Palace of Nestor Excavations - 2021

Palace of Nestor Excavations. S. Stocker and J. Davis (Cincinnati) report on the sixth campaign in the series of new excavations at the Palace of Nestor at Pylos.

For three days at the start of this season the team collaborated with Apostolos Sarris from the University of Cyprus, who examined large parts of the Demopoulos Field and surrounding areas with Magnetometry and Ground Penetrating Radar. Particular characteristics of the clay bedrock and soil in the area of the Palace of Nestor for the most part inhibited recognition of archaeologically meaningful anomalies.

Excavation then focused on the removal of the baulks in Tholos VI, on the special deposit at the outside end of the dromos of Tholos VI, and on the removal of a baulk that had been left in the dromos of Tholos VII.
In addition, a number of trenches opened in our Area H uncovered several Early Mycenaean walls and a stratified sequence of levels covering much of the Early Mycenaean and Middle Helladic periods (MHI/II, MH II, LH I/IIA, LH IIA, LH IIB early and late, LHIIIA1, and LH IIIA2 early). It appears that there is a hiatus here in stratified levels between the end of MH II and LH IIA.

Considerable progress was also made this year in excavating the “Special Feature” in the dromos of Tholos VI. This large but very compressed deposit was sealed in LH IIA in an elongated, shallow, bowl-shaped pit, ca. 6 m. long, 1.5 wide, and 20-40 cm. deep. The finds are so densely compacted that the team still has not finished removing them. The pit contains the remains of gold and ivory objects, as well as amber and beads of semi-precious stones, that had originally been deposited in the thalamos of the tomb.