562 EXCAVATIONS AT GOURNIA, CRETE. 



me in 1901, M^nen the American Ex])loration Society, of Philadelphia, 

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

 enson, secretary of the society, actively forwarded the enterprise, and 

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

 delphia, generously contributed the necessary funds. My colleague 

 in 1901 was Miss B. E. Wheeler, of Concord and Providence, one of 

 my classmates at Smith College. Miss AHieeler and I landed in Crete 

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

 and such success in the Mj^censean 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 Avhich one visits a difficult iron-age 

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

 Olus, near which lie remains probal^ly prehi'^toric), Gonlos (site of 

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

 Kavousi, p]piskopi, Mesoleri (ancient Oleros), Kalamavka (reserved 

 by British as a prehistoric site), Mallais (Homeric Malla), Psychro, 

 and ]y.\ck to Ilerakleion. On this trip we saw nothing more promis- 

 ing than our clue at St. xVnthony's and the Cych^pean wall at Avgo, 

 and as Miss Wheeler was willing to try a second year's luck on the 

 isthmus of Ilierapetra, we informed the (iovernment 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 ?.t best sub-Mycena?an 

 things, our quest excited pity rather than en\-y anioug the archeol- 

 ogists at Herakleion. 



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

 structure near the Chapel of the Virgin. A^^go Valley is so over- 

 shadoAved by the surrounding mountains that the sun does not reach 

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

 quently^ 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 tliat 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 were uieager." On holidays 

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

 up and down Kavousi plain and the neighboring coast hill seek- 

 ing for the l)ronze-age settlement, which I AAas convinced lay in 



1 See Transactions Department of Archeology, University of Pensylvania, 

 1904, i)p. 18-20. 



