Knossos: Pottery Groups of the Old Palace Period.

British School at Athens, London, 1998.195,156p. ills.(B&W photographs and line drawings). 'This book is an exercise in the 'archaeology of archaeology': a reconsideration and re-publication of material from the site of Knossos, excavated between 1901 and 1930 by Arthur Evans and his associates. It should be said at the outset that this is a book by an expert, aimed at other experts, and as such will be of limited interest to the general reader. It is, however, an important work of reference that will be of fundamental importance in discussing the pottery groups of the Old Palace Period (= Middle Minoan IB-IIIA) at Knossos and their associated architectural contexts. The author's patient examination and reconstitution of dispersed groups in the Knossos Stratigraphical Museum is a tribute to his scholarly acumen. (...) Despite some of its limitations, this is certainly an important book that those working with Minoan ceramics and research libraries will want to have. It will be of less interest to the general reader. Aegean specialists, however, owe M. a debt of gratitude for taking on and bringing to completion this difficult study.' (PATRICK M. THOMAS in Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2002.05.16).