it, one hears a rattling, almost a ringing, sound from the foot which is not only hollow, but contains three small clay pellets, as revealed by an X-ray examination (Plate IV, 3 and 4). There is no vent hole.The cup is to be dated to some time within the period 475–450 B.C. I do not know of any parallels among the Vienna-Cup group, but there is another black glaze cup in Leningrad (Hermitage B 721; Plate V, 1) which belongs to the Kalliades-Brygos group and which has a hollow foot and rattling pellets just like those on the Dublin cup. The Kalliades-Brygos group is generally dated to between 500 and 470 B.C. This would mean that the Leningrad cup is probably earlier than the Dublin example, but they both still belong to the first half of the fifth century. The relevance to the discussion of a fragmentary foot in Toronto (Royal Ontario Museum 923.13.11) from a cup of Cup-Type C painted by Skythes c. 500 B.C., is debatable. In the case of this foot there is a hollow channel around the edge as in the Dublin and Leningrad examples, but it differs from them in that there was originally a small rectangular hole in it, the left side of which is preserved (Plate V, 2, far left). The hole was apparently never closed, so that it is unlikely that the hollow held pellets as did the others, or if it did, there might have been a temporary stopper of, say, unbaked clay. The hole is a puzzle, for it seems too big to be merely a vent hole.

There are several buildings at Thessaloniki that can be dated to the middle or second half of the fifth century A.D. and which have one feature in common, namely, the characteristic brick stamps illustrated in Figs, 1a and b. Bricks bearing these stamps occur in the following buildings: Acheiropoietos, the first phase of St. Demetrius, the city walls, and the second phase of the Rotunda. The conventional date for the Acheiropoietos basilica is c. 470 and for the first phase of St. Demetrius some time between 450 and 500. The dates usually given to the walls and the Rotunda are c. 380/390, but I have recently shown that the walls ought to be dated to around the middle of the fifth century and that phase two of the Rotunda belongs with the fifth-century churches. I hope to demonstrate that the Byzantine palace was also built at about the same period.

A reassessment of the scanty evidence for a battle between members of an Athenian-Argive alliance and Spartans at Argive Oenoe in the 450s leads to the conclusion that a battle did indeed take place., Francis E. D., Vickers Michael. Argive Oenoe. In: L'antiquité classique, Tome 54, 1985. pp. 105-115.