DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16205#0061
EXCAVATIONS
THE BUI
THE Kephala of Vasiliki is a low limestone ridge, rising in the centre of the narrow valley, be-
tween the abrupt mountain chains that bound the Isthmus of Hierapetra on the east and
west. In prehistoric times, trade must have crossed the Isthmus as in the classical period;
and in so fertile a valley, surrounded by rugged and inhospitable country, it is only natural
that we should find the remains of numerous settlements.
The Kephala lies in a direct line south, some two miles from Gournia, and rather less from the
little haven of Pachyammos. On the north and west, the rock forms a cliff about fifteen feet high,
and on the other sides the hill slopes sharply down to the bed of a torrent. Commanding the entire
valley and directly above the Isthmus road, which must in all time have followed much the same route
as to-day, this hill was suited in every respect for an early settlement, and the numerous stone celts
and potsherds constantly turned up on the surface led us, in 1903, to make a trial excavation near
the summit, where a piece of wall built of large, roughly dressed stones, showed above the soil. In
three days we cleared part of a Minoan house of the Gournia period, lying close to the above-mentioned
wall. Behind this wall we were disappointed to find that the ground had been disturbed long ago,
and a number of very poor Roman tombs of a late date occupied a space some twenty feet square.
In the spring campaign of 1904, we resumed work with about thirty men, and for some days dug
numerous but unsuccessful pits in the endeavor to find other house walls. At last, on the top of
the hill, within the probable circuit of the large wall which had first caught our attention, well-built
house walls were uncovered, showing a marvellous state of preservation and in places a height of three
metres. We moved the whole force of one hundred men from Gournia to the Kephala, to make a three
days' trial of the value of the site. The result was surprising, for not only was an interesting edi-
fice revealed, but we acquired about one hundred perfect vases of a ware practically unknown at that
time. This pottery belongs in the Knossos sequence to the Early Minoan period, i. e., according to the
chronology adopted in this publication, to the centuries between 2600 and 2300 B. C, one thousand
years before the great days of Mycenae.
Perhaps the most remarkable circumstance is that so perfect a site was never reoccupied in the
Middle and Late Minoan Periods, for, excepting the house on the north slope, no traces of a later
settlement were found. The remains, however, show at least four periods, and, owing to the depth,
the several strata are fairly well defined. As the development in the various styles of pottery was
evidently rapid, we may conclude that the four periods followed one another in quick succession and
this observation encourages one to shorten the changes in Cretan civilization.
It is as yet impossible to say whether the buildings on the Kephala are parts of a very large house or
a collection of separate dwellings. The former theory seems, however, the more probable, unless our
architect, Herr Sejk, is right in thinking he has found portions of a road in the eastern quarter. The
majority of the walls are those of a rectangular building of good construction. Digging was neces-
sarily slow, owing to masses of hard plaster, or rather, a kind of brick-clay, which choked the rooms,
so that the thirty men, who could be spared from Gournia, made but little progress in their three weeks
of work. In all, thirty-two rooms were cleared, the depth varying according to the slope of the hill.
Only the last three periods of occupation are represented architecturally, but it is clear from
various pieces of evidence that, before the construction of the earliest house walls, there were huts
of perishable material on the site (Period I). Although the oldest building (Period II) is too much
destroyed to admit of any conjecture as to its use and size, it appears to have been a rectangular struc-
ture with neatly built walls of small stones, and with an axis absolutely different from that of the
larger house above it. The walls appear on the Plan, Plate XII, in Rooms 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 12, 18, 20.
49
AT VASILIKI
We have a much clearer idea of the house which occupies the next higher stratum (Period III A
on Plan). Its walls are built of stones even smaller than those used in Period II and they are-covered
by a heavy layer of clay plaster of apparently the same composition as the bricks, which were found in
large numbers; both plaster and bricks show traces of the straw used in making them. The walls were
usually strengthened by beams of wood running lengthwise and by short pieces running transversely.
The beams were about 10 cm. square in section, but some of the transverse sticks were apparently
trunks of saplings, not more than 5 cm. thick. In two rooms (15, 16), the walls stand two and a half
metres high and are connected by a doorway, which is almost intact. The ceilings of most of the
basement rooms, and therefore the floors of the first storys, were made of canes heavily covered with
clay plaster, and the whole was supported by transverse beams. When the beams gave way, the
ceilings sank into the rooms below, making a layer of debris about 50 cm. thick. This debris, owing to
action of fire and water, had become an almost petrified mass. In cases where plaster had fallen on
a deposit of pottery, or pottery had fallen with it from upper rooms, the vases were as fresh as on the
day of the catastrophe that overwhelmed them. The edifice must have had several storys, for the
mass of debris that fills the basement rooms is far too deep to be the result of the collapse of a sin-
gle floor. As to the former plan of the building, little can be said. Probably the heavy wall H H
formed a corner on the east and the wall G G a similar corner on the north, but these parts are now
cut off from the rest of the building by an outcrop of rock. Rooms 1-9, 14-16, seem to belong to an
original rectangular dwelling, whereas the less regular spaces in the southwest corner (Period III B on
Plan) are in some cases rooms of an older period, re-used or rebuilt on old foundations, and may have
served for servants' quarters or for storerooms, since in two we found many large and simply decorated
pithoi. On the slopes of the hill to the east, a number of trial pits disclosed walls of rooms built of the
same materials and on the same axis as the house on the summit, so that it is reasonable to suppose
that they were parts of the same structure, which, in that case, must have been of considerable extent,
equalling perhaps the palace at Gournia. In the rooms of the northwest quarter, the different levels
of Periods 11 and 111 are perfectly distinct, being marked in many cases by a paved flooring, or,
where this is lacking, by a clay flooring and a break in the plaster on the wall. The building seems
to have been destroyed by fire after the valuable objects in metal had been removed. Only three pieces
of bronze were found on the site: two half axe-heads, one flaring toward the edge, the other long,
straight-sided, and narrow; and a dagger of the Early Minoan triangular shape (supra, p. 3, note 41),
18 cm. long with two rivets at the hilt. Obsidian was common in Periods I and II, when bronze must
still have been a rarity, and objects made of obsidian were numerous and far better at Vasiliki
than at Gournia; of knives, three were beautifully slender specimens, quite perfect (No. 1, 2). Two
stone celts of a short bulging type, several stone ring-weights of the usual Aegean kind, many clay
weights of type III 7, a crude clay head (No. 22) and a fragment of a stone bowl, which was found
amid house ruins of Period IV, complete the tale of Vasiliki finds aside from pottery.
In the southeast corner of the excavations, two trial pits led to a discovery of value for determin-
ing the relative age of settlements in this part of the island. Here, near the surface and built on top
of the older constructions, were a number of poor house walls, much overthrown and evidently of
later date (Period IV) than any thus far described. The pottery found amid these ruins belongs to
the era of white-on-black geometric ware, of which an enormous quantity was unearthed in the North
Trench at Gournia (p. 57, infra). Beneath these poor walls lay stratified deposits of the earlier periods,
and thus a full sequence was established, with which we shall now deal according to the data furnished
by the pottery.
THE BUI
THE Kephala of Vasiliki is a low limestone ridge, rising in the centre of the narrow valley, be-
tween the abrupt mountain chains that bound the Isthmus of Hierapetra on the east and
west. In prehistoric times, trade must have crossed the Isthmus as in the classical period;
and in so fertile a valley, surrounded by rugged and inhospitable country, it is only natural
that we should find the remains of numerous settlements.
The Kephala lies in a direct line south, some two miles from Gournia, and rather less from the
little haven of Pachyammos. On the north and west, the rock forms a cliff about fifteen feet high,
and on the other sides the hill slopes sharply down to the bed of a torrent. Commanding the entire
valley and directly above the Isthmus road, which must in all time have followed much the same route
as to-day, this hill was suited in every respect for an early settlement, and the numerous stone celts
and potsherds constantly turned up on the surface led us, in 1903, to make a trial excavation near
the summit, where a piece of wall built of large, roughly dressed stones, showed above the soil. In
three days we cleared part of a Minoan house of the Gournia period, lying close to the above-mentioned
wall. Behind this wall we were disappointed to find that the ground had been disturbed long ago,
and a number of very poor Roman tombs of a late date occupied a space some twenty feet square.
In the spring campaign of 1904, we resumed work with about thirty men, and for some days dug
numerous but unsuccessful pits in the endeavor to find other house walls. At last, on the top of
the hill, within the probable circuit of the large wall which had first caught our attention, well-built
house walls were uncovered, showing a marvellous state of preservation and in places a height of three
metres. We moved the whole force of one hundred men from Gournia to the Kephala, to make a three
days' trial of the value of the site. The result was surprising, for not only was an interesting edi-
fice revealed, but we acquired about one hundred perfect vases of a ware practically unknown at that
time. This pottery belongs in the Knossos sequence to the Early Minoan period, i. e., according to the
chronology adopted in this publication, to the centuries between 2600 and 2300 B. C, one thousand
years before the great days of Mycenae.
Perhaps the most remarkable circumstance is that so perfect a site was never reoccupied in the
Middle and Late Minoan Periods, for, excepting the house on the north slope, no traces of a later
settlement were found. The remains, however, show at least four periods, and, owing to the depth,
the several strata are fairly well defined. As the development in the various styles of pottery was
evidently rapid, we may conclude that the four periods followed one another in quick succession and
this observation encourages one to shorten the changes in Cretan civilization.
It is as yet impossible to say whether the buildings on the Kephala are parts of a very large house or
a collection of separate dwellings. The former theory seems, however, the more probable, unless our
architect, Herr Sejk, is right in thinking he has found portions of a road in the eastern quarter. The
majority of the walls are those of a rectangular building of good construction. Digging was neces-
sarily slow, owing to masses of hard plaster, or rather, a kind of brick-clay, which choked the rooms,
so that the thirty men, who could be spared from Gournia, made but little progress in their three weeks
of work. In all, thirty-two rooms were cleared, the depth varying according to the slope of the hill.
Only the last three periods of occupation are represented architecturally, but it is clear from
various pieces of evidence that, before the construction of the earliest house walls, there were huts
of perishable material on the site (Period I). Although the oldest building (Period II) is too much
destroyed to admit of any conjecture as to its use and size, it appears to have been a rectangular struc-
ture with neatly built walls of small stones, and with an axis absolutely different from that of the
larger house above it. The walls appear on the Plan, Plate XII, in Rooms 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 12, 18, 20.
49
AT VASILIKI
We have a much clearer idea of the house which occupies the next higher stratum (Period III A
on Plan). Its walls are built of stones even smaller than those used in Period II and they are-covered
by a heavy layer of clay plaster of apparently the same composition as the bricks, which were found in
large numbers; both plaster and bricks show traces of the straw used in making them. The walls were
usually strengthened by beams of wood running lengthwise and by short pieces running transversely.
The beams were about 10 cm. square in section, but some of the transverse sticks were apparently
trunks of saplings, not more than 5 cm. thick. In two rooms (15, 16), the walls stand two and a half
metres high and are connected by a doorway, which is almost intact. The ceilings of most of the
basement rooms, and therefore the floors of the first storys, were made of canes heavily covered with
clay plaster, and the whole was supported by transverse beams. When the beams gave way, the
ceilings sank into the rooms below, making a layer of debris about 50 cm. thick. This debris, owing to
action of fire and water, had become an almost petrified mass. In cases where plaster had fallen on
a deposit of pottery, or pottery had fallen with it from upper rooms, the vases were as fresh as on the
day of the catastrophe that overwhelmed them. The edifice must have had several storys, for the
mass of debris that fills the basement rooms is far too deep to be the result of the collapse of a sin-
gle floor. As to the former plan of the building, little can be said. Probably the heavy wall H H
formed a corner on the east and the wall G G a similar corner on the north, but these parts are now
cut off from the rest of the building by an outcrop of rock. Rooms 1-9, 14-16, seem to belong to an
original rectangular dwelling, whereas the less regular spaces in the southwest corner (Period III B on
Plan) are in some cases rooms of an older period, re-used or rebuilt on old foundations, and may have
served for servants' quarters or for storerooms, since in two we found many large and simply decorated
pithoi. On the slopes of the hill to the east, a number of trial pits disclosed walls of rooms built of the
same materials and on the same axis as the house on the summit, so that it is reasonable to suppose
that they were parts of the same structure, which, in that case, must have been of considerable extent,
equalling perhaps the palace at Gournia. In the rooms of the northwest quarter, the different levels
of Periods 11 and 111 are perfectly distinct, being marked in many cases by a paved flooring, or,
where this is lacking, by a clay flooring and a break in the plaster on the wall. The building seems
to have been destroyed by fire after the valuable objects in metal had been removed. Only three pieces
of bronze were found on the site: two half axe-heads, one flaring toward the edge, the other long,
straight-sided, and narrow; and a dagger of the Early Minoan triangular shape (supra, p. 3, note 41),
18 cm. long with two rivets at the hilt. Obsidian was common in Periods I and II, when bronze must
still have been a rarity, and objects made of obsidian were numerous and far better at Vasiliki
than at Gournia; of knives, three were beautifully slender specimens, quite perfect (No. 1, 2). Two
stone celts of a short bulging type, several stone ring-weights of the usual Aegean kind, many clay
weights of type III 7, a crude clay head (No. 22) and a fragment of a stone bowl, which was found
amid house ruins of Period IV, complete the tale of Vasiliki finds aside from pottery.
In the southeast corner of the excavations, two trial pits led to a discovery of value for determin-
ing the relative age of settlements in this part of the island. Here, near the surface and built on top
of the older constructions, were a number of poor house walls, much overthrown and evidently of
later date (Period IV) than any thus far described. The pottery found amid these ruins belongs to
the era of white-on-black geometric ware, of which an enormous quantity was unearthed in the North
Trench at Gournia (p. 57, infra). Beneath these poor walls lay stratified deposits of the earlier periods,
and thus a full sequence was established, with which we shall now deal according to the data furnished
by the pottery.