This is a strictly provisional note, to voice a doubt about some of the conclusions which are already being drawn from the major find of ostraka in the Kerameikos. There is no prospect of any fully rational discussion until the final publication, but I think it worth pointing out that, at any rate on the published evidence, there is a possible alternative explanation of the find. This explanation is not without difficulties of its own, but I hope to show that the current orthodoxy is not free from difficulty either.

I leave out of account the upper layer, containing the ostraka of Hagnon, Thucydides, Kleippides and, presumably, Perikles. There is no doubt that these ostraka belong to the 440s and only serve as a terminus ante quem for the sealing of the lower layer. Willemsen's view of the lower layer is that it contains ostraka from before and after 480 so inextricably mixed, with later ostraka found below earlier ostraka, that its internal stratification is valueless.

It is relatively clear what has led Willemsen to this view. He has assumed that all Megakles ostraka belong to his known ostracism in 486 and also that the ostraka of at least Dieitrephes and the elder Alcibiades belong well after 480, since Vanderpool has demonstrated this for their Agora ostraka (Hesperia 21 (1952), 1–8; 37 (1968), 118–19). He originally (AM80 (1965), 102ff.) also accepted Raubitschek's date of 458 for the ostracism of Menon (Hesperia 24 (1995), 286–9), but I gather that he now prefers a slightly earlier date. Acceptance of these postulates inevitably implies that the deposit is mixed.