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7. Water had washed through the
cave every year and removed all soil
from the upper part of the deposit. In
this upper part of room 5, the "excavation"
consisted of picking up loose
bones one at a time. Soil in the lower
part of the deposit had migrated in
from the surface through fissures in the
rock; see the section by Karkanas, below.
8. See Appendix, below.
9. The water separation machine
is an adaptation of the one described
by French (1971). It separates residue
and flotated remains from the soil and
retrieves them for later study.
EXCAVATIONS IN THE HAGIOS CHARALAMBOS CAVE 545
and with stones that had recently fallen in from the cracked ceiling at the
south. The upper parts of two terrace walls in the room that had been
constructed by the Minoans in order to hold back the deposit (required
because the natural floor of the room was inclined with the lower part at
the northwest) were visible, but their nature was not discovered until later.
Both walls were oriented roughly north-south (Fig. 4).
For ease in mapping and recording of bones and artifacts, room 5 was
divided into five areas based on the location of the Minoan terrace walls
as well as stalagmites and other natural topographic features (Fig. 4). All
excavation proceeded in arbitrary successive levels of ca. 10-20 cm because
no stratigraphy was present within the mass of bones and artifacts, apart
from the absence of soil within the upper part of the deposit.7 Bones lay
at all angles, and many of them extended above and below the arbitrary
levels. The locations of artifacts were plotted in when they became visible
as the bones were removed.
Bones and artifacts in these two spaces were lifted and removed by
Alekos Nikakis (Chief Conservator, 24th Ephorate). In a tent outside the
cave, the bones and artifacts were cleaned and processed by a team under
the direction of field directors Albert Leonard Jr. and James Muhly and
conservator Stephania Chlouveraki. Processing consisted of removing
mud with wooden tools, providing preliminary conservation as required
by specific categories of the finds (such as ivory and metals),8 and packing
everything for transport either to the conservation facility at the INSTAP
Study Center for East Crete or to the Archaeological Museum in Hagios
Nikolaos, depending on the nature of the material. All soil was labeled,
bagged, and shipped to the INSTAP Study Center for processing by a
water separation machine.9
Artifacts were given accession numbers in the field, and they were
drawn in a preliminary way before shipment to the museum or the INSTAP
Study Center. For study purposes, all sherds from the earlier campaign were
temporarily moved to the INSTAP Study Center, where numerous joins
were found between the material from the two campaigns. All complete
vases and all sherds from the first campaign were returned to the museum
after the completion of the pottery study in 2005. As stated above, this
preliminary report presents material from both campaigns.
The Excavation
Deposition inside the Cave
The recent project uncovered evidence for the preparation of the cave by
the Minoans as well as information on the nature of the deposition inside
the underground spaces. Rooms 1, 2, 3, 4, the 4/5 entrance, and 5 were
used for the deposition of human bones. Except for room 5, the rooms had
relatively level floors. Because the floor in room 5 had a slope of about 30
degrees, two terrace walls were built inside it in order to hold the bones
and prevent them from sliding into room 7, which was at a lower level at
the northwest of the cave (Fig. 4). The western wall was near a hole that
provided access to room 7, and the eastern wall was across the room near
a prominent stalagmite. Where the floor was uneven and cracked, the