DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.15680#0026
6
D. G. HOGARTH
of the cliff led to much sliding and displacement of earfch, but also, as after-
wards became clear, tbe building of the Great Wall at a later period had
caused radical disturbance of earlier adjacent deposits. Furthermore, just
here modern incisions had been made by native searchers for obsidian flakes.
But there was evidence sufficient to show that (1) the obsidian layer was
anterior to the upper houses hereabouts; (2) the Stratum immediately
above that layer contained, not Mycenaean, but pre- or proto-Mycenaean
painted wäre; (3) above that again lay a thick Stratum of typical
Mycenaean remains; and (4) rio remains later than these last existed on
the site.
These points established, Mr. Mackenzie set to work to find the outer
face and the direction of the great fortification wall. Its total thickness was
seen to be much greater than had been supposed, and within it certain
doorless Chambers, at first thought to be living rooms, were now seen to have
formed a structural part of the fortification itself {v. infra p. 31, B.S.A. iii.
p. 14).
The whole of the rest of this short season and half the season succeeding
were devoted to following up and Clearing the outward face of this Great
Wall from its abutment on the cliff edge to the eastward limit of the
property over which the right of excavation had been conceded to the
School.
The ground to southward was also probed for some distance and found
uniformly to be high-lying rock without any trace of building upon it and
thinly covered with dusty soil. But in one place, twenty metres south of the
main bastiou, occurred an artificial cutting, which at first was suspected of
being the apjiroach to a large tomb. It proved eventually to be a
rectangular pit, IG metres long and 2"60 deep, cut with straight sides and
level floor. A layer of very hard eartb. covered it; and below that lay a
disordered mass of potsherds, obviously hidden with intention. Mr. Cecil
Smith, who opened the pit in 1897, was of opinion [B.S.A. iii. p. 20) that it
was an unfinished tomb passage used later as a refuse receptacle; but in
view of certain facts observed later in Crete, both at Gnossos and Zakro
{B.S.A. vi. p. 79, vii. p. 124, and J.H.S. xxi. p. 79), I should suggest that,
superfluous as ifc may seem, this trench was really cut to hold the pottery
found in it.
Like the Cnossos pits found to be filled with Kamares pots and sherds,
in the vicinity of early buildings re-used by later inhabitants, this trench
at Phylakopi seems to me to have contained the result of a clearance of dis-
carded vessels. But from what quarter of the town they came, and why
they were not thrown into the convenient sea, it is hard to say. It is im-
possible to find, in mere tidiness or revenge of war, an adequate motive for
this careful concealment of potsherds in a primitive age. One looks instinct-
ively to religion or superstitious fear, and recalls that in the Apolline Precinct
at Naukratis Mr. Petrie found a trench cut to contain broken votive vessels
of an early period. In the Dictaean Cavern abundant evidence was collected
to show that offerings to the god were ordinarily dedicated in clay receptacles.
D. G. HOGARTH
of the cliff led to much sliding and displacement of earfch, but also, as after-
wards became clear, tbe building of the Great Wall at a later period had
caused radical disturbance of earlier adjacent deposits. Furthermore, just
here modern incisions had been made by native searchers for obsidian flakes.
But there was evidence sufficient to show that (1) the obsidian layer was
anterior to the upper houses hereabouts; (2) the Stratum immediately
above that layer contained, not Mycenaean, but pre- or proto-Mycenaean
painted wäre; (3) above that again lay a thick Stratum of typical
Mycenaean remains; and (4) rio remains later than these last existed on
the site.
These points established, Mr. Mackenzie set to work to find the outer
face and the direction of the great fortification wall. Its total thickness was
seen to be much greater than had been supposed, and within it certain
doorless Chambers, at first thought to be living rooms, were now seen to have
formed a structural part of the fortification itself {v. infra p. 31, B.S.A. iii.
p. 14).
The whole of the rest of this short season and half the season succeeding
were devoted to following up and Clearing the outward face of this Great
Wall from its abutment on the cliff edge to the eastward limit of the
property over which the right of excavation had been conceded to the
School.
The ground to southward was also probed for some distance and found
uniformly to be high-lying rock without any trace of building upon it and
thinly covered with dusty soil. But in one place, twenty metres south of the
main bastiou, occurred an artificial cutting, which at first was suspected of
being the apjiroach to a large tomb. It proved eventually to be a
rectangular pit, IG metres long and 2"60 deep, cut with straight sides and
level floor. A layer of very hard eartb. covered it; and below that lay a
disordered mass of potsherds, obviously hidden with intention. Mr. Cecil
Smith, who opened the pit in 1897, was of opinion [B.S.A. iii. p. 20) that it
was an unfinished tomb passage used later as a refuse receptacle; but in
view of certain facts observed later in Crete, both at Gnossos and Zakro
{B.S.A. vi. p. 79, vii. p. 124, and J.H.S. xxi. p. 79), I should suggest that,
superfluous as ifc may seem, this trench was really cut to hold the pottery
found in it.
Like the Cnossos pits found to be filled with Kamares pots and sherds,
in the vicinity of early buildings re-used by later inhabitants, this trench
at Phylakopi seems to me to have contained the result of a clearance of dis-
carded vessels. But from what quarter of the town they came, and why
they were not thrown into the convenient sea, it is hard to say. It is im-
possible to find, in mere tidiness or revenge of war, an adequate motive for
this careful concealment of potsherds in a primitive age. One looks instinct-
ively to religion or superstitious fear, and recalls that in the Apolline Precinct
at Naukratis Mr. Petrie found a trench cut to contain broken votive vessels
of an early period. In the Dictaean Cavern abundant evidence was collected
to show that offerings to the god were ordinarily dedicated in clay receptacles.