Off to a bit of a later start than I would have otherwise liked. My hotel room in Ermioni is directly on the harbor road. Mopeds, cars with blaring music, and a car alarm gave me no peace throughout the night. It is now 8:00 am and I feel a bit irritable.

The plan for today is to revisit three sites associated with what may be ancient "Mases" on the Franchthi headland--C17, C41, and C43. On the way to the headland I filmed a small flock of sheep as they made their way along the road by the bay near the junction with the main road to Koiladha.

Not far from C17 I have come across a terrace wall running parallel to the shoreline approximately 2m from the waterline @ N 37° 25.026 E 023° 08.461. The wall appears to be a single course high with only one face toward the water. It is broken in a few places. A second terrace wall runs roughly parallel to the first approximately 70m inland towards the hill line. On this platform terrace there is a pollarded olive tree approximately 80cm in diameter. There is a third platform terrace which steps up toward the hill. Many pomegranate trees run in parallel furrows along these terraces.

From this terraced area I walked up to C17 along the dirt road adjacent to several houses.

Elevation at top of C17 terrace is @ 46.5m, N 37° 25.170; E 023° 08.387.

11:08 am--Fortunately a cool breeze has remained with me throughout most of the morning. I have completed a series of photographs of the area and I have also taken a video walk of C17 from the east. I have not seen any of the evidence for a temple such as capitals or other architectural features that was mentioned in the 'Register of Sites'. The exterior facing of the terrace wall has collapsed at various points along its length revealing the interior side of the terrace wall. Some portions of this exterior wall facing are severely undercut. There is a segment at the SW corner of the terrace where the facing still stands roughly 2m in height. Here the wall measures 1.4m in width.

11:28 am--I walked down from the temple terrace along the road that leads to three separate houses. I did not see anyone around in the yards. I walked out on a spur along the shoreline and took some sound footage and a 360° panorama of the area with the Sony PC 120.

Shot video adjacent to quarry.

12:00--While driving near the entrance of the limestone quarry I chanced upon a large marble basin @ N 37° 24.856 E 23° E 023° 08.893, elevation 2m.

A truck driver from the quarry told me that the basin had been here for as long as he could remember and he had been working at the quarry for fifteen years. He said that the basin was for the animals. Not far from the basin, roughly 2.5m, is a well. The wellhead is concrete atop 4 large cut blocks of ashlar. The fabric of the interior is made up of rubble walling. A small fig tree is growing out of the inside.

The quarry in comparison to the map published in the "Register of Sites" appears to have expanded over the last 25 years. I will now hike up to C43. The terrain up to the SE wall of C43 is extremely harsh. Rough limestone boulders and long prickly brambles are everywhere. Visibility is extremely poor. I did, however, come across some courseware, perhaps from a small pithos.

From a higher vantage point I can see that the modern quarry has become a contemporary garbage dump. All the facilities lay barren and derelict.

I have found the wall of C43 which has a rubble core and parallels the limestone outcrops on the SE end. Unfortunately I am forced to turn back because of a severe nosebleed.

At the southeastern tip of the Franchthi headland is a concrete, brick, tile, and stone yard. I was unable to locate C41.

I would like to point out that the olive groves in this area have many pollarded trees upwards of 80cm in diameter. They are planted in groves arranged along east/west lines.

In the afternoon I revisited C40 which was described as a number of modern brick kilns near the shore. The area is covered with brick fragments and roof tiles. It has been recently plowed. C40 is located @ N 37° 24.714 E 023° 08.419.

The small jetty to the W of C40 is made of cemented bricks and roof tiles. These are the same as those found in the field associated with C40. There are numerous globules of slag (greenish) and large amounts of charcoal. The exposed portion of the jetty is roughly 35 meters long and 3m wide. The materials which make up the jetty appear to be the waste from the activities associated with the kilns--broken bricks, roof tiles, slag, and charcoal.

In the afternoon I investigated Ayios Ioannis, F4. The site is located on a rocky promontory 700m N of Franchthi Cave. Jameson et. al. noted the remains of three structures to the S and SE of the modern chapel which is described as being located in the center of the site.

Upon inspecting the site I discerned a couple of rough lines of large philite blocks running E-W to the N of the chapel. To the south of the chapel is a wall of recent construction running E-W. The wall holds back a small terrace, mostly in filled behind the wall line.

I will take a video walk of the site.

Upon moving my car down to the beach just N of the Franchthi headland I saw several well-built walls now incorporated into terrace walls in the slope which drops down from the headland. These may be the walls attributed to F4. I will investigate this area first thing in the morning.

As for now I will film a video walk along the path adjacent to the sea to Franchthi Cave.

I shot footage of the walk as well as portions of the cave. I also took sound footage within the cave.

The excavation trenches are badly eroded. It is a shame that no one chose to backfill. Not only are the trenches collapsing in and full of trash they are a major hazard for tourists or any other visitors. Also of note is the well-worn path up the limestone roof collapse opposite the main cave entrance to the west. Here one may discern the smooth surfaces in the limestone resulting from the foot traffic where hundreds of visitors have scrabbled up the rock fall.

Franchthi is not a protected site. Visitors may come and go as they please. There are a large number of halogen lights placed in key areas around both mouths of the cave to light it up at night.

Note: photograph numbers, video sequences, and some GPS records are recorded in the Revisiting the AEP Photo Log: Summer 2003.

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