Modern Iklaina, Ancient Aipy

Listeners of the Ancient History Podcast will remember how, last year, I spoke with Michael B. Cosmopoulos about his book The World of Homer. It was a really fun episode, and one of the best we have recorded for the podcast (listen here).

Well, after the podcast, Michael very kindly invited me to visit the archaeological site of Iklaina, near modern Pylos, where the remains of a Mycenaean settlement have been excavated since 2006. Of course, this was not an offer I would turn down. So, I gratefully accepted, and I visited the site in mid-July this year.

It was an utterly fantastic experience. Though I have visited plenty of archaeological sites in my time, I have never got to see an in-progress excavation. Michael gave me a tour of the site, showing us the remains of a road, an open-air sanctuary, houses, and much more, and explained the significance of the site.

As well as being the first major excavation of a Mycenaean site in decades, Iklaina also has the potential to offer profound insight into the emergence of the Kingdom of Pylos, the more famous Mycenaean site in Messenia. The Mycenaean settlement at Iklaina, tentatively identified as Homeric Aipy or Mycenaean A-pu2, appears to have declined in ca. 1250 BC, just about the time when the Mycenaean settlement at Ano Englianos, the so-called Palace of Nestor, began to expand. It is thus possible that Iklaina was conquered by the nascent Kingdom of Pylos. What’s more, the earliest Linear B tablet from mainland Greece, dated to ca. 1450 BC, was found at Iklaina. This was no minor palatial site but a major settlement that may have been home to 6000 or more people!

I was lucky to visit when I did, since the excavation is finishing soon. However, thankfully, this is not the last opportunity to visit the site. Now that the excavation is ending, there are plans to turn the site into an archaeological park. This is still some years away, but I’ll definitely be returning. In the meantime, you can see some of the finds from Iklaina, including fresco fragments and the fragment of the Linear B tablet, at the Pylos Archaeological Museum.

Honestly, a visit to Messenia more generally is well worth it. The region has a strong connection to its ancient past, with many Myceanean tombs dotting the landscape, as well as plenty of later Classical sites, such as Thouria and Ancient Messene itself. I’ll definitely be returning!