562 EXCAVATIONS AT GOURNIA, CRETE. 



me in 1901, wnen the American Ex])loration Society, of Philadelphia, 

 offered to support further researches in Crete. Mrs. Cornelius Stev- 

 enson, secretary of the societ}^, actively forwarded the enterprise, and 

 Mr. Calvin Wells, of Pittsburg, and Mr. Charles II. Cramp, of Phila- 

 delj^hia, generously contributed the necessary funds. My colleague 

 in 1001 was Miss B. E. Wheeler, of Concord and Providence, one of 

 my classmates at Smith College. Miss A\lieeler and I landed in Crete 

 April 7. Much progress had been made at Knossos and Phaestos, 

 and such success in the Mj^cena^an and pre-Mycensean field, or, to use 

 more up-to-date nomenclature, the " Minoan " field, increased our 

 longing to find something belonging to this golden age of Cretan 

 history. 



We made a round trip through Chersonnesos (a Greco-Roman 

 city), Neapolis (the town from which one visits a difficult iron-age 

 site at Anarlachos and the Hellenic Deyros), Olunta (ancient city 

 Olus, near which lie remains probably prehistoric), Gonlos (site of 

 the ancient city Lato and of an important prehistoric settlement), 

 Kavousi, Episkopi, Mesoleri (ancient Oleros), Kalamavka (reserved 

 by British as a prehistoric site), Mallais (Homeric Malla), Psj^chro, 

 and back to Herakleion. On this trip we saw nothing more promis- 

 ing than our clue at St. xinthony's and the Cyclopean wall at Avgo, 

 and as Miss "V'\'lieeler was willing to try a second year's luck on the 

 isthmus of Hiersipetra, we informed the Government of our wish to 

 renew work in that region. The St. Anthony clue was too slight to 

 be mentioned save between ourselves, and when we returned to 

 Kavousi presumably to find geometric or nt best sub-Mycena:>an 

 things, our quest excited pity rather than envy among the archeol- 

 ogists at Herakleion. 



We went directly to Avgo to learn the nature of the megalithic 

 structure near the Chapel of the Virgin. Avgo Valley is so over- 

 shadowed by the surrounding mountains that the sun does not reach 

 it until late, and the mornings and evenings are very cool. Conse- 

 quentlj^ the peasants live here only in summer and content themselves 

 with one-room stone huts without windows. 



For two weeks our party living in these huts suffered some hard- 

 ships, especially during thirty-six hours of incessant rain that caused 

 serious floods in eastern Crete, wrecked a hut near us, loosened our 

 own walls, and poured into the hut we used for a kitchen. The 

 results of our excavations at Avgo Avere meager." On holidays 

 and on days when (he ground was too wet for digging we rode 

 up and down Kavousi i)lain and the neighboring coast hill seek- 

 ing for the bronze-age settlement, which I was convinced lay in 



"See Trnnsactions Di'i»iU tineiit of Arclioolojxy. University of Ponsylvania, 

 1904, pp. 18-20. 



