The season of 1910 closed the excavations of the School at Sparta which were begun in 1906 under the direction of Professor Bosanquet, and, although much work remains to be done in the Museum in preparing the finds for publication, especially those from the Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia, no further excavation is contemplated. The results achieved have been regularly reported each year, and the objects discovered at the various sites have been nearly all published, with the important exception of the great mass of objects from the Orthia Sanctuary, which are so numerous that their adequate publication will require a separate book. An important series of Byzantine painted pottery and some jewellery of the same period also await publication. The nature of these previous annual reports makes it unnecessary here to do more than give the usual short summary of the year's work which is more fully described in the following sections, and again to express the thanks of the School for the continual support of the Hellenic government, which was this year again ably represented by Doctor Rhomaios.

Last year's report contained an account of the excavation of the building on the hills to the east of the Eurotas, which has been identified with the Menelaion, the shrine of Menelaos and Helen mentioned by Herodotus and Pausanias. Besides the numerous archaic objects which were then published, this work produced a few sherds of Mycenaean pottery and fragments of Mycenaean terracottas, always at a lower level than the deposits of Laconian and Geometric ware. A further clue was afforded by a Mycenaean house, which was found by a trial-pit on the eastern peak of the hill, and Tsountas' report that Mycenaean sherds were to be found on the surface in the neighbouring fields was also verified.

The season opened with a small excavation at the Eleusinion at Kalývia tes Sochás or Kalývia Sochiótika, a hamlet at the foot of Taygetos about one-and-a-half hour's walk south of Sparta.

This site had already been fixed by Von Prott, who identified it with the Homeric Bryseai, but the German Archaeological Institute generously waived this prior claim in our favour. The whole question of the identification of the site has been discussed by Von Prott in connexion with the inscriptions found in and around the foundations of the destroyed church of Hagia Sophia. This lies in the village itself; the site to which our attention was called was on the slope of the mountain immediately above the houses and gardens of the village. A few minutes to the south of Kalývia tes Sochás a fine gorge with a mountain stream runs down from Taygetos into the plain, and where the path which leads up to this gorge and the mediaeval keep at its mouth, leaves the village to climb the lower slope of the hill, it passes through a small olive grove.

Although it was thought in 1909 that no more work was required at the Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia, a few men were employed there this year, mainly in testing outlying parts of the site. In this way a series of pits was made at the foot of the cliff which rises to the south of the hieron, and the ground behind the temple was further explored; the former yielded no results, and the latter only confirmed the conclusions already reached as to the history of this region. The only finds were pottery, a number of lead figurines, and some pieces of carved bone, all of the kind found in previous years in similar deposits of the sixth century. Below them there was, as usual, a little Laconian I and Geometric pottery.

The small piece of work reported above concluded the excavation of the Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia, and although the majority of objects found remain for future publication, a full account of the excavation and of the successive buildings in the Sanctuary has now been given in the series of reports, which began in Vol. XII and ends in this present Annual. The few points in which earlier views required reconsideration in the light of more complete knowledge, have been for the most part already corrected, and in this way, although fuller study of the finds and records has thrown a good deal of fresh light upon some points, it would be possible for a reader to construct from these reports a consecutive history of the site. This history is however, from the necessities of the case, imbedded in the reports in the order of discovery, and further, as digging proceeds from the surface downwards and has to pass through what is late to reach what is early, this order is in general precisely opposite to the chronological.

The only inscriptions found in 1910, apart from three minute fragments (Nos. 3–5), were two columnar statue-bases extracted from the foundations of the Roman Amphitheatre at the Sanctuary of Orthia, and a much mutilated fragment of the rules for a Demeter festival from the site of the Eleusinion at Kalývia Sochás. To these are added three miscellaneous inscriptions found recently in Sparta and the neighbourhood though not in the course of our excavations. They are of little or no importance, but seemed worthy of inclusion here in order to complete the publication of all the inscribed stones on which at least one complete word is preserved, found on, or near, the site of ancient Sparta during the last five years.

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.)

During the trial excavations carried out on the acropolis of Geraki in 1905 a certain number of fragments of interesting prehistoric pottery were found, as announced in the report published. It was hoped that it might be possible to examine the site again, and to obtain further information about its occupation in early times. This hitherto has not been possible, and therefore there seems no reason why the fragments should not be illustrated, since they seem to be the earliest pottery yet found in Laconia. The fragments found, fall into the following classes:—

(A) Monochrome, hand-made ware: the biscuit is grey, and well polished with a brown surface. To this class belong three pieces in Fig. 1 b-d; the first is from a narrow-necked bowl, the second from a jar that had a rim inside its lip to support a lid, and the third (d) is a broad ribbon handle on the lip of a large, open, flat bowl. The fourth fragment (Fig. 1 a) is unpolished, but of the same clay as the other fragments, and is decorated with incised lines.

[This paper describes the results of a short journey in South-Western Asia Minor undertaken by Messrs. A. M. Woodward and H. A. Ormerod of the British School at Athens, in June and July of 1910. Its main purpose was to search for prehistoric remains in the district lying to the west of Adalia (Attaleia in Pamphylia), namely in northern Lycia, south-western Pisidia and southern Phrygia, and to this end Mr. Woodward was in receipt of a grant from the Oxford Craven Fund. The prehistoric sites which were noted and the objects which were found, together with the circumstances which drew attention to the existence of prehistoric remains in this district, are dealt with in detail in the second part of this paper by Mr. Ormerod, who contributes also a special study of the pot-fragments collected. The first part describes the route followed, with notes on such remains of classical antiquity as seemed to merit discussion; the inscriptions found, and the coins obtained are dealt with by Mr. Woodward in Parts III. and IV. respectively.—ED.]

The following is an attempt to present in one view the Italian and other western antiquities of the island of Chios. Some of these, as will be seen, have already been published, though for the most part in works not generally accessible: the others are the results of my own investigations in the island (1907–9). Like most other travellers in Chios I owe much to the kindness of residents and especially of M. Const. Kanellakes, who placed his unrivalled knowledge of his native island unreservedly at my disposal, and directed my attention to many points of interest which must else have escaped me. I am also indebted for much practical assistance and support to Messrs. L. and N. Zitelli. Since I began my collection of material the contents of the museum at Chios and some other monuments of the Latin period have been published by the daughter of the late gymnasiarch Prof. G. Zolotas: references to this publication are inserted in brackets with the initial Z. before the inscriptions concerned, but I have thought it unnecessary to republish fragmentary texts to which I have nothing to add. An asterisk denotes stones I have not myself seen.

I am enabled this year, by the kindness of my friends M. N. Ferteklis (of Adalia) and Mr. A. M. Woodward, to supplement my account of Frankish remains at Adalia (B.S.A. xv. 270) by the publication of a French inscription discovered and copied by M. Ferteklis and again by Mr. Woodward.

The inscription is written on a slab of white marble about 1·20 m. square, in letters about …08 m. high, built into the wall in the back yard of a shop about 100 yards S.E. of the Bazaar gate. A transcription cannot easily be made, as the stone is high up and weathered in the lower part.

Two of the three inscriptions here published are fragments of the Building-record of the Parthenon, and the third is from that of the Propylaea; they are not without interest as they contribute to some extent, towards furnishing completer texts and fuller restorations of these important stelai. The most ambitious attempt at a reconstruction of the Parthenon-accounts appeared recently from the pen of M. E. Cavaignac, but, as my notes will show, this cannot be the final exposition of the subject, since his version of the shape of the original stele is not borne out by the evidence of the fragments which have survived.

When travelling in the island of Rhodes some ten years ago Dr. Duncan Mackenzie picked up on the Akropolis of Kameiros a handful of sherds, which I recently had occasion to examine. I found that several of them fitted together, and formed portions of an Attic b.-f. vase. The remains of one side represented a draped female figure standing to the left, and bearing a shield, with a pillar in front of her, while the five fragments of which the other portion consisted represented three armed men running to the left. In other words, here was a fragmentary Panathenaic amphora, recording a victory in the Armed Race.

Herodotos describes the straits to which Argos was reduced by the victory of Kleomenes I. in the following extravagant terms: ᾿´Αργος δὲἀνδρω̑ν ἐχηρώθη οὕτω ὥστε οἱ δου̑λοι αὐτω̑ν ἔσχον πάντα τὰ πρήγματα ἄρχοντές τε καὶ διέποντες, ἐς ὃ ἐπήβησαν οὶ τω̑ν ἀπολομένων παι̑δες· ἔπειτα σφέας οὗτοι ἀνακτώμενοι ὀπίσω ἐς ἑωυτοὺς τὸ Ἄργος ἐξέβαλον· ἐξωθεύμενοι δὲ οἱ δου̑λοι μάχῃ ἔσχον Τίρυνθα. τέως μὲν δή σφι ἦν ἄρθμια ἐς ἀλλήλους, ἔπειτα δὲ ἐς τοὺς δούλους ἦλθε ἀνὴρ μάντις, Κλέανδρος γένος ἐὼν Φιγαλεὺς ἀπ᾿ Ἀρκαδίης· οὗτος τοὺς δούλους ἀνέγνωσε ἐπιθέσθαι τοι̑σι δεσπότῃσι. ἐκ τούτον δὴ πόλεμός σφι ἦν ἐπὶ χρόνον,ἐς ὃ δὴ μόγις οἱ᾿Αργεῖοι ἐπεκράτησαν Herodotos is given to exaggerating catastrophes. Mr. Wells has drawn attention to the fact that in 491 B.c. Argos was sufficiently populous to allow 1000 volunteers to take part in the war in Aigina. This extremity of ὀλιγανδρία which the historian depicts, must be a fiction. Even in antiquity the attention of critics was drawn to the passage.

In ancient medical practice several sorts of natural earths, found at various places in the Levant and described in detail by Pliny and other writers, had recognised curative properties, being employed for the most part as astringents and desiccatives in the treatment of wounds and internal haemorrhages. Pliny's list includes the earths of Chios, Kimolos, Eretria, Lemnos, Melos, Samos, and Sinope. The use of many of these persisted into quite modern times, but none was so generally esteemed either by ancients or moderns as the Lemnian, which was set apart in the first place by its alleged miraculous power against poisons (especially the bites of venomous reptiles) and later against plague, and in the second by the religious accompaniments and the various artificial restrictions of its production.

During the course of travel and exploration that we have carried out during the last three years in Thessaly, and South Macedonia, Mr. M. S. Thompson and myself have discovered that in these regions a carnival play similar to that seen by Mr. Dawkins in Thrace is still performed on certain occasions. It is surprising that these festivals have for so long escaped the notice of travellers, for the area in which they occur is a large one, and they were more extensively celebrated in days gone by. Mr. G. F. Abbott seems to be the only traveller who has noticed them, and even he has misunderstood them.

On looking lately through a volume (AD. MSS. 29,822) of the manuscript collections bequeathed by the late Mr. Robert Hay to the British Museum, I came across a partly coloured drawing (f. 33) by him, of the well-known wall-painting of Keftian (Minoan Cretan) ambassadors in the tomb of Senmut at Egyptian Thebes. A direct photograph (by Mr. E. R. Ayrton) of this painting was published by me in the Annual for 1903–4 (x. p. 154) and a year later, Dr. W. M. Müller gave us a fine photograph and also a hand-drawn reproduction of it in colour in the first volume of his Egyptological Researches, published by the Carnegie Institute (1906), Plates 5, 6, and 7. These were the first published illustrations of the whole painting as it is now.

The temptation to probe the origins of a people who brought war and destruction with them, but whose absorption was followed by the great renaissance of Greece is infectious. Philologists have not regarded the warning of Beloch who twenty years ago wrote ‘Gewiss werden Wanderungen auf der griechischen Halbinsel in vorhistorishcher Zeit stattgefunden haben; aber wir wissen dariiber nichts, absolut gar nichts, und wer es anders sagt, der tauscht sich selbst und sein Publikum’ and now the anthropologist is emboldened to try. Much water has flowed under the bridge since 1890, and I make the plunge. I take leave to change the question from the usual formula, ‘Who were the Dorians?’ to ‘Who are the Dorians?’ The attempt is made from the point of view of physical anthropology, in the hope that it may prove a contribution; for the aid of archaeology and philology is obviously needed in the solution of such an involved question.

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.