NESTOR'S PALACE

Second most important city of the Mycenaean civilization after Mycenae, Pylos shelters the palace of Nestor, described as a great sage by Homer, and one of the heroes of the Trojan war. He came back alive from the Trojan War and welcomed in his castle the young Telemachus, who went in search of his father Odysseus. The city had no fortifications at the time, but the riches unearthed during the excavations still attest to its very good economic health. The palace was probably built by Neleus, father of Nestor and founder of the Neleid dynasty, at the beginning of the ^13th century BC.

Visit. The plan of the palace is similar to those you will see in Mycenae or Tirynthe. You enter the site through an external propylaeum. On your left is a first room, identified as an archive room since a considerable number of linear B plates have been found there, which have allowed archaeologists to decipher the language of the kings of the time. One can read on these plates administrative information on the armament of the kingdom, its accountancy, its debts and the taxes paid by the subjects of Nestor. Continuing ahead of you, you enter a courtyard at the end of which you see two column bases which constituted the entrance portico of the megaron. This one is classically composed of a vestibule and of the throne room where a big circular fireplace stood.

Retracing your steps in the courtyard of the palace, you will see, on your left, the bases of two other columns that mark the entrance to a second vestibule that opens onto a large corridor. Along this corridor, you can see the foundations of what must have been the residence of the rulers. A little further along the corridor, we can see the first steps of a staircase that probably led to a floor. The remaining rooms were used as storerooms to store oil, as the jars surrounding the rooms seem to prove. As you leave the palace, on your right, the remains of the old palace (access is forbidden) and, on your left, the foundations of what seem to have been workshops. To the north of the site, you can visit a cellar with numerous jars embedded in the ground. The finds made during the excavations (wall paintings, pottery...) are exhibited in the museum of Chora, 4 km from the site on the road to Kyparissia. Most of the tablets of linear B are visible in the Archaeological Museum of Athens.