MYCENAE - 2007

Mycenae. S. Iakovidis (ASA) reports on a further season of excavation on the acropolis, between the NW settlement and the ΜΛ complex, and in Petsas House. On the acropolis, the open court between the excavated rooms and the N cyclopean wall was cleaned and investigated, as was the sloping pathway along the length of these rooms to the court. The 3.5m x 5m court communicates with the northernmost room (3) via a doorway in its W side, and has 2 successive clay floors over a stone fill. The pathway will be fully investigated in 2008. Finds included sherds, fragments of wall-painting, clay loomweights and spools, olive pits and scattered animal bones.

On the banks of the Chavos in the lower city, the city grid (5 x 5m) was extended, and 5 trials opened where architectural remains of historical periods existed at d. of 0.10−0.15m. In the northernmost (trench 22), 2 apsidal structures of fieldstones produced Hel sherds and wasters, indicating pottery production. Further S was a strong external wall, a square hearth, and 2 orthogonal bases for columns or wall supports. The pottery was mixed with fragments of figurine and wallpainting, plus iron nails. To the SE, another strong wall with the same orientation was cut by a transverse wall running W which belongs to another less careful construction. These walls are Hel in date. In the neighbouring quadrants 63 and 74, the W wall of a building (previously revealed by geophysical survey) was excavated, and to the S, 2 parallel transverse walls which enclose rooms or perhaps a road. The finds − Myc sherds, a stone pendant, a bronze awl, Ar figurines, Cor pottery and Argive coins − date the building to the E6th Ct. All these buildings were founded in a clean levelling fill above earlier Myc architectural remains, the orientation of which conforms to the known Myc pattern.

In Petsas House (Fig. 1), excavation of the well in room Π reached 12.35m d., where the fill contained many stones likely from the mouth of the well, and a corresponding shortage of finds. The LH IIIA2 pottery is mostly plainware and utilitarian. Among the few decorated examples is a bridge-spouted jug. In total, 317 near-complete vessels were collected, plus 350 which could be restored. Other finds include a portable hearth of plaster and a few tiny fragments of tablet with one or 2 characters preserved.

In room K, where excavation in 1951 stopped at a LMyc dividing wall, the dense fill was full of stones. Pottery was mixed LH IIIA2 and later. Room T which neighbours room Γ was also full of stones and bricks baked hard by the fire, as well as large sections of wall-painting which had fallen upright, probably from the upper floor. In the SW corner, a pithos in situ lay in mixed Myc and Hel fill: in the N part there was a stone-paved floor and part of a carbonized wooden beam. The small room I of the 1951 excavation was completely cleared. In the area N of room E, light walls founded on bedrock were traced to their full course and shown to have been erected and destroyed during the Hel period. An opening into the neighbouring room was shown to be a fault in construction rather than a doorway. Room Θ, N of I, was completely cleared and its flooring revealed.

In 2007 excavation also proceeded in Kato Pezouli, the uninvestigated lower level, W of the rooms. Here site H was uncovered in 1951, the exact location of which was uncertain and varies on different plans. A fruitless attempt was made to locate it amidst mixed fills cut by various Myc and later intrusions. In the S part of this lower level, W of room Γ, an apotheke (Υ) was excavated, packed with fill from the break up of the upper floor, just as in the neighbouring T. On the floor were receptacles for large vessels, the lower parts of 4 pithoi and settings for 2 more on slabs. Finds from this year’s excavations comprise 98 complete and fragmentary LH IIIA2 vessels, abundant sherds of this period, parts of wall-paintings of different sizes, animal figurines and various Hel objects.