Excavations at Palaikastro. II: § 9.—Kouraménos

Extract

In consequence of the torrential rains which made it impossible to commence work on the Roussolakkos site immediately upon our arrival at Palaikastro, an excavation was carried on from March 23rd to March 28th at a site named Kouraménos, situated close to the sea-shore about half an hour's walk north of Angathiá. Six men were employed on the first day, and an average of twenty-one on the succeeding days.

About half a mile N.E. of the Kastri is a flat-topped hill named Rigoviglo, which, extending eastwards almost as far as to the beach, divides the Palaikastro plain into two well-marked portions. Over the crest of this hill there runs a wall, probably ancient, which can be traced in a wide circuit starting immediately below the hill by the sea-shore and returning to the beach at the point where the plain is terminated by the mountains which bound it on the north: in some places it stands several courses high, at others only the foundations are visible. This district must have contained a considerable number of buildings in prehistoric times, for many remains of megalithic walls can still be traced, doubtless belonging to farmsteads of the Mycenaean period. That the circuit-wall was built for purposes of defence does not seem probable: it cannot, to judge from the breadth of its foundations, have reached any great height, and the number of men required to defend a wall of such extent would be very considerable. The more likely explanation is that it served as a boundary to mark off the τέμενος of some ‘king’ from the common land of the community, and to prevent the cattle grazing on this latter from straying on to the estate reserved as the private property of the chief.