My arrangement follows, as far as possible, that of the reports in Vols. xxvi and xxvii.

A laborious but remunerative piece of work which occupied two gangs of specially picked men for three weeks consisted in making a further cutting into the deep deposit which overlies the edge of the Orchestra and the front seats, north-westwards from the limit of the previous excavation in the east of the cavea. This involved the removal of some Byzantine house-walls, at a level of about two metres above the Orchestra, into which portions large and small of theatre-seats had been built; the other marble blocks found here were unimportant. As the work progressed we again found that the deposit for a depth of ca. 1·80 m. above the original Orchestra-level consisted of the silt-like material washed down from the slopes above, in which there were practically no small objects found. Deep down in it were a few architectural marbles, including two large fragments of Doric columns of poorish workmanship, suggesting the Imperial era (lower diameter ·60 m.). There was no sculpture except a broken herm, also of poor and late style, with a socket for the insertion of the head, and cuttings at the sides indicating use as a balustrade-post.

The principal results of the work of the first two seasons on the Acropolis were described in the Annual two years ago (xxvi. pp. 240–76), and it remains to complete the account for the two following years (1926–27). The task is fairly simple, since the main features of the stratification of the area which yielded finds of predominantly Hellenic date have been already described, and the results obtained from the other parts of the Acropolis which we explored are of much less interest and importance, and can be dismissed briefly. The Byzantine church on the eastern spur of the main summit must be reserved for a separate report.

At the Director's invitation I was at Sparta for the two months' campaign of 1927, and had the opportunity of studying the pottery found on the Acropolis hill in the four seasons of 1924–27, a deposit that doubtless consisted of offerings to the shrine of Athena Chalkioikos.

The fact that the deposit was not a natural growth but an imported filling (B.S.A. xxvi. p. 252) precluded any observable stratification. Thus there was no hope of obtaining a check on the views as to the development and dating of the Sparta pottery that were based twenty years ago on the stratification found at the shrine of Artemis Orthia. The most that could be hoped for was further light on the details of the style at the various periods.

Of the bronzes found during the recent excavations, one, the naked woman, No. 6, is an important contribution to the history of Spartan art, while many of the others present points of special interest. Two statuettes, Nos. 4 and 6, are almost certainly local work; two others, Nos. 1 and 9, are probably so. The protomai, Nos. 24–28, have every claim to be Spartan products; so too have many of the minor objects. Two figures appear to be imported from the North-East Peloponnese, Nos. 2 and 3. In the following account, a complete description is given of the more important unpublished bronzes, and a short supplementary description is included of some of the bronzes published in Vol. XXVI of this Annual. A number of small and apparently insignificant finds are also mentioned, since it is desirable to have a complete record of the bronzes associated with a given site.

The bronzes from the Orthia site are both individually and collectively of sufficient interest to bèar frequent discussion, and additional notes on some of the more important items cannot come amiss. Their appearance here facilitates direct comparison with the series from the Acropolis: this is particularly useful when applied to bronzes which, like Acropolis Nos. 4 and 6, and Orthia Nos. 13–16, are presumed to be of Spartan manufacture; it is also illuminating in the case of minor objects, some of which, like the votive fruits and the miniature vases, are common to both sites, while others, like the Geometric animals, are associated with one site only.

This article, continuing the account of Gell's note-books of which the first portion was published in the last volume (B.S.A. xxvii. pp. 67 ff.), deals only with note-book (2) in so far as it relates to his journey to Asia Minor and the adjacent islands. The numerous architectural drawings, plans, etc., of ancient sites made during this expedition by Gell and his assistants, Bedford and Gandy, are published in various volumes of the Antiquities of Ionia published by the Dilettanti Society, and do not concern us here. A summary of the activities of the mission and a full list of the drawings appear in Vol. V. of this work (pp. 4 f. and 7 ff.).

The relation of this short diary to a fuller one in two volumes with illustrative sketches, now in the possession of the said Society, is not clear, and could only be established by careful collation; but it is not impossible that Gell either wrote up the latter at intervals from the rougher notes in the smaller book, or, when the smaller book was full, copied its contents into the larger one before continuing in it the narrative of his journey from the time of his arrival at Rhodes.

In the last volume of the Annual a report was given on the work done at Haliartos in 1926. It was not possible at that time to publish the excavation exhaustively as the finds had not been thoroughly examined, but I have recently made a further study of them, and have prepared this supplementary paper to bring the publication up to date. The finds are here catalogued and discussed under their several sections, and the conclusions derived from them are set out in the summary at the end.

In an article on ‘The Greek Numeral Notation’ published in this Annual, xviii. 98 ff., I restricted myself to a discussion of those systems which compose the so-called ‘acrophonic’ group, promising for some future occasion an article dealing with the second, or ‘alphabetic,’ group of numeral systems. This promise has not been forgotten, though the greatness of the undertaking and the lack of adequate leisure have led to delay in its fulfilment; I have, however, collected considerable materials and hope before long to prepare them for publication. Meanwhile, the accession of fresh evidence relative to the acrophonic numerals, while it does not appear to me to invalidate my main conclusions, calls for the addition of a few notes to my previous article with a view of bringing it up to date and rendering it less incomplete.

The geographical configuration of Western Macedonia, resolved into its simplest elements, may be described as consisting of two parallel depressions, running roughly north-west and south-east, and separated from one another by a mountain range, the whole area being itself entirely enclosed by mountains. The eastern of the two depressions has a northern and a southern half. The northern half is the valley of the upper Černa, the southern is composed of the low land round the western end of Lake Ostrovo, which is connected by a narrow corridor with the valley of the middle Haliákmon. Similarly, the western depression has two well-defined areas. The northern is the basin of Lake Ochrid and the plain of Korytzá; the southern, the basin of the upper Haliákmon and its tributaries.

The writer assisted at the excavation of the upper strata of the Toumba in 1925, and in 1926 excavated upon the High Table. The results obtained in 1925 by Miss W. Lamb are here incorporated with those of 1926, from notes furnished by her. The remarks on the pottery are based in detail upon the 1926 finds, supplemented by a general study of the material obtained, both from Table and Toumba, in 1925.

Isolated tombs are known all round the site of Knossos, where they help to define the extent of the Minoan city, but the only considerable cemetery that had been found before last year was at Zafer Papoura, north of the Palace and between the Kairatos and the road to Herakleion. A solitary grave (the ‘Tomb of the Cow,’ a M.M. IIIb jar-burial) was accidentally discovered on the far side of the river, but search for other sepulchral remains in this region had produced nothing, though fragments of substantial buildings shewed that the town extended up the lower slopes of the eastern hills.

At the edge of the excavations in the Lower Town at Knossos was found a fragment of a steatite libation table; it was considerably above the original ground level, and had probably been washed down from the Palace. Its sides must have measured about 10·4 cm., and the diameter of the hollow about 7·4; but as it is cut slightly irregularly it is impossible to give exact measurements. In shape it resembles those figured in B.S.A. ix. p. 41, Fig. 20 e, from Knossos, and vi. Plate XI, 2 from the Dictaean Cave, except that underneath it slopes away to the base rather less sharply than those examples.