The Symposium draws together the contributors and the results of research for the final publication of the Minnesota Archaeological Researches in the Western Peloponnesos (MARWP), Pylos Project. Investigations at the Palace of Nestor in Southwestern Messenia commenced in 1991. The project concentrated on recording the architecture and other features uncovered by the original excavator. For nine field seasons, MARWP cleared away and sifted the protective backfill, recovered 1000s of discarded artifacts, examined and relocated the original pottery dump (which contained over nineteen tons of material), and prepared detailed and measured state plans and elevations of every architectural feature on the akropolis.

The results of MARWP's fieldwork not only elucidate innumerable aspects of this key site, but also introduce additional discoveries which bear on the history and archaeology of the site as well as that of ancient Greece. From the beginning, the enterprise involved participants from classics, art history, anthropology, and history as well as from a range of universities and institutions; the conference embodies this interdisciplinary character. The Symposium also publicizes to a wider audience the importance of this work and the role Minnesota played in it. The program and papers are meant to appeal to a general audience, while evoking comment and evaluation from a panel of respondents. The panel reflects a diversity of specializations and scholarly interests.