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Harry's Peloponnese Guide: Ancient Tiryns (Tyrins) Argos Prefecture Page 4

the residential quarters aboveThere were wooden columns here, their stone bases still remain. This gateway followed upon an earlier one. The Royal Palace is reached from the north side of the forecourt near the Smaller Propylaion. The site of the palace complex was occupied in Neolithic times (probably), and remains of Early Helladic buildings have been discovered there.

The palace dates to the 14th century BC, was rebuilt after 1250 BC and again in 1200 BC, both times after natural disasters. A cult room from 1200BC was discovered, with an even earlier predecessor, and large numbers of terracotta figures found there. Evidence of metal working was also found.

The base of the palace walls is made of limestone, now only about one meter high, and above this the walls were of sun-baked brick covered with stucco on which frescoes were painted. The enormous stone thresholds of the doorways remain; the floors are made of a mixture of lime and pebbles that resembles concrete.

Nationa Archology Museum Athensthe boar hunt fresco is in Athens Nat MusemThe Megaron (large hall or throne room) is approached via an outer chamber, ( in turn entered by triple doors), and in its center is a round clay hearth, with a diameter of 3-4meters.

Wooden columns supported the roof, themselves supported by stone pedestals. The painted floor remains somewhat intact, and the base of the throne is well-preserved (and housed in the Archaeological Museum in Athens, along with other items and frescoes from the site).

On the walls frescoes depict a boar hunt and a frieze of women. Beneath the Megaron and court is concealed a round building 28meters in diameter, dated from the Early Helladic period.

A square tower beyond the rear court gives way to a Secret Stair which descends through a huge bastion to a corbelled Postern Gate and from there one leaves the fortress. This flight of 80 steps was a clever innovation in the defensive structure of the palace, and yet another place where besiegers would have been made totally vulnerable. There are two spring-fed underground Cisterns near the northwest angle of the lower enclosure in the ramparts, lead to by steeply descending secret passages, discovered only in 1962, and quite by accident. Stones covering the cisterns had Archaic inscriptions dating to 600BC.

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