This is the third and concluding report on the survey and excavations carried out on the site of the Roman Stoa at Sparta in 1988–91, following on from earlier reports in BSA 88 (1993), 219–86 and BSA 89 (1994), 377–432. It presents a catalogue and description of the most significant small finds and fragments of Byzantine wall-paintings recovered, gives a full list of coins found and their identities, and offers a detailed discussion of the environmental programme and its preliminary results. An appendix publishes the results of analysis of concrete samples from the ancient theatre at Sparta, taken during the excavations of 1992–95 (BSA 90 [1995], 435–60).

A53 (red) from Mycenae is identical with two of the Kyprianon samples (Ky 3 and 4) and differs from two others (Ky 6 and 7) only in the composition of one accessory mineral, viz. the feldspar. These are all typical rosso antico marbles.

A51 (grey-green) is not exactly matched either in texture or by accessory minerals with any single sample from Kyprianon, but all its accessories, and approximations to its structural characters, are found among different grey-green (Ky 2, Ky 7) and white (Ky 5W) samples. Further search would probably yield an exact match.

The evidence indicates that a source for the Mycenae marbles on the outcrop of the beds exposed in the Kyprianon quarries is highly probable.

In this paper, we present findings from a field inspection of the Knossos aqueduct undertaken in 2019. A key contribution of our fieldwork was the architectural identification of the Roman channel underlying the nineteenth-century wall of the Ottoman-Egyptian aqueduct supplying Iraklio. While reuse of the Roman aqueduct in the nineteenth century was known from historical reports, the structural overlap has never been identified in the field or documented archaeologically, until now. We recorded the Roman channel lined with opus signinum running along the base of the nineteenth-century aqueduct's wall between Fundana and Spilia. Through this realisation in the field, we were able to establish diagnostic styles of masonry for both periods. Our architectural distinction between the overlaid aqueducts allowed us to integrate previously disarticulated components of the later system, like the reused Roman tunnel at Skalani and the nineteenth-century bridge at Spilia, into an integrated Ottoman-Egyptian water supply for Iraklio. As we approached Knossos from Spilia, we were also able to identify the point at which the Venetian aqueduct supplying Iraklio converged with the Roman system. Consequently, our 2019 fieldwork not only mapped the length of the Roman aqueduct supplying the city of Knossos but also that section of the nineteenth-century Ottoman-Egyptian aqueduct of Iraklio built directly over it and a shorter tract of the Venetian aqueduct of Iraklio that either ran alongside it or was, in turn, itself partially overlaid by the nineteenth-century system.

This paper sets forth the chemical analysis of a number of copper objects from Greece of the Late Bronze and Early Iron ages. The majority of these objects were picked up by me during my wanderings, and so are not exactly stratified or datable, but nevertheless may be assigned with tolerable certainty within the limits described. The collection from the Argive Heraeum was found in the temple rubbish-heaps; the pieces of determinate form are paralleled from Geometric times, so it is highly probable that the whole of this deposit is of the same date.

The study of the history of the first excavations on prehistoric Therasia in the nineteenth century, which were carried out in the context of contemporary scientific interest in the volcanic eruptions of Santorini, has led to the systematic archaeological investigation of the island from 2007 onwards. The intensive archaeological surface survey, the geological survey of the geological structure and palaeotopography of Therasia, and geophysical investigations, undertaken in conjunction with the ongoing excavation of the prehistoric settlement at the site of Panaghia Koimisis at the southern end of modern Therasia, have created the conditions for a more comprehensive approach to the archaeological landscape of the island. Based on the results from the excavation trenches in the south and south-east terraces of the Koimisis hill, which have been excavated down to the virgin soil, we present findings on the organisation, architecture and habitation phases of the Koimisis settlement. The site emerges as an important settlement located on the imposing hilltop rising on the west side of the pre-eruption Santorini caldera in the Early Bronze Age, with a long period of habitation to the end of the Middle Cycladic period, when it was definitively abandoned. The excavation of the settlement provides new information on its architecture and spatial organisation during the Early and Middle Bronze Age, completing the picture from Akrotiri, whose early phases are preserved in a piecemeal fashion under the buildings of the Late Cycladic town.

The initial stages of the excavation of the prehistoric city near the hamlet of Phylákopi in north-west Melos have been reported in previous issues of the Annual (II. and III.). The development of this exploration in its second season (1897) made it imperative that its continuation should be the principal, indeed the sole, objective of the next campaign of the School; and to that end accordingly our funds and energies were exclusively directed in the spring of 1898.

These fragments of inscriptions were found on the Altar-hill at Praesos in the excavation of 1901 and 1904 (B.S.A. viii. 254–260; x. 115, 247). The two Eteocretan inscriptions and the terracottas and other minor finds were published forthwith. The stones now described are of some interest as indicating that the sanctuary on this hill—Dr. Halbherr's ‘Third Acropolis’— was the place where official records of treaties and other public documents were exhibited.

The following paper, which completes the series of papers on the classical topography of Laconia, is an account of the hill-country on the eastern side of Taÿgetos, bounded on the north by the road from Sparta to Anavryté, on the south by Gytheion and Pánitsa. (Fig.1.)

Further trial-pits were made this year at the foot of the northern slopes of the Kastri at the site called τὰ ῾Ελληνικά where the two ossuaries described in B.S.A. x. pp. 197 and 202, were found, resulting in the finding of another of the same type, which, with this year's discovery on the top of the knoll of Sarandári makes a total of seven, plans of five of which are given in Fig. 4. Of these, numbered chronologically, I. is described in B.S.A. viii. p. 290, but was too much destroyed for a plan to be possible; II. (Fig. 4, No 1) in B.S.A. x. p. 197; III. (Fig. 4, No. 3) is the one in question; IV. (Fig. 4, No. 4) is the ossuary discovered this year on the top of the rocky knoll of Sarandári, surrounded by Late Minoan III.

In 1969 the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, purchased fifty-five fragments of relief disci from Athenian terracotta lamps of the 3rd and 4th centuries AD. They comprise thirty discus types, and the presence of at least one waster may suggest that they are discards from a kiln site. Recent excavations in the Kerameikos have provided some parallels for the material, especially from the Roman kilns which were built in the ruins of Building Y, to the east of the Sacred Gate.

On the road from new Sparta to Magoula the most noticeable remains of the ancient city are the extensive brick ruins called ‘Arapissa,’ from the localization here of a legend common in all parts of Greece of a negress or a negro guarding buried treasure. Since so large a building, if it existed in the time of Pausanias, is not likely to have been omitted by him in his description of the city, it was decided to test this site to determine its nature and date. Accordingly from April 20th to the 30th twenty-five men were employed digging round the walls visible above the surface, and sinking trial-pits in other parts to obtain some idea of the plan. Owing to the apparent want of symmetry and to the loose nature of the soil, which was full of rubble, the work proved more difficult and dangerous than had been anticipated.

While accepting A. J. Graham's interpretation of the ‘stèle du port de Thasos’ (SEG 42. 785) as presenting regulations aimed at checking prostitution and associated soliciting in late Archaic Thasos, this article seeks to clarify some specific issues in the text. It urges (i) that the correct reading at l. 31 is κατοικιῶν, with the meaning ‘dwelling’; (ii) that θῆς ἓνεκεν (l. 32) should bear a passive sense, ‘for the sake of being seen’, and, likewise, θήσθω (l. 33), which necessarily picks up θῆς ἓνεκεν, should be regarded as conveying not only the idea of looking out but also of being seen by prospective clients; thus ll. 30–3 are to be rendered ‘no one shall go up onto the roof of maisons publiques in order to be seen, nor shall any woman either show herself from the windows’; and (iii) that προïστάσθω (l. 45) is not to be taken in conjunction with ἐσβαλλέτω (ll. 44–5) as governing the object κόπρον, nor as intransitive in the sense ‘solicit as a prostitute’, but rather as transitive middle, with the subject ὁ ἐνοικέων (l. 34), in the sense ‘exhibit women for sale’.

The published corpus of LM IB Marine Style pottery from Knossos is small. It includes:

1. 1. A jar from the Royal Road, AR (1961–2) 28 fig. 36.

2. 2. A jar from the South-west Corner of the Palace, PM iv 280 fig. 215.

3. 3. A ewer from the House of the Sanctuary, ibid, iv 215 fig. 165.

4. 4. A tall alabastron from the Tomb of the Double Axes, TDoAx. 87.

5. 5. A bridge-spouted jar from a chamber tomb near the Temple Tomb, PM iv 279 fig. 214.

6. 6. A fragment from a jar, ibid, ii 506 fig. 310a.

7. 7. A fragment from a flower-pot, ibid, ii 506 fig. 310b–c.

The column drums of the temple at Phanai and the blocks and mouldings of Emporio have attracted a number of occasional scribblings; some of these are cut, many are scratched or punched in rows of single or multiple dots, for others the surface of the stone has only been ‘slightly stunned’. Most are memorial and need no general comment after Rehm's treatment of the Μνήσθη formula. Those that are complete are all of Rehm's ‘motherland’ type and the rest should no doubt be restored on the same pattern.

In general they are of little interest and less importance; indeed the main thing we should like to know about them is their date since in several cases the text has run on from block to block (nos 25, 28 (a), (b), and (c), and 29 (a)) and was therefore inscribed while the blocks were still in their original position. At the moment we have a terminus ante quem in the sixth century A.D. for the destruction of most of the pagan buildings on the site when the basilica church, in which most of the surviving fragments have been found, was built.

In May 1864, J. G. von Hahn sought to prove by excavation that the summit of Balli Dağ behind Pinarbasi was the citadel of Homeric Troy. This was the first systematic attempt to identify the site of Troy by archaeological rather than merely topographical evidence. Assisted by J. F. Julius Schmidt and Ernst Ziller, von Hahn excavated stretches of walling, including parts of the perimeter wall. These appeared to range in date from very early (‘Cyclopian’) to the second century BC. But he found no evidence that the site had been occupied in the pre-classical period. He concluded, however, that since Balli Dağ matched so perfectly the indications given in the Iliad, Homer must have visited the site and chosen it as the location for his poem. Von Hahn reported on his excavations in two letters (in German) to George Finlay, later publishing them in that form. Finlay's careful English translation of these reports, published here for the first time, follows a brief introduction.

Evidence is adduced to show that the toponym Dikta and its adjectival form Diktaios, which have been applied to a variety of locations in Central and Eastern Crete, belong properly to the ancient site currently being reinvestigated by the British School at Palaikastro. Alternative identifications are attributed to the confusion of the various traditions concerning the birth and upbringing of Cretan Zeus which becomes evident in ancient sources in the Hellenistic period. The invention of a Diktaian cave is shown to be the product of a similar process of conflation. A further element of confusion has been added by the citation of a Hellenistic boundary text. The correct identification of Dikta provides a toponymic continuity linking the phases of occupation of the archaeological site at Palakastro.

A rock-cut tomb excavated in 1978 at the south-west end of Lake Vouliagmeni, Perachora, contained the remains of some ten skeletons, and a large quantity of EH II pottery. The best-preserved examples of the pottery are described, and parallels for them adduced. It is argued that the tomb is an ossuary rather than a simultaneous burial.

Among the Chian inscriptions collected by G. Zolotas and published by his daughter Mme Sarou in ᾿Αθηνᾶ xx (1908) 113–281 there are a few for which Zolotas relied on readings supplied by correspondents who were less careful epigraphists than himself. One of these has now appeared in Chios Museum and deserves republication.

Chios Museum (from Aplotaria in Chios town). No inv. no. Block of blue-grey Chian marble, broken off on right and bottom left. Inscribed on front face. On the top (left) a circular cavity, with raised rim, tapering downwards to a small drainage hole, and (right) a similar but larger cavity of which only a small section is preserved. The inner surface of both is carefully dressed.

The yield of inscriptions from our two seasons' work at the Theatre would not have been extensive but for the fact that the marble facing-blocks of the East Parodos-wall proved to be almost covered with a series of texts, for a distance of some fifteen metres from its west end (adjoining the Orchestra). When we had finished excavating this wall, past the point where the inscriptions ended, we had before us an inscribed monument, second only, among monumental inscriptions of the Greek mainland, to the great Terrace-wall at Delphi. Our documents consist of lists of Magistrates, and the cursus honorum of individual Spartan officials, dating from the first half of the second century of our era. Twenty-eight separate documents are recorded on the wall as it stands, and other twenty-four are contained, in whole or part, on fallen blocks and fragments, some of the latter very small, which came to light in front of the wall, or a short distance away from it. In addition, three fragments of similar records, Nos. 1 E 25–27, were discovered close to the east end of the corresponding West Parodos-wall, which has had its marble facing-blocks almost all stripped away, and none of the inscriptions, which we may presume it bore, have survived in situ.

Pendlebury's account (Aegyptiaca 56, nos. 92–94) of the three so-called Egyptian amphorae from chamber tombs at Mycenae in the National Museum at Athens contains a misprint. His number 4695 should read 4569. We may add that according to the inventory this vase is from Chamber Tomb 93. The other two, nos. 2924, 2925, one of which is inscribed, are from Chamber Tomb 58.