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).

The British School at Athens has had in its possession for many years now a number of fragments of Greek relief sculpture, mostly from funerary or votive monuments. The origin of these sculptures is obscure, but it seems likely that they were collected by the historian George Finlay, probably during the first half of the nineteenth century. It is the purpose of this article to publish photographs and details of some of the more important fragments, and also to attempt to date them and to interpret the scenes which they show.S.7. Plate 73a. A fragment from the lower right corner of a relief. H. 0·27 m., W. 0·45 m., Th. 0·17 m., Depth of relief 1 cm. Pentelic marble. Part of the right-hand edge of the relief remains, where it can be seen that there was no side frame. Below, there is a simple plinth or ground-line with a flat surface, and beneath this a rougher receding margin of about the same width, perhaps where the relief was inserted into a base

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Excavations at the Sparta theatre were resumed in 1992: the objective was to survey it and clarify its history. Nine trenches were opened and a catalogue of architectural blocks compiled. A trench in the sw orchestra revealed two staircases; while the seats of honour, the walkway behind, and two or three rows of benches above are preserved, the remainder of the theatre was severely damaged in the 9th–13th centuries. The diazoma's foundations were revealed; below it were ten radial staircases, above seventeen. The lower cavea had thirty-one rows, the upper nineteen. At the top, rows 17–19 rested on concrete over an inner radial wall of concrete-bonded stones; there are traces of a Doric colonnade around the walkway here. The upper cavea yielded pottery suggesting an initial construction under Eurykles (c.30–20 BC); no certain evidence of an earlier theatre has been found. The stage building's architecture suggests Flavian and Severan reconstructions and later repairs. The site's use as a theatre ended c. AD 400, but finds indicate early Byzantine continuity and three later occupation phases (9th–13th centuries). Sculptures found include a statuette of Apollo or Dionysos, an Antonine female portrait (priestess?), and an important late Roman male portrait head.

Exacavations and study at the ancient theatre of Sparta in the area of the stage building and the west parodos have revealed new evidence for the original stage arrangements of the theatre as built under G. Julius Eurykles, c. 30-20 BC. A new trench laid across the west parodos, and the reopening of trials made by H. Bulle in 1935, have confirmed beyond doubt the existence of a scenery store building (skanotheke), from which three trackways, at least two of which were certainly fitted with continuous grooved blocks, allowed a moveable stage structure to be rolled out roughly into the position later occupied by the existing second phase stage building. Within the west parodos three contiguous channelled blocks have been revealed for the north line, the middle line and two poros bedding blocks for the south line. These indicate a gauge between the outer lines of c. 6 m, within a skanotheke 9 m in width and 36 m long, the walls of which have been confirmed on the north, south and west. Bulle's 1937 hypothesis concerning a rolling stage for Sparta, which was challenged by Buckler in 1986, is therefore largely confirmed. Numerous fragments of a marble Doric columned order reused within the walls and foundations of the Flavian stage building suggest that a colonnaded façade may have fronted the moving stage area, and possibly also enclosed it at the rear.