The Reconstruction of the Northeast Building at Pylos

"The reconstruction of the northeast building at Pylos is to be critically questioned due to certain architectural peculiarities and with the help of precise measurements taken by MARP. The aim of this paper is to show that Blegen´s reconstruction of the building can be supplemented and its sequence can be differentiated into two phases. During a first phase, attributed to early LH IIIB, the building was erected with probably three rooms accessible by a pillared colonnade as the facade. At the end of LH IIIB the palace had profoundly been altered by the extension and remodelling of its original design. In this course, the northeast building was reshaped by the addition of rooms and by tearing down the northwestern wing of the colonnade. The original plan for the building resembles a building type known from LM III Crete derived itself from the Neopalatial stoa. This first phase of the northeast building at Pylos as proposed can be connected with a Cretan Post-palatial prototype and, like other specific Minoan architectural elements visible at the Palace of Nestor, could be transmitted to the Mycenaean Mainland via commercial interrelations. The original use of this building remains uncertain but it could have served ceremonial or secular festivities."