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Monumental palace at Iklaina rewrites ancient Greek history


Little-known Iklaina in the Peloponnese was a major center of Mycenaean culture and findings indicate that it was the first city-state in Ancient Greece.

Monumental palace at Iklaina rewrites ancient Greek history
Aerial view of Iklaina [Credit: Michael Cosmopoulos]
Iklaina marks the transition from a world without states to a world where the state is the dominant political institution. In the city-state located in todays’ Messenia prefecture, archaeologists have discovered the oldest written text in the Greek Mainland on a tablet made of clay.

Situated at a strategic location overlooking the Ionian Sea, Iklaina appears to have been an important capital city of the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1600-1100 BC) that became famous for such mythical sagas as the Trojan War.

Monumental palace at Iklaina rewrites ancient Greek history
Iklaina Linear B tablet [Credit: Michael Cosmopoulous]
An open-air sanctuary, an early Mycenaean palace, giant terrace walls, murals, an advanced drainage system, and a clay tablet from between 1450 and 1350 BC featuring an early example of Linear B writing have reinforced the view that this ancient Greek town was one of the earliest complex states in ancient Greece by hundreds of years, if not the first.

The massive buildings discovered apparently served as administrative centers and the clay tablet is the earliest-known government record in Europe.



Archaeologists and historians believe that Iklaina was ultimately vanquished by rival Mycenae. It was destroyed by enemy attack at the same time that the Palace of Nestor expanded, indicating that it was the ruler of the Palace of Nestor who took over Iklaina.

For more information see: Iklaina Archaeological Project