§ 1. A Welcome addition to our knowledge of this language, the pre-Hellenic speech of Praesos and therefore the direct representative, according to all the traditions, of that spoken at the Court of Minos, was made in the continued explorations of the Altar-hill of Praesos by the British School in June 1904. As the nomos-fragment was found among débris which had fallen from the temple on the top of that hill, Mr. Bosanquet set himself to explore a line of ‘pockets,’ or vertical cavities in the rock along the side of the hill, some distance below the summit. One of these was choked with large pieces of rock which he removed by blasting; and he was rewarded by the discovery underneath of the new and most interesting inscription reproduced here.