Pylos

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Pylos
Πύλος
The bay of Pylos
The bay of Pylos
Official seal of Pylos
Pylos is located in Greece
Pylos
Pylos
Location within the regional unit
Coordinates: 36°55′N 21°42′E / 36.917°N 21.700°E / 36.917; 21.700Coordinates: 36°55′N 21°42′E / 36.917°N 21.700°E / 36.917; 21.700
CountryGreece
Administrative regionPeloponnese
Regional unitMessenia
MunicipalityPylos-Nestoras
 • Municipal unit143.91 km2 (55.56 sq mi)
Elevation
3 m (10 ft)
Population
 (2011)[1]
 • Municipal unit
5,287
 • Municipal unit density37/km2 (95/sq mi)
Time zoneUTC+2 (EET)
 • Summer (DST)UTC+3 (EEST)
Postal code
240 01
Area code(s)27230
Vehicle registrationKM

Pylos (UK: /ˈplɒs/, US: /-ls/; Greek: Πύλος), historically also known as Navarino, is a town and a former municipality in Messenia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform, it has been part of the municipality Pylos-Nestoras, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit.[2] It was the capital of the former Pylia Province. It is the main harbour on the Bay of Navarino. Nearby villages include Gialova, Pyla, Elaiofyto, Schinolakka, and Palaionero. The town of Pylos has 2,345 inhabitants, the municipal unit of Pylos 5,287 (2011).[3] The municipal unit has an area of 143.911 km2.[4]

Pylos has been inhabited since Neolithic times. It was a significant kingdom in Mycenaean Greece, with remains of the so-called "Palace of Nestor" excavated nearby, named after Nestor, the king of Pylos in Homer's Iliad. In Classical times, the site was uninhabited, but became the site of the Battle of Pylos in 425 BC, during the Peloponnesian War. After that, Pylos is scarcely mentioned until the 13th century, when it became part of the Frankish Principality of Achaea. Increasingly known by its French name of Port-de-Jonc or its Italian name Navarino, in the 1280s the Franks built the Old Navarino castle on the site. Pylos came under the control of the Republic of Venice from 1417 until 1500, when it was conquered by the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans used Pylos and its bay as a naval base, and built the New Navarino fortress there. The area remained under Ottoman control, with the exception of a brief period of renewed Venetian rule in 1685–1715 and a Russian occupation in 1770–71, until the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence in 1821. Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt recovered it for the Ottomans in 1825, but the defeat of the Turco-Egyptian fleet in the 1827 Battle of Navarino and the French military intervention of the 1828 Morea expedition forced Ibrahim to withdraw from the Peloponnese and confirmed Greek independence. The current city was built outside the fortress walls by the military engineers of the Morea expedition from 1829 and the name Pylos was revived by royal decree in 1833.

Name[]

Griffin serving as Seal for the modern city of Pylos, which was found in a tomb near Pylos by Carl Blegen in 1963 (National Archaeological Museum of Athens)

Pylos retained its ancient name into Byzantine times, but after the Frankish conquest in the early 13th century, two new names appear:[5]

  • a French one, Port-de-Jonc ("Rush Harbour") or Port-de-Junch, with some variants and derivatives: in Italian Porto-Junco, Zunchio or Zonchio, in medieval Catalan Port Jonc, in Latin Iuncum, Zonglon/Zonglos (Ζόγγλον/ς or Ζόγκλον/ς) in Greek, etc. It takes that name from the marshes surrounding the place.[5][6]
  • a Greek one, Avarinos (Ἀβαρῖνος), later shortened to Varinos (Βαρῖνος) or lengthened to Anavarinos (Ἀναβαρῖνος) by epenthesis, which became Navarino in Italian (probably by rebracketing) and Navarin in French.[5] Its etymology is not certain. A traditional etymology, proposed by the early 15th-century traveller Nompar de Caumont and repeated as late as the works of Karl Hopf, ascribed the name to the Navarrese Company, but that is clearly an error since the name was in use long before the Navarrese presence in Greece. In 1830, Fallmereyer proposed that it could originate from a body of Avars who settled there, a view adopted by a few later scholars like William Miller.[7] Modern scholarship, on the other hand, considers it more likely that it originates from a Slavic name meaning "place of maples".[8][5][6] The name of Avarinos/Navarino, although in use before the Frankish period, came into widespread use and eclipsed the French name of Port-de-Jonc and its derivations only in the 15th century, after the collapse of the Frankish Principality of Achaea.[5]

In the late 14th or early 15th century, when it was held by the Navarrese Company, it was also known as Château Navarres, and called Spanochori (Σπανοχώρι, "village of the Spaniards") by the local Greeks.[9]

Under Ottoman rule (1498–1685, 1715–1821), the Turkish name was Anavarin[o] (آناوارين). After the construction of the new Ottoman fortress (Anavarin kalesi) in 1571/2, it became known as Neokastro (Νεόκαστρο or Νιόκαστρο, "new castle") among the local Greeks, while the old Frankish castle became known as Palaiokastro (Παλαιόκαστρο or Παλιόκαστρο, "old castle").[9]

History[]

Neolithic Pylos[]

The region of Pylos has a long history, which goes hand in hand with that of Peloponnese. It starts in the depths of prehistory, as the region has been inhabited since the Neolithic, when populations from Anatolia began to spread in the Balkans and Greece around 6500 BC, bringing with them the practice of agriculture and farming. Excavations have demonstrated a continuous human presence from the Late Neolithic period (5300 BC) on several sites of Pylia, in particular in those of Voidokilia and of Nestor's cave, where numerous ostraca or fragments of painted, black and polished ceramics have been found, as well as later engraved and written pottery.[10] The Neolithic period ended with the appearance of bronze metallurgy around 3000 BC.

Mycenaean Pylos[]

Nestor's Palace

During the Bronze Age (3000–1000 BC), the Mycenaean civilization developed, particularly in Peloponnese. Pylos then became the capital of one of the most important human centers of this civilization and of a powerful kingdom, often referred to as Nestor's kingdom of "sandy Pylos" (ἠμαθόεις) and described later by Homer in both his Iliad and his Odyssey (Book 17) when Telemachus says:

we went to Pylos and to Nestor, the shepherd of the people, and he received me in his lofty house and gave me kindly welcome, as a father might his own son who after a long time had newly come from afar: even so kindly he tended me with his glorious sons.[11]

Warriors on a chariot. Fresco in Nestor's palace (LHIIIA/B period, around 1350 BC)

The Mycenaean state of Pylos (1600–1200 BC) covered an area of 2,000 square kilometres (770 sq mi) and had a minimum population of 50,000 according to the Linear B tablets discovered there, or even perhaps as large as 80,000–120,000.[12][13][14] It should not however be confused with the current city of Pylos. The urban center of ancient Pylos indeed remains only partially identified to date. The various archaeological remains of palaces and administrative or residential infrastructures that have been found in the region so far suggest to modern scholars that the ancient city would have developed over a much larger area, that of the Pylia Province.[12] The typical point of reference for the Mycenaean city remains the Palace of Nestor, but many other palaces (such as those of Nichoria[15] and Iklaina[16]) or villages (such as Malthi[17]) of the Mycenaean era have been recently discovered, which were quickly subordinated to Pylos.[12] Its port and its acropolis were probably established on the Koryphasion promontory (or Cape Coryphasium) commanding the northern entrance to the bay, 4 km north of the modern city and south of Nestor's palace, but no remains were found.

Location of Ancient Pylos ("pu-ro")

The Pylos site is located on the hill of Ano Englianos, about 9 km northeast of the bay

 WikiMiniAtlas
37°01′41″N 21°41′42″E / 37.028°N 21.695°E / 37.028; 21.695, near the village of Chora and about 17 kilometres from the modern city of Pylos. It hosts one of the most important Mycenaean palaces in Greece, known as the great "Palace of Nestor" described in the Homeric poems. This palace remains today the best preserved palace in Greece and one of the most important of all Mycenaean civilization. It was discovered and first excavated in 1939 by American archaeologist Carl Blegen (1887–1971) of the University of Cincinnati and the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, and by (1872–1945) of the Greek archaeological service. Their excavations were interrupted by the Second World War, and then resumed in 1952 under the direction of Blegen until 1966. He found many architectural elements such as the throne room with its foyer, an anteroom, rooms and passageways all covered with frescoes of Minoan inspiration, and also large warehouses, the external walls of the palace, unique baths, galleries, and 90 meters outside the palace, a beehive "tholos" tomb, perfectly restored in 1957 (Tholos tomb IV).

Clay tablet with its inscriptions in Linear B, discovered in Pylos (Archaeological Museum of Chora)

In addition to the archaeological remains of the palace, Blegen also found there thousands of clay tablets with inscriptions written in Linear B, a syllabic script used between 1425 and 1200 BC for writing Mycenaean Greek. Pylos is the largest source in Greece of these tablets with 1,087 fragments found on the site of the Nestor's Palace. In 1952, when self-taught linguist Michael Ventris and John Chadwick deciphered the script, Mycenaean Greek turned out to be the earliest attested form of Greek, some elements of which have survived in the language of Homer thanks to a long oral tradition of epic poetry.[18][19] Thus, these clay tablets, generally used for administrative purposes or for recording economic transactions, clearly demonstrate that the site itself was already called "Pylos" by its Mycenaean inhabitants (Pulos in Mycenaean Greek; attested in Linear B as Linear B Syllable B050 PU.svgLinear B Syllable B002 RO.svg pu-ro,