TIRYNS - 2010

Informations Générales

Numéro de la notice

2078

Année de l'opération

2010

Chronologie

Âge du Bronze - Bronze Ancien - Bronze Récent

Mots-clés

Maison - Palais - Peinture - Métal

Nature de l'opération

Fouille - Programmée

Institution(s)

Deutsches Archäologisches Institut (DAI) (Institut archéologique allemand)

Localisation

Toponyme
Tirynthe, Tiryntha, Tiryns

Notices et opérations liées

1985 1986 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2006 2007 2008 20092010

Description

Tiryns. J. Maran (DAI/Heidelberg) reports on the fourth and final excavation season in 2010, focused in quadrants L 51 and L 52 in the western Lower Town.

In contrast to accepted notions of the geomorphological development of the plain surrounding the acropolis, the area of the lower town examined was strongly affected by alluviation from a stream channel that passed south of Tiryns in the third millennium BC. Some 4m under the modern surface, an EH II settlement layer was covered by ca. 2m of riverine sediments which appear to have been deposited during EH III and perhaps late EH II (Fig. 1). Features in the settlement layer include a row of medium-sized rubble in the southeast corner: its architectural context remains unclear. The exact date of the settlement deposits in the sounding will only be revealed via C¹⁴.

Mycenaean settlement remains (Fig. 2) reveal three chronologically close building phases from LH III A2 until the earliest LH IIIB. The erection during LH IIIA2 of the large building (first encountered in 2008) marked a turning point in that it necessitated the removal of all older structures in the area. Robbing pits of former walls were visible in the upper surface of the riverine sediment. Soon after its construction, the large building was almost completely demolished due to building activity connected with the creation of the structure interpreted in 2007 as a pottery workshop. After the third building phase, the area was abandoned in LH IIIB. The use of this area of the western Lower Town, marked by substantial changes within a few decades, resembles palatial planning habits known elsewhere in Tiryns, which appear to affect older structures with no consideration for plots or ownership.

Much LH IIIA2 pottery was recovered from contexts of the first Mycenaean building phase, including vessels which can be almost completely restored (Fig. 3). A lead or silver object in the shape of a truncated cone (0.018m high) may be a fine weight (Fig. 4).

Restoration and study of wall paintings. Tiryns appears to demonstrate the most consistent and architecturally advanced design of all 13^th-century Mycenaean palaces. Unexpected new finds, such as the palatial wall frescoes discovered in 1999 near the western staircase, complete our image of the palace over a century after its discovery. These discoveries provide the occasion for reassessment of previously discovered Tirynthian paintings now in the National Museum of Athens (the second phase of the project “Pictorial space and spatial image, Mycenaean palaces as performative space” begun in 2006). Study of the newer material, restored in the project's first phase, progresses. An especially fine example is the image of a lady carrying a little girl who appears to hold flowers. To this core image, recognised during restoration, several further fragments can now be allocated (e.g. the shoulders of at least three further women). This suggests a more complex scene (Fig. 5), tentatively interpreted as an initiation rite and so far without known parallel in the known pictorial canon of its time.

Auteur de la notice

Catherine MORGAN

Références bibliographiques

Unpublished field report, DAI (J. Maran).