EXPLORATIONS IN CRETE 



779 



tion and Roman and even Greek re- 

 mains comparatively uninteresting. The 

 spirit of Darwin has penetrated even to 

 archaeology, and the excavators of the 

 present have a passion for beginnings. 



It is against the law in Crete to un- 

 earth antiquities without permission 

 from the government, and peasants who 

 by chance come upon ancient remains in 

 working their olive orchards or vine- 

 yards are bound to report such discov- 

 eries promptly to the officials of the 

 museum at Candia. In this way are 

 occasionally found sites for excavating', 

 but these sites go chiefly to the Greek 

 archaeologists. Foreigners must find for 

 themselves their own places to dig. This 

 they do by riding on horseback from vil- 

 lage to village and inquiring everywhere 

 if antiquities are found there. In re- 

 sponse to this appeal the peasants pro- 

 duce all sorts of objects, from Mycenaean 

 seal-stones of the second millennium 

 B. C. to tops of modern beer bottles. The 

 visitor next goes with the peasant to the 

 place where the seal-stone, or whatever 

 it may be, is found, and if he is lucky 

 his first trial trench will discover an an- 

 cient house wall, and he will know that 

 he is on the right trail, and will apply to 

 the Cretan government for permission to 

 conduct systematic excavations. 



Such is the method used today. Ten 

 years ago, when the island was first 

 opened to scholars, the most promising 

 sites, like that of the Knossos palace, 

 were already known from the reports of 

 peasants and the notices of travelers ; 

 and the archaeologists who were so for- 

 tunate as to get these sites for digging, 

 and whose operations in the island have 

 lasted until now, generally have other 

 possible sites for excavations in reserve 

 about which they are often willing to tell 

 to newcomers. 



The number of men employed in ex- 

 cavations varies according to the size of 

 the site and the funds at the disposal of 

 the excavator, from ten to a hundred or 

 more men. The majority of these are 

 "basket boys," whose work it is to carry 

 to the dump heaps the earth which is re- 



moved. Their wage is about twenty 

 cents a day. 



The most intelligent workmen are em- 

 ployed in loosening the earth with picks. 

 They must be trained to watch with care 

 for every scrap of pottery, bronze, or 

 stone in the earth before them, and in- 

 stantly, when they see that they are ap- 

 proaching a floor level on which vases 

 rest, to stop using the pick and to work 

 with a knife which every good workman 

 keeps ready hanging from the top of his 

 boot. Such workmen earn forty cents a 

 day. Behind them are stationed the 

 shovelers, who put the loosened earth 

 into baskets, watching the meanwhile 

 lest any small object be thrown away. 

 Their wage is thirty cents. 



Lastly, mention must be made of the 

 men, or sometimes girls, who wash the 

 pottery and pottery fragments. In some 

 kinds of soil potsherds become incrusted 

 with a hard formation which yields only 

 to an acid solution. To counteract the 

 effects of the acid, an alkali bath is neces- 

 sary, and then a rinsing in clear water. 

 During this treatment each vase or 

 group of sherds must be kept quite dis- 

 tinct from its neighbors, for one of the 

 fundamental principles of excavating is 

 to keep an exact record of the contents 

 of every room or given area and of the 

 different strata within that area. This 

 care is the result of the new scientific 

 method of archaeology which has grown 

 up in the last thirty-five years. Exca- 

 vators now dig not for spoils — as did the 

 nephews of the popes in the fifteenth 

 century, out of the desire to fill their 

 villas and gardens — but for science 

 solely. The objects found go, with a 

 few exceptions, to the Candia Museum ; 

 only the "useless objects," so the law 

 reads, may be exported. 



To describe in brief compass the re- 

 sults of the last ten years of digging in 

 Cretan soil is impossible. It would be 

 necessary to take into account the work 

 of Doctor Evans, of Oxford, in unearth- 

 ing the palace of Knossos ; of the Italian 

 mission at Phaestos and other points in 

 southern Crete; of the Greek scholar, 



