The Megaron at Pylos: A New Interpretation

Ancient Studies Department sponsors Annual Study Tour in Turkey

The UMBC Ancient Studies Department will conduct its 49th annual study tour in Turkey March 13-22, 2015. The price of $2,650.00 (based on a group of 30) includes all air, land, and sea travel, twin-share accommodation for eight nights at four-star hotels, buffet breakfasts, three dinners, one lunch, and entrance to all archaeological sites and museums on the itinerary. Single rooms are available at an additional cost. ANCS majors and minors, UMBC students, faculty, staff, alumni, and members of the community are welcome on the tour. The trip can be taken as a 3-credit course in the Winter 2015 term (ANCS 301; winter semester tuition applies). Scholarships are available to Ancient Studies majors taking the course for credit.

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Interesting research created by our Ancient Studies students:

• "Syncretism in Pompeii"
• "New Perspectives on Old Views"
• "Effects of the Latin Deponents on the Early Sardinian Analytic Perfect"
• " Cultural Property or Trophy Case: The Display of Repatriated Antiquities in the Museums of Naples, Paestum, and Aidone"
• "The Megaron at Pylos: A New Interpretation"

 


The Megaron at Pylos: A New Interpretation

Jarrett L. Farmer

Michael F. Lane, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Ancient Studies

The Late Bronze Age (1500-1100 BCE) Greek Palace of Nestor at Pylos contains a room at its core with a central hearth, a vestibule, and a porch, to which archaeologists give the Homeric label “megaron,” that is consistently described as a “throne room.” Closer attention opens this label and implicit interpretation to question. During field school last summer, I visited the Palace of Nestor and related museum, and I noticed the close attention that archaeologists had paid to the palace’s other rooms. In contrast, the “throne room” idiom implies an uncritically assumed vision of kingship that does not explain the functioning of social power on the basis of archaeological evidence. In order to correct this fundamental error in method I conducted a detailed study of the Pylos megaron, paying close attention to its features and associated finds, and to other areas in the palace, and compared them with contemporary megara at Tiryns and Mycenae. In the process, I demonstrated how the archaeological record warrants quite different interpretations of the megaron, and by extension, certain models of power in Mycenaean society. In doing so, I hope to have shown that Mycenaean society was more complex than has so far been assumed.

This work was funded, in part, by the Christopher Sherwin Award from the UMBC Department of Ancient Studies, and through an Undergraduate Research Award from the UMBC Office of Undergraduate Education.