DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16205#0031
EXCAVATIONS AT GOURNIA
a T two points the long, narrow island of Crete is reduced to half its average width by gulfs
/\ that deeply indent its northern coast. At the Isthmus of Hierapetra, which is the
/ \ eastern of these two points and the narrowest part of the island, the northern and southern
L jL shores approach to within eight miles of each other. Here Nature has made communica-
tion between sea and sea not only short but easy, by way of a narrow strip of lowland, lying between
the ranges of Dicte in Sitia and Dicte in Lasithi, severing the long mountain chain that forms the
backbone of Crete. East of this lowland a lofty limestone escarpment, furrowed in deep gorges and
descending with sharply curving talus, crosses the Isthmus from north to south and hides from view
the summit of Effendi Kavousi (c. 4829 ft.), which dominates Sitia, ancient home of the Eteocretans.
Westward the land, by a more gradual ascent, attains to mountain height, culminating in Effendi
Christos (Abdivrrfi XptavSz, Christ Our Lord), the loftiest peak of Lasithi (c. 7070 ft.), in one of whose
caves Zeus was believed to have been born. Dwellers on the Isthmus are at the mercy of their upland
neighbors and the long existence of unfortified settlements of the Bronze Age at Vasiliki and Gournia
points to greater tranquillity in Crete during prehistoric times than we find in later periods.
My acquaintance with the Isthmus began in April, 1900, when, with Miss Patten, of Boston, who
wished to study the flora of the island, 1 made a prospecting trip through East-central Crete. At the
end of a week's ride we inspected a site recommended to me by Dr. A.J. Evans, on the mountains that
rise east of the Isthmus, and two lesser heights in the vicinity of Kavousi, where peasants had found
antiquities. Pleased with the prospect, 1 petitioned the Minister of Education at Canea for permission
to excavate in behalf of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, of which 1 was then a Fel-
low. This permission having been granted, we worked at our claim with a small force averaging twenty-
two men, from May 14 to June 6, Miss Patten assisting me and at the same time preparing a valuable
report on the botany of the region (infra, Appendix F, p. 58).
The results of our excavations were published briefly in the American Journal of Archaeology,
2nd Series, V, 1901, p. 125 ff. Their chief bearing upon the subject of the present publication is that
they defined the characteristics of the Early Iron Age in Crete beyond possibility of its being mistaken
for any other period, and also furnished evidence that men once lived upon the Isthmus in enjoyment
of the so-called Island Civilization, then known chiefly through Thera and Melos. The sites of
the Early Iron Age are high and difficult of access. On a peak called the Citadel (To K&axftov) above
Kavousi, we uncovered thirteen rooms of a chieftain's house and found the oldest circular game-board
yet discovered in Greek lands. A quarter of a mile distant on a precipitous slope, a peasant had built
his hut above a domed ('bee-hive') tomb. Although this had been plundered forty years before, we
gleaned from it iron swords, interesting specimens of pottery approaching the Dipylon style, and frag-
ments of bronze plate on which a heraldic design was executed, repousse and delicately engraved.
The ancient highlanders were poor builders, contenting themselves with piling up stones or large
fragments of shale and bonding them with clay. Of very different construction are some ancient ter-
race walls near the chapel of St. Anthony, in a line of low coast hills west of Kavousi plain. They are
sufficiently massive to be called ' Cyclopean,' and associated with them were potsherds better than any
found on the hill-tops. Instead of straight-line patterns, such as were used by the highlanders, these
sherds bore curvilinear designs, spirals, wave-lines, and motives taken from plant life. A study of
pottery from other Aegean sites, notably Phylakopi, Melos, had taught me that such patterns must
belong to a Bronze Age people.
Opportunity for following up this clue was given me a year later by the American Exploration
Society of Philadelphia. With my colleague Miss Wheeler, our Epirote foreman Aristides Pappadhias,
and his good mother, I again landed in Crete, April 7, 1901. At Knossos and Phaestos, palaces of vast
extent, rich in treasures of art, were being uncovered by the fortunate British and Italian excavators.
This sustained success in the Minoan field increased my desire to find a site belonging to the days of
Cretan supremacy, prior to the introduction of iron, antedating even the greatness of Mycenae.
Having faith in the Isthmus of Hierapetra as a thoroughfare across the island, which would cer-
tainly have been used by a seagoing people like the Minoans, I went back to explore it more thoroughly.
The distribution of sites by periods had become apparent during the season of 1900 at Kavousi. Men of
the Bronze Age chose low hills not far from the sea; their successors of the Iron Age had strongholds
overlooking the coveted strip of Isthmus; Cretans of the classical period and their Roman conquerors
established trading-places on the shore; Venetians and Turks built watch-towers and block-houses at
commanding points for the purpose of holding the unfortunate islanders in subjection. Modern
Cretans still prefer the security of the hills, but a seaward movement has already begun as a result of
the peace and order that, since the liberation of Crete in 1898, have prevailed throughout the island.
With these facts in view, Miss Wheeler and I were impelled to look for our Bronze Age settlement
in the lowlands, while keeping our men busy clearing a "megalithic homestead" of the late Bronze Age,
'sub-Mycenaean' or 'sub-Minoan,' at Avgo, a mountain valley east of Kavousi. On holidays and
when the earth was too wet for digging because of recent rains, we rode up and down Kavousi plain,
inspecting many a "rise of ground which at a distance looked a perfect Mycenaean hill-site, but proved
to be all rock." At last, rumor of our search reached the ear of George Perakis, peasant antiquarian
of the neighboring village of Vasiliki, who sent word by the schoolmaster that at a place called Gournia
within the deme of Kavousi, but four miles west of the village of that name, he could show us a hill
close to the sea where there were broken bits of pottery and old walls.
Accordingly, on the afternoon of May 19, 1901, Miss Wheeler and I met Perakis at the roadside
khan near Pachyammos and proceeded westward for three-quarters of a mile to a cove, where we saw
two massive walls of a rectangular building at the water's edge. Turning south and crossing the high-
road, we climbed a low hill densely covered with wild carob trees. Here we picked up a few sherds
with patterns similar to those found in 1900 near St. Anthony's chapel, and, peering with difficulty
beneath the thick undergrowth, we discerned the tops of ancient walls of which there was visible never
more than one course.
On the following day, about thirty men were sent to the new site to make trial excavations. Soon
they were in high spirits, for had not Lysimachus produced the first good find of the season, a perfect
bronze spear point, and Michalis Paviadhakis a curved bronze knife, buried scarcely a foot below the
surface? One man after another called us to see the potsherds, fragments of stone vases, etc., he had
unearthed. Perhaps the proudest workman was he who had laid bare part of a well-paved road, the
threshold of a house, and a small clay gutter. Everything pointed to a prehistoric settlement of some
importance, whose existence on that site had remained unsuspected until that day. Such a discovery
could not fail to appeal to the imagination of the peasants, and we had no difficulty in securing their
eager co-operation.
Within three days we had opened houses, were following paved roads, and had in our possession
enough vases and sherds, bearing octopus, ivy-leaf, double-axe and other unmistakably Minoan designs,
as well as bronze tools, seal impressions, stone vases, etc., to make it certain that we had found what
we were seeking, a Bronze Age settlement of the best period of Cretan civilization. On May 23d, our
discovery was announced by telegram from Candia to the American Exploration Society, four days
after the first visit paid by me, or, as far as I can learn, by any archaeologist, to the chief site of Gour-
nia. Many scholars had passed along the highroad leading from Candia to Sitia that runs within an
eighth of a mile of our Town, but because no tradition was associated with the place, because it was
covered with stones and overgrown with trees, the low hill had escaped their notice, although in form
and in proximity to the sea, it is the exact type of a Minoan acropolis. We immediately petitioned
the Cretan government for permission to excavate the new site for the American Exploration Society
of Philadelphia, and our request was promptly granted.
Within a week we had a pay-roll of one hundred men and this was the average number during three
seasons of work, 1901, 1903, and 1904. Ten girls were constantly employed in washing the potsherds
which were turned up by the tens of thousands. Eighteen men were allowed to use pick and knife; an
equal number shoveled; the others, with the exception of a few skilled in carpentry and wall-build-
ing, removed in baskets and barrows the earth and stones that covered the ancient town. These
peasants were of one faith, the Greek Orthodox, for very few Mohammedans remain in the villages
of Eastern Crete. Our Greek was mutually intelligible whenever we desired it to be; 1 could use
scholastic words which would mystify them and they could hide from me their meaning in dialect
forms, but the differences between words and pronunciation used in Athens, where I had learned
modern Greek, and in Crete were not sufficient to prove a barrier. The men proved capable of steady,
patient labor and showed an interest in the common tasks that made discipline easy. They were more
careful than the average American laborer would be in unearthing fragile objects.
It might be supposed that such an enterprise, conducted by women, would be fraught with serious
difficulties in a land which had just issued from Turkish bondage, and which for centuries has been
noted for the turbulent character of its people. Yet, reviewing our experiences, the difficulties seem
to have been insignificant, confined almost entirely to those one expects to meet in a country of limited
resources and no comforts. During the interval between the expulsion of the Turkish troops, May,
1898, and the uprising of 1905, Crete was "the safest corner of Europe, "and this security was as perfect
in districts like the Isthmus, patrolled by a small native gendarmerie, as in the neighborhood of the
International Forces. In the years of our sojourn in the island we witnessed improvement in many
matters of vital importance to one who excavates—the organization of a good post-office system,
the introduction of a Cretan currency, the transformation of roomy Turkish barracks at Candia into
a Museum of Antiquities.
At the close of each season, our finds were removed to Candia, photographed, and deposited in the
improvised Museum, in strict obedience to the law. Finally, when it was decided that Gournia should
be left to lie fallow, while we bent our energies toward publishing, I returned to Crete in 1905 for three
and a half months, to arrange for the execution of a complete plan of the site and to make further
study of our material with a view to its interpretation.
19
a T two points the long, narrow island of Crete is reduced to half its average width by gulfs
/\ that deeply indent its northern coast. At the Isthmus of Hierapetra, which is the
/ \ eastern of these two points and the narrowest part of the island, the northern and southern
L jL shores approach to within eight miles of each other. Here Nature has made communica-
tion between sea and sea not only short but easy, by way of a narrow strip of lowland, lying between
the ranges of Dicte in Sitia and Dicte in Lasithi, severing the long mountain chain that forms the
backbone of Crete. East of this lowland a lofty limestone escarpment, furrowed in deep gorges and
descending with sharply curving talus, crosses the Isthmus from north to south and hides from view
the summit of Effendi Kavousi (c. 4829 ft.), which dominates Sitia, ancient home of the Eteocretans.
Westward the land, by a more gradual ascent, attains to mountain height, culminating in Effendi
Christos (Abdivrrfi XptavSz, Christ Our Lord), the loftiest peak of Lasithi (c. 7070 ft.), in one of whose
caves Zeus was believed to have been born. Dwellers on the Isthmus are at the mercy of their upland
neighbors and the long existence of unfortified settlements of the Bronze Age at Vasiliki and Gournia
points to greater tranquillity in Crete during prehistoric times than we find in later periods.
My acquaintance with the Isthmus began in April, 1900, when, with Miss Patten, of Boston, who
wished to study the flora of the island, 1 made a prospecting trip through East-central Crete. At the
end of a week's ride we inspected a site recommended to me by Dr. A.J. Evans, on the mountains that
rise east of the Isthmus, and two lesser heights in the vicinity of Kavousi, where peasants had found
antiquities. Pleased with the prospect, 1 petitioned the Minister of Education at Canea for permission
to excavate in behalf of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, of which 1 was then a Fel-
low. This permission having been granted, we worked at our claim with a small force averaging twenty-
two men, from May 14 to June 6, Miss Patten assisting me and at the same time preparing a valuable
report on the botany of the region (infra, Appendix F, p. 58).
The results of our excavations were published briefly in the American Journal of Archaeology,
2nd Series, V, 1901, p. 125 ff. Their chief bearing upon the subject of the present publication is that
they defined the characteristics of the Early Iron Age in Crete beyond possibility of its being mistaken
for any other period, and also furnished evidence that men once lived upon the Isthmus in enjoyment
of the so-called Island Civilization, then known chiefly through Thera and Melos. The sites of
the Early Iron Age are high and difficult of access. On a peak called the Citadel (To K&axftov) above
Kavousi, we uncovered thirteen rooms of a chieftain's house and found the oldest circular game-board
yet discovered in Greek lands. A quarter of a mile distant on a precipitous slope, a peasant had built
his hut above a domed ('bee-hive') tomb. Although this had been plundered forty years before, we
gleaned from it iron swords, interesting specimens of pottery approaching the Dipylon style, and frag-
ments of bronze plate on which a heraldic design was executed, repousse and delicately engraved.
The ancient highlanders were poor builders, contenting themselves with piling up stones or large
fragments of shale and bonding them with clay. Of very different construction are some ancient ter-
race walls near the chapel of St. Anthony, in a line of low coast hills west of Kavousi plain. They are
sufficiently massive to be called ' Cyclopean,' and associated with them were potsherds better than any
found on the hill-tops. Instead of straight-line patterns, such as were used by the highlanders, these
sherds bore curvilinear designs, spirals, wave-lines, and motives taken from plant life. A study of
pottery from other Aegean sites, notably Phylakopi, Melos, had taught me that such patterns must
belong to a Bronze Age people.
Opportunity for following up this clue was given me a year later by the American Exploration
Society of Philadelphia. With my colleague Miss Wheeler, our Epirote foreman Aristides Pappadhias,
and his good mother, I again landed in Crete, April 7, 1901. At Knossos and Phaestos, palaces of vast
extent, rich in treasures of art, were being uncovered by the fortunate British and Italian excavators.
This sustained success in the Minoan field increased my desire to find a site belonging to the days of
Cretan supremacy, prior to the introduction of iron, antedating even the greatness of Mycenae.
Having faith in the Isthmus of Hierapetra as a thoroughfare across the island, which would cer-
tainly have been used by a seagoing people like the Minoans, I went back to explore it more thoroughly.
The distribution of sites by periods had become apparent during the season of 1900 at Kavousi. Men of
the Bronze Age chose low hills not far from the sea; their successors of the Iron Age had strongholds
overlooking the coveted strip of Isthmus; Cretans of the classical period and their Roman conquerors
established trading-places on the shore; Venetians and Turks built watch-towers and block-houses at
commanding points for the purpose of holding the unfortunate islanders in subjection. Modern
Cretans still prefer the security of the hills, but a seaward movement has already begun as a result of
the peace and order that, since the liberation of Crete in 1898, have prevailed throughout the island.
With these facts in view, Miss Wheeler and I were impelled to look for our Bronze Age settlement
in the lowlands, while keeping our men busy clearing a "megalithic homestead" of the late Bronze Age,
'sub-Mycenaean' or 'sub-Minoan,' at Avgo, a mountain valley east of Kavousi. On holidays and
when the earth was too wet for digging because of recent rains, we rode up and down Kavousi plain,
inspecting many a "rise of ground which at a distance looked a perfect Mycenaean hill-site, but proved
to be all rock." At last, rumor of our search reached the ear of George Perakis, peasant antiquarian
of the neighboring village of Vasiliki, who sent word by the schoolmaster that at a place called Gournia
within the deme of Kavousi, but four miles west of the village of that name, he could show us a hill
close to the sea where there were broken bits of pottery and old walls.
Accordingly, on the afternoon of May 19, 1901, Miss Wheeler and I met Perakis at the roadside
khan near Pachyammos and proceeded westward for three-quarters of a mile to a cove, where we saw
two massive walls of a rectangular building at the water's edge. Turning south and crossing the high-
road, we climbed a low hill densely covered with wild carob trees. Here we picked up a few sherds
with patterns similar to those found in 1900 near St. Anthony's chapel, and, peering with difficulty
beneath the thick undergrowth, we discerned the tops of ancient walls of which there was visible never
more than one course.
On the following day, about thirty men were sent to the new site to make trial excavations. Soon
they were in high spirits, for had not Lysimachus produced the first good find of the season, a perfect
bronze spear point, and Michalis Paviadhakis a curved bronze knife, buried scarcely a foot below the
surface? One man after another called us to see the potsherds, fragments of stone vases, etc., he had
unearthed. Perhaps the proudest workman was he who had laid bare part of a well-paved road, the
threshold of a house, and a small clay gutter. Everything pointed to a prehistoric settlement of some
importance, whose existence on that site had remained unsuspected until that day. Such a discovery
could not fail to appeal to the imagination of the peasants, and we had no difficulty in securing their
eager co-operation.
Within three days we had opened houses, were following paved roads, and had in our possession
enough vases and sherds, bearing octopus, ivy-leaf, double-axe and other unmistakably Minoan designs,
as well as bronze tools, seal impressions, stone vases, etc., to make it certain that we had found what
we were seeking, a Bronze Age settlement of the best period of Cretan civilization. On May 23d, our
discovery was announced by telegram from Candia to the American Exploration Society, four days
after the first visit paid by me, or, as far as I can learn, by any archaeologist, to the chief site of Gour-
nia. Many scholars had passed along the highroad leading from Candia to Sitia that runs within an
eighth of a mile of our Town, but because no tradition was associated with the place, because it was
covered with stones and overgrown with trees, the low hill had escaped their notice, although in form
and in proximity to the sea, it is the exact type of a Minoan acropolis. We immediately petitioned
the Cretan government for permission to excavate the new site for the American Exploration Society
of Philadelphia, and our request was promptly granted.
Within a week we had a pay-roll of one hundred men and this was the average number during three
seasons of work, 1901, 1903, and 1904. Ten girls were constantly employed in washing the potsherds
which were turned up by the tens of thousands. Eighteen men were allowed to use pick and knife; an
equal number shoveled; the others, with the exception of a few skilled in carpentry and wall-build-
ing, removed in baskets and barrows the earth and stones that covered the ancient town. These
peasants were of one faith, the Greek Orthodox, for very few Mohammedans remain in the villages
of Eastern Crete. Our Greek was mutually intelligible whenever we desired it to be; 1 could use
scholastic words which would mystify them and they could hide from me their meaning in dialect
forms, but the differences between words and pronunciation used in Athens, where I had learned
modern Greek, and in Crete were not sufficient to prove a barrier. The men proved capable of steady,
patient labor and showed an interest in the common tasks that made discipline easy. They were more
careful than the average American laborer would be in unearthing fragile objects.
It might be supposed that such an enterprise, conducted by women, would be fraught with serious
difficulties in a land which had just issued from Turkish bondage, and which for centuries has been
noted for the turbulent character of its people. Yet, reviewing our experiences, the difficulties seem
to have been insignificant, confined almost entirely to those one expects to meet in a country of limited
resources and no comforts. During the interval between the expulsion of the Turkish troops, May,
1898, and the uprising of 1905, Crete was "the safest corner of Europe, "and this security was as perfect
in districts like the Isthmus, patrolled by a small native gendarmerie, as in the neighborhood of the
International Forces. In the years of our sojourn in the island we witnessed improvement in many
matters of vital importance to one who excavates—the organization of a good post-office system,
the introduction of a Cretan currency, the transformation of roomy Turkish barracks at Candia into
a Museum of Antiquities.
At the close of each season, our finds were removed to Candia, photographed, and deposited in the
improvised Museum, in strict obedience to the law. Finally, when it was decided that Gournia should
be left to lie fallow, while we bent our energies toward publishing, I returned to Crete in 1905 for three
and a half months, to arrange for the execution of a complete plan of the site and to make further
study of our material with a view to its interpretation.
19