Sellopoulo is a small village, on the east bank of the river Kairetos, less than 2 kilometres north of Knossos. The fields immediately bordering the stream are fairly flat but the land soon rises in a series of step-like hills. Here surface soil is thin and the rock immediately underlying it is mostly the local kouskouras, a soft limestone easily cut. The geology of the region is, then, very suitable for chamber tombs. Indeed, the extensive Zafer Papoura cemetery, excavated by Evans, is on the west slope above the river, almost exactly opposite the tombs we shall be considering.Hogarth was the first to excavate at Sellopoulo. In 1900, in low-lying ground on the southwest edge of the village, he found what he describes as a ‘tholus tomb built of small stones’ in which were ‘three rudely painted chest urns standing side by side, all rifled in antiquity’. This tomb can no longer be seen.
We give here a partial account of trial excavations undertaken at Knossos by the British School in autumn 1975 at the request of the Greek Government. The site lay in a field on the south-east flank of the acropolis, immediately above and west of the unmetalled track that runs roughly north–south, leading from the upper part of Knossos (Bougadha Metochi) towards the Venetian aqueduct and, eventually, to Arkhanes (see Site Plan, Fig. 1). The field is the property of the Staphylakis family. Until late summer 1975 it had served as rather low grade arable land, covered with stone apparently eroded from the acropolis. The owner in 1975 applied for permission to deep-plough the land with a view to converting it to an olive-grove.
In 1973, after an interval of many years, the British School at Athens returned to Sparta to resume work in an area with which it had been associated since early in the present century. The site chosen was the Mycenaean settlement at the Menelaion, briefly investigated by R. M. Dawkins in 1910. Full seasons of excavation were completed in each of the years 1973–6, and 1980. A cleaning season was undertaken in 1977, while supplementary excavations were made in the autumns of 1977 and 1978. Several brief preliminary accounts of this work have appeared, while one or two objects of particular intrinsic interest have been published in detail.For the time being, at least, the excavation of the prehistoric site at the Menelaion is at an end. Though work on the preparation of the final report is well advanced, it will be some time before this can be published, and the many classes of pottery and other objects can be made generally available.
In BSA 74 (1979) 1–80, an account was given of MM III and LM I buildings and their contents uncovered in 1975 at Knossos during a rescue excavation undertaken by the British School, in the northern half of the Staphylakis field, on the south-east flank of the acropolis (Site Plan, Fig. 1). In that account reference was made (p. 4) to the discovery of other ancient features within the heavily ploughed area. The more important of these finds are briefly described in what follows, to complete the summary publication of the results of the 1975 operation.Full details of the circumstances in which this investigation was undertaken are given in BSA 74, together with acknowledgements to all those who assisted the authors on the site and in the preparation of the material for publication. A brief account of the whole excavation appeared in AR 1976–77.
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