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Salamis: the Palace of Ajax?
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The discovery of a Mycenaean palace on Salamis, believed to be that of Trojan War warrior-king Ajax
Archaeologist Yiannis Lolos found the remains of what seemed to be a Mycenaean palace near the village of Kanakia on the island of Salamis, a few miles off the coast of Athens, while hiking on the island in 1999. After six years of excavations he's confident he's found the home of the Aiacid dynasty, a legendary line of kings mentioned in the Iliad and the Classical Greek tragedies site, of whom the most well-known is the legendary Achaean warrior Aias (Ajax), hero of the Trojan War. Classicists have hailed the discovery as evidence that the myths recounted by Homer in his epic poem were based on historical fact.
Salamis was a maritime kingdom, small compared to other Mycenaean kingdoms, involved in trade, warfare and piracy in the eastern Mediterranean. The excavated site consists of a town surmounted by a fortified palace complex, uncovered from beneath a virgin tract of pine woods by Salamis' southwestern coast, where Homer records a fleet of ships setting out to take part in the war on Troy. Kanakia was first inhabited around 3000 B.C and flourished in the 13th century B.C. — at the same time as the major centers of Mycenae and Pylos in southern Greece — and was abandoned during widespread unrest about 100 years later. The Mycenaean settlement covers some 12.5 acres, and features houses, workshops and storage areas. So far, archaeologists have uncovered 33 rooms in the 8,000-square-foot palace, including two central royal residences containing what appear to be two bench-like beds. The palace itself is believed to have been at least four storeys high with more than thirty rooms, and built in the style of other Mycenaean palaces of the period, including Pylos and the vast acropolis at Mycenae itself. Finds include pottery, stone tools, a sealstone and copper implements. Several relics of oriental and Cypriot origin were found, and of particular interest is a piece of a copper mail shirt stamped with the name of Pharaoh Ramses II, who ruled Egypt from 1279-1213 B.C. Trade with Egypt and the East was common in the 13th century BC, and the site excavator Yolos speculates the mail shirt may have belonged to a Mycenaean mercenary soldier serving with the Egyptians, maybe given as a souvenir or a mark of honor. The city of Troy is believed to have fallen about 1180BC — at about the same time, according to Mr Lolos, that the palace he has discovered was abandoned and left to crumble. Ajax, therefore, would have been the last king to have lived there before setting off on the ten-year Trojan expedition. Lolos also believes the site provides evidence to support a theory that residents of the Mycenaean island kingdom fled to Cyprus after the king's death. Salamis was completely abandoned shortly after 1200 B.C, and Lolos speculates that, faced by an external threat, part of Salamis' population left for Cyprus, founding a new town named after their homeland, since there seems little other explanation for the creation on Cyprus of a city named Salamis around 1100 B.C. The emigration theory would explain why almost no high-value artifacts were found at the Greek site, which bore no signs of destruction or enemy occupation. The remainder of the population that stayed on Salamis moved to a new settlement further inland that offered better protection from seaborne raids. At the time of writing this, excavations are planned to resume in September, while future targets include the settlement's cemetery, which Lolos has located nearby. Sources: The Times Online Associated Press |
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