The period from around 1450 BC to 1300 BC was a time of momentous change in Messenia. At the beginning of this era, a complex mosaic of independent settlements, led by powerful families, controlled the region. Back then, in the Late Bronze Age, Messenia formed a core part of the Mycenaean world. This was the time of the so-called warrior-princes, whose martial accoutrements and showy accessories are such a feature of the elite funerary record. Their era of dominance, though, was drawing to a close. A century and a half later, by around 1300 BC, if not much earlier, the authority of those leading families had been eclipsed by that of a single figure ruling over a vast territory – ultimately spanning some 2,000km² – from a great palace at Pylos. In Messenia, as elsewhere in the Mycenaean world, the scale and sophistication of this new political and administrative system is such that it can be seen as the dawn of early state formation on mainland Greece.
Today, scholars studying Messenia can draw on the results of a century of excavations in the region. As an extraordinary exhibition at the Getty is currently showcasing (see ‘Further information’ box), some of these finds display a beauty and technical virtuosity that is simply unparalleled for the era. What this exhibition also reveals is the extent to which cutting-edge scientific methods, including DNA analysis, are shedding new light on life during this pivotal period of change. If this latest chapter in the story is being written by the high-tech suite of tools and techniques available to modern archaeologists, the very first was composed by Homer.
Archaeology and myth
‘Pylos is mentioned in both the Iliad and the Odyssey as the homeland of King Nestor, the wise elder statesman of the Trojan War’, says Claire Lyons, curator of antiquities at the J. Paul Getty Museum, who organised the exhibition at the Getty Villa. ‘Several of the most important sites that we know from the Mycenaean era were excavated in the later 19th century as a result of the efforts of the German entrepreneur Heinrich Schliemann. He is, of course, famous in archaeological circles for his passion for ancient history and Homer. Schliemann was convinced that there were more than seeds of truth in the texts of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and that one could find actual historical events within their pages, alongside poetry and myth. So he set out to find some of the famous sites that appear in Homeric epics, including Troy and then Mycenae – in the Greek Peloponnese – which gave its name to the Mycenaean civilisation.’ Schliemann enjoyed a great deal of success in the 1870s and 1880s while seeking, exploring, and excavating Late Bronze Age sites. He wanted Pylos to be among them and looked for it in 1874 and 1888. Because Homer describes the place as ‘sandy Pylos’, it seemed logical that it would be somewhere on the coast. When Schliemann failed to find it, he thought that the site had been lost to erosion. ‘There was a different explanation’, Claire noted, ‘Pylos lay inland.’
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