The Best-Preserved Mycenaean Palace [4:01]

[Transcript]

In the Homeric epics, Nestor is the oldest of the Greek leaders at Troy. Though a bit prone to rambling, he is respected for the wisdom of his counsel and is responsible for the reconciliation of Achilles and Agamemnon. He is also a powerful king. Only Agamemnon brings more warriors to Troy. His home is Sandy Pylos, where Tmicus, the son of Odysseus, visits him at the beginning of the Odyssey.

Until the 20th century, the location of Pylos was unknown. Excavations only began here in 1939 when the American archaeologist Carl Blagen identified this as the site of a Mycenaean palace. In the first few hours of his excavation here, he found Linear B tablets and fragments of frescoed walls. Soon hundreds of tablets, then unreadable, were discovered.

The onset of World War II and the subsequent Civil War then postponed work for 13 years. Then at last, Blagen returned and excavated the rest of the best-preserved Mycenaean Palace. The palace consisted of several blocks of two-story buildings. We’ll focus on the main building here. The outer walls were masonry. The inner walls were plastered rubble. The upper story was mud brick and wood.

We’re standing at the propylon, the entryway. The famous Linear B tablets were found in a pair of rooms to the left of the entrance. These appear to have been archives. When the palace burned down around 1180 BC, the tablets kept here were baked, preserving them. Within was a courtyard. The porch of the Megaron, or throne room, is just below us.

In the rooms to our left, vast quantities of pottery were stored. They were made in palace workshops, apparently for distribution and sale. A room equipped with large wine jars may have been set aside for petitioners waiting to see the king. The king and his family may have occupied the rooms to the right of the courtyard. Here we find the famous terracotta bathtub. Now at the center of the screen, beyond the porch where guards were almost certainly posted, we come to the Megaron itself. At the center is the great circular hearth. Just behind it from our perspective was the throne itself.

The bases of the columns that supported the roof can still be seen around the hearth. Olive oil was stored in the rooms behind the Megaron.

The so-called queen’s Megaron mirrored the main Megaron on a smaller scale. It may have actually been used by court officials. Here, the outer wall of the palace with its large dressed blocks is fairly well preserved.

A short walk from the palace is this Tholos-style tomb. It’s much older than the palace and was robbed in antiquity. It had to be partially rebuilt in the 20th century, but though not quite in the scale of its counterparts in Mycenae, it’s still pretty impressive.

Looking now from the palace out toward the wine-dark sea and the bay where Nestor launched his ships for Troy.

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