ons are imprecise. Most of his distribution maps copy earlier works without clearly stating the original source and without adding any significant or real new information. In several cases the information added is actually irrelevant (n. 146) or false (n. 144). The same is true for the distribution of the Subprotogemetric North Aegean trade amphora of type II. In this case after some peculiar comments on his source he lists several new entries, almost all of them belonging to other ceramic categories. (see n. 539).7
Kotsonas believes that distribution maps of fine wares are indicators of trade and human mobility (pp. 124; 164–165) and export of Euboean pottery equates Euboean colonization (pp. 232). Moreover, he regards the variability in the origin of the imported pots as an indicator of the nationality of their users and thus concludes that not only Euboeans but also other Greeks settled in Methone (pp. 228–240). More than that he believes that definition of the imports and local imitations of pottery can highlight their potter’s identity (imported pottery equates trade, local imitations equate imported potters…) (pp. 132; 236).
Instead of the anxious repetition of old information (often without stating the source), one would expect clear stratigraphic indications, trustworthy descriptions and drawings that are not available. The latter are usually so inaccurate that one sometimes thinks that they depict another vase than the one in the accompanying photo (see i.e. pp. 354, no. 10).8
Finally, the chapter is missing a synthetic analysis and interpretation of the inscribed pottery in its context (pp. 219– 240).
In the following chapter Tzifopoulos discusses the inscriptions and other marks on the sherds of Methone. The attribution of an inscription on an Aeolian drinking vase to the Aeolic alphabet is contradicted by Richard Janko, who convincingly shows that this is in Euboean script.9 Tzifopoulos' effort to show that some other quite fragmentary inscriptions in Methone could be of non-Euboean origin (pp. 311–312) is equally unpersuasive.
The frankest part of the book is without doubt the epilogue signed by all three authors. I shall quote here, in translation, only a few sentences: “waves of colonizers settled at Methone with the full consent of the locals” (who according to their theories were Macedonians) (pp. 324–325); “pottery as well as inscriptions attest that Eretrians lived side by side in Methone not only with the locals (Macedonians) but also with Greeks from other regions. The role of the locals was not diminished but improved after the settlement of the colonizers” (pp. 325)… “The finds reject old views…and prove that…Macedonia was an integral part of the united Aegean world of the Panhellenes” (pp. 327). The conclusion of the book – based mostly on misinterpretation ofpottery distribution – is that Macedonians not only traded in the 8th century as far as Pithekoussai together with other Greeks (as Kotsonas implies), but they also received settlers from many regions of Greece as friends and civilizers during the 8th century BC in Methone. The authors imply that this is a strong argument for the identity of Macedonians. It becomes thus clear that while an intensive discussion on the manipulation of archaeology for nationalist and colonialist purposes is going on globally, the good old Balkan nationalism is still haunting North Greek archaeology.
1. J.K. Papadopoulos, The Early Iron Age Cemetery at Torone (Los Angeles 2005) 9.
2. See M. Tiverios, Greek Colonisation of the Northern Aegean. In: G.R. Tsetskhladze (ed.), Greek Colonisation: An Account of Greek Colonies and other Settlements Overseas, 2. Mnemosyne Suppl. 193 (Leiden/Boston 2008) 18.
3. In this book Bessios avoids referring to the extensive use of a bulldozer for the excavation of the pit – as he did in his preliminary reports – that resulted in the loss of its upper levels and destroyed once and for all the archaeological landscape by removing the earth around it.
4. For similar comments see A.L. D’Agata, Review of Antonis Kotsonas, The Archaeolog