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The Centopietre at Patù, 60 km. south of Leece (FIG. I ) is one of the most extraordinary ancient monuments in south-east Italy. It is asmall rectangular structurewith ashlarwalls and a pitched roof, built entirely ofstone. Several accounts of the Centopietre are available in Italian, notably those of Pasquale Maggiulli, who produced the first rational discussion of the building in 1912 [I], and Professor Adriano Prandi, who published the results of a detailed investigation in 1961 [2]. However, as far as we know, no account has ever appeared in English. Discussion of the Centopietre has produced two distinct hypotheses. The first, advanced by Maggiulli, holds that it is protohistoric and was built in a style derived from the Greeks; the second, argued at length by Professor Prandi, contends that it is medieval. This article describes the Centopietre and suggests that the earlier date is more likely to be correct. We reach this conclusion by relating the structure to three other monuments in the Terra d'otranto, the Cisternale at Vitigliano and the 'megalithic' tombs which formerly existed at Uggiano la Chiesa and Muro Leccese. None of these monuments has ever been regarded as medieval and we suggest that the group as a whole belongs to the Messapian Iron Age.

A unique a-c ionization chamber is described utilizing the acoustic pressure generated within an ionized gas by an applied a-c field. On the basis of preliminary theory an experimental neutron-sensitive chamber was designed. The instrument has an approximate sensitivity of 1.5 × 107 neutrons/cm2/sec (neutrons per square centimeter per second) and proves to be rugged and fast.

On 6 February 1971 the small town of Tuscania, twenty miles west of Viterbo and the same distance north-east of Tarquinia, was the scene of a local but very violent earthquake, which killed a number of people and rendered much of the old town totally uninhabitable.Tuscania (until 1911 Toscanella) is best known to most visitors to Italy for its two magnificent medieval churches, that of San Pietro on the ancient acropolis and that of Santa Maria Maggiore, both of them fine romanesque buildings on the site of earlier churches. San Pietro has been thought by some writers to incorporate parts of the earlier structure, and both churches contain a number of earlier fittings. The town itself is less familiar, although it is still enclosed within the circuit of its medieval walls, and inside these walls it has retained a large number of medieval and later buildings in a setting largely unspoilt by modern development. Almost all the growth of the last forty years has taken place northwards and westwards, outside the medieval walls, so that the visitor still has very much the impression of the old walled city, dominated in the foreground by the hill of San Pietro itself, with its picturesque group of towers and other buildings, and spreading up the ridge beyond it the compact mass of the old town.

In 1971 the Libyan Department of Antiquities invited the Society to conduct a trial excavation at Ajdabiyah to find out whether further investigation might throw light on the medieval Islamic settlement. Documentary evidence showed that Ajdabiyah was already a caravan town in the ninth century A.D., that it flourished under the Fatimids and that it was destroyed by the Banu Sulaim and the Banu Hilal in 1051. Earlier excavations had revealed two major Islamic monuments; a ruined qasr and a mosque (Abdussaid 1964a). It was known, too, that in the first century A.D. a Roman detachment was stationed at Ajdabiyah, which is identified with Corniclanum, a name on the Peutinger Map.The short season of 1971 established that remains of the medieval town survived on the south-east side of Ajdabiyah, in the area of the modern cemetery (fig. 1). A scatter of Roman material and a group of burials, apparently of Roman date, suggested that future excavation might reveal something of the history of Corniclanum, as well as of the Fatimid settlement (Blake, Hutt and Whitehouse 1971).In 1972 we returned to Ajdabiyah. We resumed excavation at the mosque and planned in detail the remains of the qasr (Whitehouse 1972). Both buildings have considerable importance. The qasr had been stripped in 1952 (Abdussaid 1964a). We planned the building at a scale of 1: 40, drew elevations of the principal rooms and made a full photographic record; the structure now awaits final publication. At the mosque we found evidence for two periods of construction, both evidently Fatimid, the earlier of which was probably commissioned by Abu'l Qasim, the son of Obeid Allah. An inscription from the mosque (unfortunately not in situ) bears the date (3)10/922-3 or (3)20/932, possibly the date of construction (Lowick 1972, 5 and pl. VIIa). Among the masonry re-used in the mosque were no fewer than seven fragments of Roman inscriptions, including SEG ix, 773–95.

Anglona is the site of a prehistoric, Hellenistic and medieval settlement overlooking the Ionian Sea, 60 km. south-west of Taranto (Fig. 1). In 1965 we carried out a short trial excavation at Anglona on behalf of the Soprintendenza alle Antichità for Lucania. The excavation was of an exploratory nature. The site has since been excavated on a larger scale by the German Archaeological Institute, but the results obtained by ourselves were sufficient to call for a brief report. Anglona is a hilltop site which today supports only one standing monument, a twelfth-century church.However, it has long been known that a medieval settlement existed here and it is thought that the site was also that of Hellenistic Pandosia. Before excavation began, surface finds suggested that the site was also occupied in the prehistoric period. The suspicion was confirmed by the discovery of abundant Late Bronze or Early Iron Age material in securely stratified deposits.Anglona is situated on a long narrow ridge which runs down to the coast, 12 km. to the east. The topography of the region falls into three distinct zones, each roughly parallel to the coast. Nearest the sea is a low coastal strip, up to 7 km. wide, composed of fossil dunes and alluvium. Behind the strip lies a zone of eroded sand and gravel hills. The loosely cemented deposits weather rapidly, creating low cliffs and steep-sided ravines. Finally, behind the hills, is the mountainous hinterland of Basilicata. Within the space of only 30 km., between Metaponto and Siri, no fewer than five rivers enter the Ionian Sea. The rivers drain a large area of Basilicata and, although sluggish today, at times of increased rainfall they carried a considerable volume of water. The rivers have cut broad valleys through the gravel hills, leaving a series of irregular ridges running at right angles to the coast.

In 1971 the Libyan Department of Antiquities invited the Society to conduct a trial excavation at Ajdabiyah, with a view to defining the extent of the medieval Islamic occupation and determining whether the site would repay further investigation. The prognosis was good. Documentary evidence indicated that Ajdabiyah was already a caravan town in the ninth century A.D., that it flourished under the Fatimids and that it was destroyed or severely damaged when the Bani Sulaim and the Bani Hilal invaded the Maghrib in 1051. Furthermore, earlier excavations had revealed two medieval monuments, a ruined qasr and a mosque, both apparently Fatimid. As expected, the trial excavation, which was described in the Society's Annual Report for 1971, yielded positive results and in April 1972 we began a second, larger campaign. During the season we resumed excavations at the mosque and planned in detail the remains of the qasr. The Director-General of Antiquities, Mr Sadawiya, and the Controller of Antiquities in W. Cyrenaica, Mr. Abdussaid, did everything in their power to make the expedition a success and our Inspector, Mr Warfelli, gave valuable on-the-spot assistance. The Society sent a team of nine—Hilde Ainger, Sarah Jennings, Ruth Whitehouse, George Ainger, Warwick Ball, Peter Donaldson, David Jeffery, John Morrish and myself—and the Department of Antiquities provided accommodation and labour. The Trustees of the British Museum kindly released Mr Nicholas Lowick, who joined us to study the coins and epigraphy, see p. 4. The Department of Civil Engineering, Imperial College of Science and Technology, generously lent us surveying instruments. The project, therefore, was a combined operation and I wish to thank most warmly all those concerned.

In the ninth and tenth centuries A.D., Sirāf, on the Iranian coast of the Persian Gulf, was a leading entrepot for maritime trade between the Moslem world and the Far East. Excavations at Sirāf, begun by the British Institute of Persian Studies in 1966, show that the site was already important in the eighth century. The city reached its greatest extent in the tenth century and thereafter declined. After the twelfth century the site supported a small town. Among the buildings already investigated are the Great Mosque, a group of opulent houses, a pottery and part of a bazaar.

Medieval archaeology in the sense of a field study involving controlled excavation is in its infancy in Italy. Scarcely a dozen excavations have been carried out with the recovery of information about the middle ages as their primary objective and little attention has been paid to the material remains of everyday life. It is not surprising, therefore, that in the past the only medieval pottery to receive lasting attention has been the tin-glazed ware which was valued as the forerunner of renaissance maiolica. Nevertheless, in recent years programmes of surface collecting and selective excavation have been initiated in two areas with the specific purpose of studying the middle ages. The two areas are Lazio and Apulia. In Apulia the Society of Antiquaries sponsored a survey of the Tavoliere, or Foggia Plain, reports on which are in active preparation.

The 1971 Expedition was in the field for almost a month over Easter, thanks to the continued kindness and good will of the Libyan Department of Antiquities, and further generous financial support from the British Academy, the Seven Pillars of Wisdom Trust, the Society for Libyan Studies and the University of Newcastle.The site of Saniat Gebril lies 300 yards east of the abandoned mud-brick town of Germa. Trial trenching (1965) and surface sherding had shown that at least 5 acres of compact settlement existed there, with the strong likelihood that more sparsely-placed buildings stretched as far as Germa. From the previous work it was thought that the main settlement consisted of a series of smallish mud-brick buildings, occupied from the late-first century A.D. until the early-third century, when the site was abandoned and not subsequently re-occupied.

One of the problems which has arisen during the course of the work on the topographical survey of South Etruria has been that of the date and cause of the abandonment of many of the smaller medieval settlements of which there is evidence in the area. The study of deserted medieval villages has advanced considerably in northern Europe since 1945, but in Italy it is still in its infancy. There is therefore an almost complete lack of comparative material with which to work in the study of the deserted settlements in the area between Rome and Viterbo, and we have found traces, either documentary or physical, and often both, of over seventy-five such settlements in this area.As I hope to take up the whole question of the deserted villages of South Etruria in the near future, I shall not here attempt to enlarge on the wider aspects of the problem of shifting rural settlements in the later Middle Ages. However, it is important to emphasise that the picture is on the whole very different from that in northern Europe.

The reductoisomerase of Salmonella typhimurium has a requirement for the 2S-isomer of acetolactate (III, R = Me) while the αβ-dihydroxy-acid dehydratase has a requirement for the 2R configuration but is not stereoselective with respect to the configuration at C-3.