2014 Gournia Post-Excavation Report

December 28, 2017

GOURNIA, CRETE — Excavations at Gournia, June & July 2014

I joined Gournia Excavation Project for the 2014 excavation.

We were based in Pachia Ammos, a little seaside town on the Mirabello Bay. Pachia Ammos is a short and stodgy little town half filled with tavernas and half with houses.

I stayed at the eastern edge of town. The last restaurant on the block was Natasha’s, and she also ran the accommodation next door. I lived on the second floor with fantastic views of the Mediterranean.

I got to experience the many moods of Crete from this balcony.

We started at “Trench 103” completing excavation of Harriet Boyd’s early house site.

Like all other buildings in Gournia, only a few meters of the foundation remained of what was once a house. The dwellings of Gournia were thought to be two-storied with the entrance being from the pebbled street to the 2nd floor. We dug through the current floor reaching bedrock in only a few days. One dug in layers to the depth of a pickaxe blade. The length of the blade was the marker for the amount of days, weeks, months, years stripped away layer by layer.

Every scoop was tossed into buckets and brought to the sieve to separate the dirt from the findings.

We worked six days a week, staying on the site until 2pm. Afterwards, we went up to the Institute for Aegean Prehistory (INSTAP) to process the finds. INSTAP sat at the Southern end of Pachia Ammos on top of a hill just behind our accommodations.

The 100 degree days were hellish. When work was over, I would put on my swim trunks and just soak in the Mediterranean.

Sometimes, I dined at one of the neighborhood tavernas.

A few cats roamed around the town. When I did lunch at a taverna, I would sometimes drop bits of food to them probably to the chagrin of the locals. If you remembered the Olympic games, you might recall hearing about some unfortunate stories about Greece’s wild cat problem.

My next assignment brought me to the northern part of the ancient city (facing the sea). We worked in the trenches of what would turn out to be a major pottery-making complex.

At the end of the dig, you could see the characteristic workbenches and the remains of multiple furnaces. This was a massive pottery making complex. The whole building faced the sea so ships arriving from other cities would have first been impressed by the crowning industry of Gournia as they docked into her harbor.

At the very top of the city would have sat a magnificent palace.

We found a lot of pottery, a few miscellaneous items like shells, and the odd scorpion. Occasionally, full cup specimens would also turn up.

Obsidian glass was my favorite find - an amazing object to pick out of the sieve if one was so lucky. You needed discerning eyes to pick out the obsidian still sharp enough to be used in surgery. Other special finds included seal stones and even a pottery wheel with an engraved horse. This was the last season of digs, so at the end, they showed off a massive collection of finds.

Not a bad way to spend the summer. The whole town was very friendly, as you walked along the pier, someone was bound to offer you a bottle of Mythos or raki made in someone’s backyard. We also got the chance to see a couple of local festivals.

The locals have welcomed archeologists every season.

On the days off, I had the fortuitous luck to join several groups with cars going on excursions around the island to see other cities and sites.

But public transportation was also very easy. You can go to one of the local marts and purchase a round trip bus for a few euros. They will usually have the timetable. The buses were quite something - reused tour buses with luxurious seats and air conditioning. I took the bus to Ierapetra and Agios Nikolaos a few times.

On one of the last days in Crete, I ventured east alone. I eventually stumbled upon Visiliki, a closed down site.

There, I immediately recognized the beatyl - a ceremonial rock said to give one visions. Gournia has one off the corner of the main road, and it always fascinated me whenever I passed by it. Theses visions were probably hallucinations brought about by the stress position of the body.

Now alone with the rock, I felt brave enough to give it a try. I bent down and placed my forehead to the stone waiting…