Mycenaean palace of Dimini

The palace at Dimini is the most important Mycenaean monument in Thessaly and the only palatial centre in the region. Both the palace and the nearby tholos tombs indicate that Dimini had a ruling class, which controlled the administration, religion and economy, as in the other Mycenaean centres of southern and central Greece. This centre had contacts with the entire Mycenaean world and the eastern Mediterranean, and an advanced system of commercial exchange and supply of raw materials. These contacts are possibly reflected in the mythical voyage of the Argonauts, the first great Greek nautical expedition, which set out from Iolkos, traditionally placed inside the Pagasitikos gulf and identified as the remains discovered at Dimini. The palace lies east of the hill of the Neolithic settlement, between this and the core of the Mycenaean settlement and its preserved main street. The palace was built it the thirteenth century (Late Helladic IIIB1) over an earlier edifice of the fourteenth century, and was abandoned in the early twelfth century (early Late Helladic IIIC).

The palace was entered from the road through a pillared porch, or propylaion. It consisted of two large megarons and several smaller buildings round a central court. Megaron A is orientated east-west and entered from the east. It has two wings of rooms connected by a corridor. The north wing was the residence proper, while the south wing housed service rooms and workshops. A stone weight with three engraved Linear B symbols was found inside one of these workshops, while stone matrices and metalworking tools were found in the corridor. The relatively well-preserved walls of Megaron A were covered in white plaster like the floors. North and south of the megaron are two independent storage buildings. Megaron A was destroyed and abandoned in the late thirteenth-early twelfth century BC. The large rooms of the north wing and the workshops were later repaired and re-occupied, although during the last occupation phase only the north wing was used. Megaron B also comprised two wings divided by a corridor. This was completely destroyed by fire in the late thirteenth-early twelfth century BC and never re-occupied. Its walls were covered with clay, which was baked by the fire and perfectly preserved in places, and its floor was of a thick layer of clay, mixed with lime and pebbles. Inside the storage rooms were great quantities of ceramic vessels and carbonized vegetal remains identified as cereals (wheat and barley), olives and grapes. Near the entrance was a raised clay altar.

Archaeological investigation of the palace began in 1997. Since then the walls and wall-plaster of the megarons, storerooms and workshops have been conserved and the area around the palace was tested with remote sensing (electron-magnetometer). Also, the existing shelter was extended over the entrance of the palace and test trenches were dug for the foundations of a new shelter.

Author Dr V. Adrymi-Sismani, archaeοlogist

Source: odysseus.culture.gr