NA TURE 



[June i, 1905 



certain even yet that anaerobic action is absolutely 

 necessary at any stage of sewage purification. Many 

 other equally important questions might be instanced 

 on which knowledge is still extremely limited. 



The outstanding result of the Royal Commission's 

 labours which will most appeal to local authorities 

 is the statement that adequate purification can be 

 effected without land treatment, which, if recognised 

 by the Local Government Board, will remove what 

 is, in many cases, an impossible restriction. Their 

 recommendation in regard to a central controlling 

 and advisory authority, if resulting in the creation 

 of a department similar to the Massachusetts Board 

 of Health, may prevent great waste of public money. 

 Such a board might exercise wise discretion as to the 

 amount of purification necessary under given con- 

 ditions. No central control, however, can be effective 

 without eflicient local management, and Mr. 

 Thudicum's little book of simple methods of sewage 

 analysis will be of great assistance to local engineers 

 and intelligent works managers, and will help to 

 lighten the work of the trailed specialist, with whom 

 the solution of difficulties ultimately rests. G. J. F. 



4iV AMERICAN CONTRIBUTION TU 



ARCHJEOLOGY. 



University of Pennsylvania : Transactions of the 



Department of Archaeology : Free Museum of 



Science and Art. Vol. i. Parts i. and ii. Pp. 125. 



(Published by the Department of Archaeology, 1904.) 



THE most important article in this volume is the 

 description of the American excavations at 

 Gournici, in Crete, which have already been referred 

 to in the pages of Natuke (September 15, 1904, p. 482). 

 Miss Harriet A. Boyd, the leader of the expedition, 

 gives a full and very interesting description of 

 her work, illustrated by photographs which give 

 the reader a very good idea of the beautiful scenery 

 of the Gulf of Mirabello (well bestowed name!), 

 on the shores of which she found her work. No more 

 delightful spot for archaeological exploi"ation could be 

 imagined. Leaving the rather arid and uninteresting 

 Candiote shore, near which Knossos lies, dominated 

 by the towering hill of luktas, on the top of which, 

 so legend says, the god Zeus died and was buried, the 

 traveller skirts the base of the Lasithiote mountain- 

 mass and reaches the narrow isthmus of Hierdpetra 

 (the ancient Hierapytna). Before him rises a magnifi- 

 cent rocky wall of mountain, Thriphte by name, behind 

 which is the peak called the Aphendi, or Lord of, 

 Kavoiisi, the village which lies at its foot. This wall 

 is rent by a mighty cleft, the chasm of Thriphte, which 

 is one of the dominating features of the landscape. 

 Along the base of the wall runs the high-road from 

 Kavoijsi to Hierdpetra across the isthmus, which is 

 low-lying land, forming a complete break in the 

 mountain-backbone of Crete. On the northern shore 

 of the isthmus is a good beach, Pachyammos (" Deep- 

 sand ") by name; in the centre of it the traveller will 

 see a large white house. 



This was Miss Boyd's headquarters. All around are 

 splendid mountains and " a coast-line as picturesque 

 NO. 1857, VOL. 72] 



as any in Southern Europe," to quote her description, 

 which is not exaggerated; she might have said " more 

 picturesque than," with reason. Away to the left are 

 the snowy heights of Lasfthi, the hills above the skdla 

 or landing-place of Ayios Nik61as, and distant rocky 

 Spinalonga, still the home of a peculiar race of 

 Mohammedan fishermen — corsairs not so very long 

 ago. To the right is the little isle of Psyr^, swimming 

 in the blue water. One would think that the 

 excavators on the monotonous plains of Babylonia, 

 whose doings are chronicled by Prof. Hilprecht in the 

 last contribution to this volume,' would have given 

 much sometimes to have been able to transport them- 

 selves for a brief space to such goodly surroundings ! 



Pachyammos lies a mile or so beyond, and east of, 

 the scene of Miss Boyd's work, the low hill of Goumi^, 

 on which she has discovered the remains of a 

 " Mycensean," or more correctly " Minoan," town, a 

 Bronze age settlement. It is a small Pompeii. One 

 can walk up the sinuously curving little main street 

 and look right and left into the ruined houses of the 

 Bronze age "Minoans. " There is even a sort of 

 court-house or "palace," to give it the stereotyped 

 appellation, with its right-angle of low steps quite on 

 the model of the splendid right-angled stairways of 

 Knossos and Phaistos, which Dr. Evans considers to 

 have been theatres, the prototypes of the stepped Greek 

 theatres of the classical period. This " palace " must 

 have been the official centre of the town. Formerly, 

 judging from classical analogies, one talked of a prince 

 or " dynast " ruling from every one of these little 

 palaces over his own little nuXis or city-state; but it 

 will probably eventually be found that the ruler who. 

 lived in such a " palace " as that of Gourni^ was no 

 more than a mere mayor or demarch, a member of 

 an official bureaucracy analogous to that of ancient 

 Egypt, dependent upon the metropolitan authorities at 

 Knossos. It becomes more and more probable that 

 Crete in Minoan days was a homogeneous and highly 

 organised State like Egypt, not a mere congeries of a 

 hundred warring villages, as in classical times. 



The official centre was not the religious centre of the 

 town. The cathedral of Gournia stood in the middle 

 of the town, and was approached by a special street of 

 its own. 



" Not imposing as a piece of architecture," writes 

 Miss Boyd (p. 41), " it is yet of unique importance as 

 being the first ' Mycenaean ' or ' Minoan ' shrine dis- 

 covered intact. The worshipper ascended three steps 

 and through a doorway 150 m. wide entered an 

 enclosure, about 3 m. square, surrounded by walls half 

 a metre thick and 50 to 60 cm. high. The floor is of 

 beaten earth." 



The more noteworthy of its contents are 



" a low earthen table, covered with a thin coating of 

 plaster, which stands on three legs and possibly served 

 as an altar, four cultus vases bearing symbols of 

 Minoan worship, the disc, consecrated horns and 

 double-headed axe of Zeus, a terra-cotta female idol 

 entwined with a snake, two heads of the same type as 



1 Very curiously described as "A Lecture delivered before German Court 

 and University Circles, by H. V. Hilprecht." In it Prof. Hilprecht tells us 

 little or nothing about the excavations at Nippur that has not already 

 appeared in his " Explorations in Bible Lands, ' and the photographs pub 

 lished are already well known to archteologists. 



