§ VIII.—The Palace

Abstract

The Palace at Mycenae was first found and excavated by Tsountas in 1886, although Schliemann had previously in 1874 dug one or two trial pits on the summit of the Acropolis here. His shafts are shewn on Steffen's excellent plan. Tsountas published a full report of his excavations in the Πρακτικά, and in succeeding campaigns cleared more of the ruins of the Palace, and also laid bare the foundations of the Doric temple which was built over the ruins of the Palace in later times. Unfortunately, no full account or plan of these supplementary excavations has ever been published, so that our knowledge of the Palace at Mycenae was incomplete. In 1914 Dr. Rodenwaldt re-examined the painted stucco floors in the Court and in the Megaron, and at the same time republished, together with important new fragments which he was lucky enough to find, all the known pieces of wall-painting from the Megaron. We began work on the Palace in 1920, and continued our re-investigation of the ruins during the three following campaigns, of which that of 1923 was very short. The results of our observations and the few new points discovered by us are here set out. We have to thank Dr. Leicester Holland for the splendid plan published here (Plate II.). In it all the foundation walls of the Doric temple are omitted and most of the Hellenistic and other late walls, so as not to confuse the plan of the Mycenaean Palace.