Excavations at Palaikastro. IV: 7.—Larnax Burials at Sarandári

Extract

I visited Crete in the spring of 1905 chiefly for the purpose of making anthropometrical observations on living subjects. At Palaikastro I hoped to obtain fresh data also from ancient skeletons or crania and made some trial-excavations with men put at my disposal by Mr. Dawkins, first without result among the plundered ossuaries on the slopes of Kastri, then with more success in the plain. A larnax had been discovered some years before at a spot called Sarandári, midway between Kastri and Roussolakkos, where a low knoll of conglomerate breaks the level of the surrounding fields. Its bare rocky surface shows through a scanty covering of wild thyme and sage, and is fringed by lentisk-bushes and carob-trees. Fig. 4, No. 4, p. 270, gives a plan of the whole, to the north-east the house-like walls of the ossuaries, to the south-west the larnakes described below.