The New Protective Shelter At The Palace Of Nestor

When Carl Blegen’s excavation works were completed at the beginning of the 1960s, the building debris was covered over with a protective shelter made of a Dexion-type material. But unfortunately not all sections of the palace complex, obviously due to insurmountable financial difficulties. It must be emphasized here that Blegen did not indicate that certain sections of the monument should be protected, and others not. They were then left outside the shelter: the Palace of Neleus, the arsenal-sanctuary, with the altar painted in Mycenean times in the northeast and, to the north, the wine magazine, which the excavator back-filled for its own protection.

However, with the new shelter, the same sections of the Mycenean complex were left uncovered once again: the Palace of Neleus, the arsenal-sanctuary and the wine magazine, which was back-filled once again, but with one difference: in one of its sections it suffered unforgivable destruction because, in the attempt to place a supporting pillar of the new shelter, it was necessary to break in pieces and remove at least two, if not more, pairs of the half-buried jars (pithoi) in the earth since ancient times. The imminent destruction of the monument was certain.