Pylos

Pylos, any of three sites in Greece. The most important of them is identified with the modern Pylos, the capital of the eparkhía (“eparchy”) of Pylia in the nomós (department) of Messenia (Modern Greek: Messinía), Greece, on the southern headland of the Órmos (bay) Navarínou, a deepwater shipping channel on the southwest coast of the Peloponnese (Pelopónnisos). It is protected and almost blocked from the sea by the island of Sphakteria (Sfaktiría), which has a summit (Mount Illia) of 450 feet (137 meters). The smaller island of Pílos to the south has a lighthouse and a monument to French sailors who fell at the Battle of Navarino (1827). The ancient historian Thucydides described Pylos as a deserted headland in 425 bce, when Athens defeated Sparta there in a land and naval battle during the Peloponnesian War. The modern town behind the south headland of the bay was built in 1829 by the French.

Much confusion over the proper place-names for Pylos began in the Middle Ages. One of the present alternative names, Navarino, may be derived from a group of Avars (a people of unknown origin and language) who settled there during the 6th to 8th century ce. The Venetians later corrupted the name of their castle, Ton Avarinon, to Navarino. In 1278 the Franks built the Paleo Kastro (Old Castle), which still commands the west channel to the harbor. In 1381 a company of Gascon and Navarrese adventurers took over Pylos. The Turks in 1573 built the citadel at the foot of Mount Áyios Nikólaos, calling it Neo Kastro to distinguish it from the Frankish structure. From 1498 to 1821 Navarino and its bay were in the hands of the Turks except for two periods (1644–48 and 1686–1715), when it was held by the Venetians. The bay was the scene of a notable naval battle between European and Turkish fleets in 1827, which consolidated the independence of Greece. Local inhabitants prefer the name Neókastro, after the Turkish-Venetian fortifications.

Scholarly dispute over the location of Pylos, the capital of King Nestor described in Homer, may have begun as early as the 3rd century bce. An impressive Mycenaean palace compound that was occupied from about 1700 bce to just before 1200 was unearthed north of present Pylos–Navarino–Neókastro in 1939. This Epano Englianos palace, together with dependent despoiled tombs, appears to match closely the dignity and position of the royal seat as described by Homer. Transcending the Pylos locational controversy, however, was the discovery at Epano Englianos of hundreds of inscribed clay tablets baked hard by the fire that destroyed the palace. The tablets are inscribed in the so-called Linear B script found earlier in the palace at Knossos (Knosós) in Crete (Kríti), as well as those discovered after 1952 in excavations at Mycenae (Mykínes).

Two other Greek sites of this name are Pylos in Elis, on the Pineiós (also called Peneus) River in the northwestern Peloponnese, and Pylos in Triphylia (near Kakóvatos), once thought to be the site of Homeric Pylos.