The Palace of Nestor, the famous king of Pylos, is the most well-preserved Mycenean Palace in Greece and is located in western Messinia, between the small town of Chora and the village of Koryfassio.
Nestor’s Palace was built in the 13th century BC by King Nestor, son of Nile, who holds an important place in Homeric epics. Nestor led Pylos to the Trojan War with 90 ships. He’s presented by Homer as a wise and prudent old man, whose opinion was always respected by the Greeks.
The first excavations for Nestor’s palace started in 1888 by Heinrich Schliemann, but were unsuccessful.
The palace was finally discovered in 1939 by Konstantinos Kourouniotis. Kourouniotis, along with Carl Blegen, carried out intensive excavations until the first ruins of the palace came to light.
Although most of the palace has already been discovered, excavations continue to this day.
From these excavations, more than a thousand plaques from the archive of Nestor’s palace came to light. The plaques in Linear B were deciphered in 1952 by Michael Ventris, an architect, and John Chadwick, a linguist. These contributed significantly to the information we had about daily life, but also to the economic and commercial activities of prehistoric Pylos.
Nestor’s Palace stretches for 15,000 meters. It consists of three main independent wings, which are divided into 105 compartments. The large “throne room” with the circular hearth, the bathroom with the clay bath and the storerooms with the numerous storage vessels are considered to be the most important ones.
The southwest building was named “Nileas Palace”. According to the historical information, it seems that it was built before the construction of the main building. However, it remained in use throughout the 13th century. The main building is considered Nestor’s palace. The large formal hall of the throne has 4 or 6 internal columns to support the roof, traces of a clay hearth and the position of the royal throne.
Nestor’s Palace was almost completely destroyed by a great fire at the end of the 13th century BC and was never rebuilt.
Numerous archaeological findings from the site of Nestor’s palace are kept today in the Archaeological Museum of Chora. There are findings at the Archaeological Museum of Messinia in Kalamata as well.
