TIRYNS
Greece.
An age-old town in the SE
part of the plain of Argos, a short distance from the
sea. Its origins go back to legendary times, and it was
from Tiryns that Herakles performed the twelve labors
for King Eurystheus. The town was famed for its massive walls, thought to have been built by the Cyclopes
and mentioned by Homer. The Tirynthians took part in
the Trojan War under the leadership of Diomedes.
Though only a small place in Classical times, it sent a
contingent to fight at Plataia and was a thorn in the
side of Argos until the Argives destroyed it, probably
in the sixties of the 5th c. B.C. The exiled Tirynthians
settled in Halieis in the S Argolid.
The remains, particularly the walls, have always been
conspicuous. The first large-scale excavations of 1884
have been continued at intervals in the 20th c. The site
is a low eminence ca. 300 m long and up to 100 m
wide, rising only ca. 20 m above the surrounding plain.
This forms the acropolis and was fortified with strong
walls. The lower town lay in the flat surrounding area.
Potsherds indicate that the site has been inhabited
since Late Neolithic times, though no walls of this period
have been found. In the Early Bronze Age it was an
important place, but the Late Bronze Age was the greatest period: the higher S part of the acropolis was occupied by an extensive palace, one of the best preserved on the Greek mainland. The principal unit was the megaron which opened off a large colonnaded court. The lower, N part of the acropolis was also enclosed within the walls but seems to have had no important buildings.
The palace was destroyed at the end of the Bronze
Age, but the site continued to be occupied in Geometric
and Archaic times. A Doric temple is attested by a column capital. Boustrophedon inscriptions of the 6th c.
B.C., found in 1962 on the cover slabs of water tunnels
passing under the walls should, when deciphered and
published, give interesting information on the government and religion of the archaic town. The exile of the Tirynthians at Halieis (Porto Cheli) is confirmed by Tirynthian coins found in excavations there. The site
was deserted in the time of Strabo and Pausanias. The
movable finds from Tiryns are divided between the museums of Athens and Nauplia.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
H. Schliemann,
Tiryns (1886); D.
Arch. Inst., Athens,
Tiryns I-VI (1912-72, continuing)
MPI; G. Karo,
Fuehrer durch Tiryns2 (1934), a full
authoritative guide
PI; W. Voigtlaender,
Tiryns, Eng.
trans. S.C.D. Slenczka (1972), small but up-to-date site
guide
PI.
E. VANDERPOOL
