A RE-EXAMINATION OF THE FUNCTION OF COURTS 42 AND 47 AT PYLOS AS ENCLOSED GARDEN SPACE

Anne B. Hollond

In this paper I submit that enclosed garden space was a feature of the Bronze Age palace at Pylos (Epano Englianos). The topic of gardens in the Aegean Bronze Age has long been of interest to scholars and excavators. Many offer suggestions for the location of gardens at various sites. Maria Shaw, moreover, has recently demonstrated that gardens, rather than natural landscapes, are depicted in a number of frescoes (AJA 97.4 [1993]: 661-685). This interest in the Aegean garden has largely been restricted to Crete and Thera; the possibility of gardens -- either actual or represented in art -- at the Mycenaean palaces of the mainland has not received much support. Evidence at the palace at Pylos urges a reconsideration of this possibility.

This evidence specifically urges a re-examination of the function of Courts 42 and 47, on the northeastern flank of the main building complex. The relation of these two rooms to a grand and monumental facade of the palace and to nearby rooms such as the small megaron Hall 46 with its painted walls and hearth is puzzling. Furthermore, a number of distinct architectural features, including a hydraulic system in Court 42 and a seemingly irregular arrangement of holes cut into the floor surface of Court 47, have never been satisfactorily explained. The identification of these features as elements of enclosed garden space is credible and also corroborated by other architectural features of the two rooms which are considered standard characteristics of both Aegean and Egyptian gardens.

Such an identification is further strengthened by old records and new findings in pottery, by Linear B references to flowers and aromatic herbs, and in particular by a new expanded corpus of floral fresco fragments. The floral fresco fragments, found during the re-excavation of the palace, are most significant. The extensive and expressive use of flora in Egyptian and Minoan wall-painting has been the primary source of evidence in support of their interests in nature and gardens. In the case of Mycenaean wall-painting, on the other hand, the floral decoration has generally been regarded as derivative and meaningless, and reflective of a lack of interest in this subject-matter. Not only do the new fresco fragments from Pylos suggest a more extensive use of flora in the decoration of the palace, but they also indicate that previous critical assessments of the role and importance of this floral decoration may have been inaccurate.