Nestor’s Palace – The bathroom (το λουτρὀ)

The bathroom with a well preserved bathtub. From Bronze Age Greece

Information sighs in the archaeological site indicates “Of particular interest is the small room 43, the only example of a bathroom yet found in a Mycenaean palace on the Greek mainland with its equipment still fairly well preserved. It was identified by Carl Blegen, excavator of the Palace, as the royal bath. An Homeric asaminthos, a large clay tub with spiral decoration, is built into a bench coated with plaster. A clay stepstool made it easier for the bather to get in and out of the tub. Two large jars built into a high clay bench in the south corner of the room were probably useful for the storage of water and aromatic oil. In the pithoi and in the tub were small kylikes, essential for pouring water on bathers. The Bathroom with its clay asaminthos helps us to imagine the scene in Homer where Polycaste, a daughter of King Nestor, bathes and cares for Telemachus, Odysseus’s son, during his stay in Pylos.”

Nestor’s Palace at Pylos Archaeological site. Mycenaean era (1750 – 1050 BCE). Peloponnese, Greece.