Caving on Keros

During this field season I poked around the numerous caves in the Kavos region, which may or may not be associated with the site.

In a 1998 article by Bassiakos and Doumas, they discuss the possibility of the cave just north of the special deposit being associated with ritual use by the Early Bronze Age inhabitants. They actually state that the cave might be the "entrance to Hades" al a Greek mythology.

With the aid of a couple of geologists TK and JED, and some archaeological buddies MM, KR and BM we managed to identify a bunch of cave-like features and perhaps event the Bassiakos and Doumas “ritual cave”.


We excavated a small trench in order to look for evidence of human use in the cave . After about 60cm we hit bedrock (the natural limestone formation) and we recovered only one pottery sherd, one fragmented shell/goat animal bone (I was listening to SWK all of those years) and one sea shell. Perhaps they have austerity measures in Hades and the old adage that "you can't take it with you" in fact true.

The caving adventures will go on next year.

This is an image of my caving side kick Nicholas, he one of our workmen from the Cycladic Island of Amorgos. He would ask about a million times a day, "why are we digging here??" It was one of the Greek phrases I learned this summer. As was the answer "we are looking for hell".