‘Barbarian’ Pottery from the Mycenaean Settlement at the Menelaion, Sparta

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.