University of Pennsylvania: Transactions of the Department of Archaeology: Free Museum of Science and Art

Abstract

THE most important article in this volume is the description of the American excavations at Gournia, in Crete, which have already been referred to in the pages of NATURE (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 exploration could be imagined. Leaving the rather arid and uninteresting Candiote shore, near which Knossos lies, dominated by the towering hill of Iuktas, 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 Hierapetra (the ancient Hierapytna). Before him rises a magnificent rocky wall of mountain, Thriphte by name, behind which is the peak called the Aphendi, or Lord of, Kavousi, 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 Kavousi to Hierapetra 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.

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 Archæology, 1904.)