Pylos Excavations Co-Director Jack Davis addresses the crowd
The Palace of Nestor reopened with a new roof on June 12, after three years of restoration works. The site — the best preserved Mycenaean palace in Greece — is located in the Peloponnese, a short distance from modern Pylos.
The archaeological excavations there are sponsored by the University of Cincinnati and conducted under the aegis of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens and jointly directed by former ASCSA Director Jack Davis and Sharon Stocker.
The University of Cincinnati has had a long association with the site dating back to its discovery in 1939 and its excavations beginning in the 1950s. With renewed activity at and around the Palace since 1990, it became apparent that the old roof was deteriorating to such an extent that it threatened to collapse. Through the European Union’s ESPA funding, renovation work was possible through the Ephoreia of Antiquities at Kalamata. This new shelter is therefore a model of cooperation between an American university and the Greek Ministry of Culture.
Speaking at the event were Dr. Aristide Baltas, Minister of Culture and Sports; Petros Tatoulis, Governor of the Peloponnesos; Dr. Maria Andreadaki-Vlazaki, General Secretary of the Ministry of Culture and Sports; Dr. Evangelia Militsi, Ephor of the Ephoreia of Antiquities of Messenia; the current Mayor of Chora Demetrios Kafantaris, Jack Davis, and current ASCSA Director James Wright.
The palace is a complex of various buildings, consisting of 105 ground floor rooms, the most significant of which is the palace’s main building with its throne room. Among the artifacts discovered at the site were more than a thousand clay tablets in the linear B’ script which shed light into the life at the site in antiquity.
Left: Co Director of the Pylos Excavations Shari Stocker and Anna Karapanagiotou, Ephor of Arcadia.
Right: School Director Jim Wright was among the speakers at the opening
