This volume explores the part played by different metals in use from the fourth millennium BC to the Early Iron Age, not only in the Aegean but also in the wider Old World. It addresses the divergent uses and roles of different metals, the interrelationships of these roles and the changing values that may have been accorded to them at different times and in different places by producers and consumers. Individually, the papers in the volume contemplate the particular properties of different metals and the various issues concerning their frequent under-representation in the archaeological (but not necessarily textual) record, and also point out comparative and diachronic perspectives that may have the ability to offer insights into their important roles in wider cultural and historical changes over a period of several millennia. After the Introduction and Chapter 1, which reflects on some of the parameters involved in the term ‘precious’ as applied to metals, the remaining six chapters cover the Aegean and the networks that link the Aegean with Italy, Cyprus and the Near East more generally, and south-east Anatolia and the Caucasus. Between them they discuss the beginnings of regular iron metallurgy, the uses of and attitudes to gold, silver and bronze and other copper-based alloys at various times between the fourth millennium BC and the Early Iron Age.

In commemoration of the work of Mervyn Popham this festschrift contains 22 essays concerned with the archaeology of Crete and Euboea. Studies include an examination of the role of Crete in Homeric epic, a consideration of the role of the little palace' and some ofthe Middle Minoan pottery found by Evans at Knossos is reexamined. Essays on Euboea include Knossos and Lefkandi: the Attic connections' and Euobean Phylla and greek barracks'. Contributors are: Sinclair Hood, Colin F Macdonald, Elizabeth Schofield, Eleni Hatzaki, Peter Warren, Hugh Sackett, Doniert Evely, H W Catling, Judith Weingarten, Susan Sherratt, Dyfri Williams, E Sapouna-Sakellaraki, Angelika Andreiomenou, Irene S Lemods, R W V Catling, J N Coldstream, Angeliki Lebessi, John Boardman, J J Coulton, Evi Touloupa.