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Excavations at the ancient theatre of Sparta 1992–4: preliminary report

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

G. B. Waywell  and
J. J. Wilkes
G. B. Waywell
Affiliation:
King's College London
J. J. Wilkes
Affiliation:
University College London
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Abstract

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.

Type
Articles
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 90 , November 1995 , pp. 435 - 460
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1995

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References

1 Dickins, G., BSA 12 (1905–1906), 394–406.Google Scholar For a general summary of work on the Sparta acropolis up to 1988 see Waywell, G. B. and Wilkes, J. J., BSA 89 (1994), 379–84.Google Scholar

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6 Id., BSA 29 (1927–8), I (completion of excavations), 2–56 (inscriptions).

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10 Woodward (n. 3), pls 14–15.

11 Woodward (n. 4), 175–6.

12 Woodward (n. 3), 123–6 with pls 14–15.

13 Woodward (n. 3), pls 14–15. In fact they are rows 15–17.

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22 Waywell and Wilkes (n. 1), 403–5. A complete schedule of control point coordinates for the acropolis of Sparta has been supplied to the BSA and to the Greek Archaeological Service in Sparta.

23 A dotted line indicates the edge of slip coating.

24 Typology: Conspectus formarum terrae sigillatate Italico modo confectae (Basel, 1990).

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50 A similar figure of larger scale was found by A. M. Woodward, apparently buried intentionally towards the w end of the scaenae frons: Woodward (n. 5), 23–6 no. 2, fig. 6.

51 See esp. the portrait of Lucilla from the Tempietto Tetrastilo, Ostia, dated to AD 168 by association with an inscribed portrait of Lucius Verus; Wegner, M. and Unger, R., Boreas, 3 (1980), 70–1, pl. 5.Google Scholar

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59 Ibid. 167, fig. 5 no. 4.

60 Ibid. 208 no. 3.