PYLOS, Palace of Nestor - 2011

Pylos, Palace of Nestor. S.R. Stocker (ASCSA) reports on the 2011 study season. Study of wall-paintings enabled another ship to be restored in Hall 64. New fragments were joined with the well-known battle scene 22H64 and with the unpublished naval scene. Additional cleaning and mending was done on fragments from the arc dado from Hall 64 and the ‘Hunting Dogs’ frieze. A high-resolution digital photographic record was compiled of 111 walls of the palace on which plaster is preserved. Analyses to determine the composition of purple pigment found on some wall-painting fragments continued, and the results of analyses of organic binders were submitted for publication in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

Study of the stratigraphy and pottery of Tholos IV continued, alongside study for publication of ceramics and small finds from other tombs excavated by Blegen. Much of the material from Tholos III was redated from LH IIIB to LHIII A, and evidence found for tin covering on some drinking vessels. In collaboration with the ΛΖ’ ΕΠΚΑ, human remains from the Elliniko tombs near Kalamata were studied. Study of materials from the palace pantries (rooms 18-22) aimed both to determine how widespread was the consumption of elite cuisine during LH IIIB, when class-differentiated cuisine emerged, and to formulate methodologies for determining the demographics of Mycenaean potters, considering how ceramic attributes including metrical variability might reflect the identities and practices of their producers.

The 2011 PhD dissertation of S. LaFayette (The Destruction and Afterlife of the Palace of Nestor at Pylos: The Making of a Forgotten Landmark) includes a catalogue of the floor plaster from the palace, a new reconstruction of the upper floor, and the application of forensic fire analysis to demonstrate that parts of the second floor remained standing after the final fire that destroyed the palace. The severity of the fire varied throughout the structure, leaving some rooms intact and accessible for looting and small-scale domestic re-use in the Early Iron Age.