EXCAVATIONS AT GOURNIA, CRETE. 



563 



these lowlands somewhere near the sea. It was discourag-ing work, 

 for my eyes soon came to see walls and the tops of beehive 

 tombs in every chance grouping of stones, and we went to many 

 a " rise of ground which at a distance looked a perfect Mycenean 

 hill, but proved to be all rock. P'rom an archaeological, as well 

 as an agricultural, point of view the curse of the Ka- 

 vonsi region is the shallowness of soil ; even at (lournia 

 we often have occasion to l)emoan it. At last the rumor 

 of our search reached the ear of Cleorge Perakis, peasant 

 antiquarian of Vasiliki, a village 3 miles wa^st of Ka- 

 vousi, and he sent word by the schoolmaster that he 

 could guide us to a hill three-quarters of a mile west of 

 Pachyannnos, close to the sea, Avhere there were broken 

 bits of pottery and old walls. Moreover, he sent an ex- 

 cellent seal stone picked up near the hill, and although 

 seal stones are not good evidence, being easily carried 

 from place to ])lace. his story was too interesting to pass 

 unheeded. Accordingly, on May 19, Miss Wheeler and 

 I rode to the si)ot, found one or two sherds with curvi- 

 linear patterns, like those from St. Antonys; saw stone 

 in lines, which might prove to be parts of walls (never 

 more than one course visible), and determined to put 

 our force of 80 men at work there the following day. 

 Three days later we had dug 10 trial pits and had 

 opened houses, were following paved roads, and w-ere 

 in possession of enougli vases and sherds, with cuttle- 

 fish, plant, and spiral designs, as w^ell as bronze tools, 

 seal impressions, stone vases, etc., to make it certain that 

 we had a bron/.e-age settlement of some importance. 

 Accordingly. I sent the following cablegram to the 

 American Exploration Society, which was received in 

 Philadelphia four days after the first visit paid l)y me, 

 or, as far as I can learn, by any ai'cheologist to the site 

 of Gournia: "Discovered (iournia — Mycenean site, 

 street, houses, ])otterv, bronzes, stone jars.'' We imme- 

 diately petitioned the Cretan (iovernment for sjjecial 

 permission to excavate this new site for the American 

 Exploration Society of Philadelphia, and our request 

 was promptly granted. 



Gournia is a name given by tiie peasants of the district to a basin 

 opening north on the Gulf of Mirabello and inclosed on tlie other three 

 sides by footliills which rise west of the nai'row strip of isthmus. 

 For one-half its length from south to north this basin is divided into 

 tw^o narrow valleys, of which the western forms a broad torrent bed. 



Fig. 1.— Bronze 

 spear head. 

 First "find" 

 at Gournia, 

 May 20, l'.M)l. 



