WOMEN IN ARCH/EOLOGY 321 



So highly did the French government value the part Mme. 

 Dieulafoy had taken in this arduous enterprise that it con- 

 ferred on her a distinction rarely awarded to a woman 

 for scientific work that of Chevalier of the Legion of 

 Honor. 



As an archaeologist, the gifted and energetic American 

 woman, Miss Harriet Boyd now Mrs. C. H. Hawes has 

 achieved an international reputation for her remarkable 

 excavations in the island of Crete. She is a frequent con- 

 tributor to archaeological journals; but it is upon her 

 splendid work in the field that her fame will ultimately 

 rest. 



Her first work of importance was undertaken as Fellow 

 of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. 

 This was in 1900, and the field of her investigations was the 

 Isthmus of Hierapetra in Crete. Here she excavated nu- 

 merous tombs and houses of the early Geometric Period, 

 circa 900 B.C., and paved the way for those brilliant dis- 

 coveries which rewarded her labors during the following 

 three years. 



The investigations conducted during these three years 

 under Miss Boyd's directions yielded results of transcen- 

 dent value. Assisted by three young American women 

 the Misses B. E. Wheeler, Blanche E. Williams, and Edith 

 H. Hall she superintended the work of more than a hun- 

 dred native employees whom she had on her payroll. By 

 good fortune in the choice of a site for excavation and by 

 well-directed efforts she was soon able to unearth one of 

 the oldest of Cretan cities and to expose to view the ruins 

 of what was probably one of the ninety cities which Homer 

 tells us in his Odyssey graced the land of Crete "a fair 

 land and a rich, in the midst of a wine-dark sea." 



So remarkable were the finds in this long-buried Minoan 

 town and so well preserved are its general features that it 

 has justly been called the Cretan Pompeii. It antedates 

 by long centuries the oldest cities of Greece and was a 



