20 NOVEMBER 1909, Page 13

Annual of the British School at Athens. (Macmillan and Co.

25s. net.)—The excavations at Sparta continue to occupy much of the activities of the school. Nothing of exceptional value was discovered during the period covered by the present Report, but the general effect continues to disturb the common idea of Spartan civilisation. It is perplexing, for instance, to be told that the pottery shows its best stage in the seventh century B.C. An incidental find has been one of a jar of silver coins, tetradrachms, varying in date from Alexander (336-323 B.C.) to Antiochus HI. (222-187 B.C.) Some are Egyptian belonging to the first and second Ptolemies. Their presence has an historic significance on account of the relations between Egypt and Sparta in the third century. Excavations at Crete have gone on, with additions to our knowledge of the Aegean civilization; and work has also been done at RhitsiSna in Boeotia, a place which Messrs. Burrows and Use identify with the ancient Mycalessos (Thucyd. VII. 29-30).