EXCAVATIONS AT GOURNTA, CRETE. 



r)()8 



(lu'so lowlands souu'AvluTc iicai- the sea. It was (liscoiii-aiiin^ work, 

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

 tombs in every chance i^rouping of stones, and we went to many 

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

 hill, but ])ro\cMl to be all rock. From an archaeolo<!;ical, as well 

 as an a<>ricultural, point of view the curse of the Ka- 

 vousi re<>"ion is the shallowness of soil: excn at (iournia 

 we often have occasion to bemoan it. At last the rumor 

 of our search reached the I'ar of (ireor<>:e Perakis, peasant 

 anti(|uarian of Vasiliki, a village 3 miles west of Ka- 

 vousi, and he sent word by the schoolmaster that he 

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

 Pa chy amnios, close to the sea, where there were broken 

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

 cellent seal stone })icked np near the hill, and although 

 seal stones are not good evidence, being easily carried 

 from place to place, his story was too interesting to j)ass 

 unheeded. Accordingly, on May 1!), Miss AVheeler and 

 I rode to the spot, 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 visil)le). and determined to put 

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

 Three days later we had dug 19 trial pits and had 

 opened houses, were following paved roads, and were 

 in ])ossession of enough vases and sherds, Avith cuttle- 

 fish, plant, and spiral designs, as well as bronze tools, 

 seal impressions, stone vases, etc., to make it <-ertain that 

 we had a bronze-age settlement of some importance. 

 Accordingly, I sent the following cablegram to the 

 American Exploration Society, which was received in 

 Phihulelphia four days after the first visit paid by me, 

 or, as far as I can learn, by any archeologist to the site 

 of Gournia : " Discovered Gournia — Mycenean site, 

 street, houses, jjottery, bronzes, stone jai's." We imme- 

 diately petitioned the Cretan Government for special 

 permission to excavate this new site for the American 

 Exploration Society of Philadelphia, and our recpiest 

 was ])i-omptly grant (h1. 



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

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

 sides by foothills which rise w'est of the narrow strip of isthnuis. 

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

 two narrow vallevs, of which the ^^('stern forms a broad torrent l)ed, 



Fig. 1.— Bronze 

 spear head. 

 First "find" 

 at Gournia, 

 May ~'(>, liKil. 



