September 6, 1906] 



NA TURE 



469 



loni,aT confined, ns thcv wore in great part until a few- 

 years ago, to the anliquilies of Central America and 

 Mexico,' but now extend into the wider fields of 

 orijjinal research on Clreelc and Oriental sites. The 

 present volume well illustrates this extension in the 

 scope of American archa.'olosy, for while in the first 

 article in the 'J'r.insactions Mr. G. B. Gordon tre.its of 

 the serpent motive in Mexican art, the five conclud- 

 ini; papers de.-il with the results of the excavations in 

 Crete and Babvlonia carried on by the American 

 l':xploration Society and the Babylonian Expedition of 

 the Universitv of Pennsylvania. 



The papers of tjreatest interest and importance in 

 the volume are those dealins with the excavations at 

 (iourni,^, in Crete, and on other sites on the isthmusof 

 Hierapetra during^ the year 1904, which were carried 

 out, as in former years (see Nature, June i, 1905, 

 vol. Ixxii., p. i)S), by Miss Harriet A. Boyd (now Mrs. 

 Mawes) and her assistants. In the former article, 

 above mentioned, we described Miss Boyd's discovery 

 of the little .Minoan town of Gourni:\, its jjeojjfraphical 

 position, and the results of the first excavations. Miss 

 Boyd's paper on Gourni;\, Miss Edith Hall's " Early 

 painted Pottery from Gournia," and Mr. R. B. 

 Seasjcr's " Excavations at Vasiliki," published in the 

 present volume of Transactions, enable us to bring 

 the storv of the .American work in Crete up to date. 



The chief result has been the discovery of some 

 entirely new styles of pottery of very early date. 

 Those who know what a great part the classification 

 of pottery takes in early Greek archaeology will appre- 

 ciate the importance of this discovery when we 

 describe the most important of the new " Mycenaean " 

 pottery from the isthmus of Hierapetra as a polychrome 

 ware much anterior in date to the well-known 

 Kamdres ware (middle Minoan period of Evans), 

 which was contemporary with the twelfth dynasty 

 (circa B.C. 2000) in Egypt. Miss Boyd describes it as 

 " a remarkable new ware from Vasiliki, with Trojan 

 shapes, monstrously long beaks, and decoration in 

 black and red, mottled, with highly hand-polished 

 surface." It is described by Mr. Seager, who dis- 

 covered it in a Mycenaean settlement on the Kephala 

 (ridge) of Vasiliki, in the Hierapetra isthmus-depres- 

 sion, two miles south of Gournia. One fragment only 

 was previously known ; this was discovered at Zakro 

 by Mr. Hogarth. 



" The hard red finish is perhaps the most remarkable 

 and characteristic feature of the ware. At first it 

 recalls the Libyan ware of Dr. Petrie's Pre-dvnastic 

 race . . . the body-colour is usually a red shading to 

 orange, and the patches black to bronze green, owing 

 to the different degrees of heat to which it has been 

 exposed. Exactly how this effect was produced has 

 not yet been satisfactorily explained, but possiblv the 

 vases were covered with paint and then put into a 

 bed of coals {sic) which were heaped over them, the 

 black patches being the effect of a live coal Iving 

 actually against the surface of the vase. This would 

 be only a variation of the method used in firing the 

 Pre-dynastic Libyan ware, where the necks, which 

 were in actual contact with the coal, have burnt to a 

 black. Very possibly this technique mav have been 

 strongly influenced by that of Libya, but with his 

 characteristic ingenuity the Agean (sic') potter, not 

 content with the set form and colouring of the Libyan 

 ware, experimented with the method until he produced 

 this varied and at times gorgeous effect. The 

 greatest charm of the prehistoric ware of the .Agean 

 is that the potters never allowed themselves to remain 

 long tied down by a tradition of style and were con- 

 stantly inventing new^ and original ideas of which the 

 Egvptian workman seems never to have been capable. 

 The Agean peoples were always ready to receive ideas 



NO. 1923, VOL. 74] 



from their neighbours, but they never remained 

 content until these ideas had been changed and 

 beautified to suit their own more artistic tastes." 



\\'e have quoted Mr. Seager's description at this 

 length for several reasons. First and primarily 

 because of its excellence as a description of his 

 important discovery ; this pottery is highly remark- 

 able, and may indeed be described as " gorgeous," as 

 the coloured plate showing specimens of it proves. 

 The explanation of its technique is probably correct. 

 .Secondly, on account of its being a good example of 

 the way in which Greek archaeologists run down the 

 poor Egyptians; but we will not quarrel with Mr. 

 .Seager on this score; he sins in good company, and, 

 after all, it needs a considerable acquaintance with 

 Egyptian archaeology before one realises that the 

 Egyptians were as capable of inventing new and 

 original ideas as the Mycenjeans. Thirdly, as an 

 example of the w-ay in which an archjeological state- 

 ment w-hich has long been given up as incorrect by 

 th? archaeologists of the branch of work to which it 

 belongs may still be perpetuated by the archaeologists 

 of another branch : the prehistoric Egyptians, whose 

 pottery was discovered by de Morgan and Petrie, are 

 not kiiown to have been Libyans, nor can their pottery 

 be called "Libyan." We know nothing of the 

 Libyans of 5000 B.C. ; the pre-dynastic Egyptians can 

 only be called Egyptians. We may note in passing 

 also that it is more probable that the resemblance 

 of early /Egean to early Egyptian pottery is 

 due to a possible common origin of their civilis- 

 ations than that /Egean technique was " strongly 

 influenced by that of Libya " (rcai Egypt), so early. 

 Finally, we quote this passage as a warning against 

 misprints. " -Agean " for " .^gean " three times in a 

 few lines is not pretty,, and not far off we see 

 •' Cypress " for Cyprus (p. 216). The .American printer 

 has original ideas, and often carries them out — at the- 

 author's expense. 



.Another unusual ware of early date was found at 

 Gournii; its characteristic is white paint on black, 

 with geometric ornament. This ware is described by 

 Miss Edith Hall. The most primitive ware of all, 

 from the rock-shelter burials at Gourni^ and .Agia 

 Photia near by, is also interesting; it is sub-Neolithic 

 in date, and closely related to the Cycladic pottery of 

 Thera and .Amorgos, w'hich it resembles. 



The buildings at Vasiliki explored by Mr. Seager, in- 

 which the strange new pottery was found, are remark- 

 able in plan and construction, and the description of 

 the difificulties of excavating them is interesting. The 

 rooms are filled with hard plaster, the presence of which 

 is explained by Mr. Seager as follows. The ceilings 

 were made of canes covered with heavy clay 

 plaster, and these were supported by transverse beams. 

 " When the beams gave way, the ceiling sank into 

 the rooms below, making a layer of debris about fifty 

 centimetres and sometimes more in thickness. 

 This debris, owing to the action of fire and _ water, 

 has become an almost petrified mass on which the 

 picks of the men made but slight impression. Certain 

 rooms had to be abandoned on this account, as little 

 short of actual blasting would have been required to 

 clear them. ... .As in Gournir\, and, in fact, most 

 of the prehistoric settlements in Crete, the building 

 seems to have been destroved by fire. ... It is plain 

 that the buildinar must have possessed several stories, 

 as the mass of debris which fills the rooms is far too 

 deep to have been the result of the collapse of a single 

 floor." Mr. Seager tells us that when, " as was often 

 the case," the clav plaster " had fallen on a deposit of 

 pottery or potterv from the upper rooms had fallen 

 in with it, the obiects were as fresh as on the day of 

 the catastrophe which destroyed the '>uilding, but it 



