presents his excavation. The pit was dug on the top of the east hill, just to the east of the Agora of the ancient city. 3
One of the major problems of this book is the interpretation of the stratigraphy. According to Bessios there were three phases of fill deposit. Nevertheless, a short look at the section drawing (pp. 49) and a careful reading of the new and old information about it shows that the depositional history of the pit is quite different. The section drawing, the description of the deposit and the statement that numerous sherds from the so-called ‘phase I’ join together with others from ‘phase II’ clearly illustrate that these must both be regarded as a single phase. Bessios’ effort to discern one archaeological phase from another by means of pottery is once again a clear violation of basic archaeological principles. Be that as it may, the sherds from the so-called phase II actually date to the same time as the ones of phase I (see pp. 109–110 [no. 95–97] and pp. 169, 171 [no. 90, 91]). On the other hand, what Bessios regards as a later single phase III, must obviously represent at least two depositional periods due, among other reasons, to the construction of two walls.
Bessios’ interpretations of the pit’s function do not make use of ordinary archaeological arguments.. Initially he thought that the pit was a multi-stored basement, 11 metres deep, with a continuous stairway that was built after the introduction into the region of a higher form of technology. In this book he presents a new theory according to which the Euboeans did not actually finish the construction of their planned multi-stored basement. For this reason the name ʻΥπόγειο’ now appears in quotation marks (pp. 46–51).
In the following chapter Kotsonas (an archaeologist) analyzes the 191 sherds from the pit, which have inscriptions and other marks. Following the footsteps of Bessios he overlooks the significance of the finds as part of closed contexts and does not really comprehend the difference between absolute and relative chronology (pp. 122 and n. 707). It is really difficult to follow his remarks on typology, which derive from recent studies in Macedonia. He does not seem to realize that classification of wares is one thing and ceramic typology another, and there are major methodological problems in the definition of his ceramic groups (“Gattunge” [sic]), wares and shapes/types (pp. 117– 121).4
His belief that the pottery production of each settlement in Macedonia as well as in the Aegean was distinctive and had its own fabric, which he thinks he has discovered by studying the 191 sherds from the pit in Methone, is most naïve. His claim that a slightly different fabric must have been produced by immigrant potters is equally naïve (pp. 126–128). The truth is that by “local” one can refer to the pottery production of Pieria or central/west Macedonia etc. and not to that of Methone, Sindos, Vergina etc. Kotsonas' description of the properties of the Gray Wares of Aeolia (“κεραμική τεφρόχρωμου ρυθμού [!]”) as if there was a single gray fabric in the Northeast Aegean (pp. 179) is awkward. Yet he attributes a common Aeolian drinking vase to the production of Antissa simply because he judges it similar to another vase with known provenance from that site on Lesvos, which he happened to have seen in some collection (pp. 183)!
Similar peculiarities and inaccuracies are also very common in the typological analysis, which must be treated with caution. If one forgets the awkward attribution of some common linear decorated skyphoi and a monochrome handle (!) to the same potter (pp. 129–130) one is really surprised by the fact that Kotsonas ignores the fact that the hanging horns which appear on the hydria no. 43 are the hallmark of the Macedonian Protogeometric and Subprotogeometric pottery and instead looks for parallels for them on Crete (pp. 142). By discussing the jug with cutaway neck he includes – as usual – an overview of the history of the shape by repeating more specialist work.What he does not comprehend is that the name “hydria” that appea