Date: April 15, 2005
Partners for the day: Peter Van Buren (text) Katherine Harrington (images)
Site(s): Tiryns
Museum(s): Tripolis Museum, Tegea Museum
Principal Buildings/Monuments: Temple of Athena Alea
Time Spent on Each Site: Tiryns from ca. 8:30 to ca. 12:30 [ 4 hours] Tripolis Museum from ca. 1:00 to ca. 2:00 [ 1 hour] Tegea Museum and the Temple of Athena Alea from ca. 2:30 to ca. 3:30 [ 1 hour]
Weather: Sunny and pleasant, but with an occasional cold wind
This morning, we said goodbye to Nafplio and headed for the site of Tiryns. Tiryns is a large Mycenaean citadel built on the tops of two connected hills. The site features a significant palace structure, presumably for a resident king, impressive walls of Cyclopean masonry, multiple entryways, and quite a few buildings that are assumed to have been residences for an aristocratic class. We had passed Tiryns several times on our way to other sites during the past few days, and it was exciting to finally visit the site.
Melissa Vetters and Ursula Damm met us at the entrance to the site. Melissa Vetters is the Assistant Director of Excavation at Tiryns, and Ursula Damm is presently conducting research at Tiryns. With Damm’s help, Vetters gave us a detailed overview of the development of Tiryns as a settlement over the course of the Bronze Age. In addition to a detailed presentation on the megaron, a palace-like structure at the highest point in Tiryns, Vetters also told us about a variety of other features of the site, including the so-called syringes. The syringes are two narrow tunnels that pass through the walls of Tiryns and descend to the water table, giving the people within the citadel access to a large supply of fresh water. After telling us about the syringes, Vetters allowed us to climb down both of them so that we could see for ourselves the intact Mycenaean corbel vaulting. The group is very grateful to Vetters and Damm for sharing their knowledge of Tiryns with us.
It came as something of a shock to me that Tiryns, while inarguably a ruin, was an impressive citadel in its current state. Looking at grainy black and white pictures and projected slides had always given me the impression that Bronze Age sites like Tiryns and Mycenae had once been awe inspiring but currently were only outlines that suggested the greatness that had once existed at these sites. While this has been true at some sites, the walls and other intact parts of Tiryns are impressive in scale and execution even in their current state of decay. The towering Cyclopean walls are powerful and aesthetically pleasing even without their mud brick superstructure, and the intact vaults of a storage facility on the east side of the palatial structure are very attractive and long before their time. If these buildings remain impressive in a state of ruin, I imagine that they must have been even more impressive when they were still in use more than three thousand years ago. We can only imagine what a difference having full walls, roofs, and second stories would make; how wood, painted plaster, and furniture would enhance the effect we can still feel today.
After spending a significant amount of time at Tiryns, we quickly stopped at a sandwich shop for a bathroom break and then moved on to the Tripolis Museum. Located in an old hospital building, the Tripolis Museum is a treasure trove of fascinating artifacts dating from the Neolithic Period to the Roman Period. The museum houses a large collection of metal artifacts, including a significant number of coins and early safety pins called fibulae. Also noteworthy is museum’s collection of impressive Roman statuary from the villa of Herodes Atticus, the richest man in the world in the 2nd Century AD. While the objects on display are impressive and the lighting is good (I’m very picky about lighting), there is room for improvement of the museum’s organization of objects and general arrangement.
Once we had finished at the Tripolis Museum, we moved on to the nearby Tegea Museum and the associated Temple of Athena Alea. The Temple of Athena Alea was designed by Skopas, a renowned architect and sculptor, and built during the 3rd Century BC. Built of dark grey Doliana marble, the temple was covered with elaborate sculpture and decorative carved stone. The Tegea Museum houses most of the sculpture that came from the temple, while the site of the temple itself basically consists of exposed foundations and a few column drums. Examining the remains of the foundations, we were able to determine that the building sat on top of an earlier building whose foundations had been incorporated into the later temple. After examining a few dowel holes and chisel marks, we climbed into the bus and headed for Sparta. We arrived at the Apollon Hotel in Sparta less than an hour later and are now in the process of winding down and writing a paper that is due tomorrow.