Landscape Changes around Tiryns during the Bronze Age

Excavations and auger cores have revealed the Holocene stratigraphy in the vicinity of the Late Bronze Age citadel of Tiryns. During the Early Bronze Age, when the shoreline was only 300 m from the limestone hillock on which Tiryns rests, an expansive settlement covered the southern district of the lower town. Its remains are today buried by up to 6 m of sediment. Late in Early Helladic II a stream south of Tiryns accumulated several meters of gravel and floodplain deposits. In LH IIIB/C this stream abandoned its bed and shifted to the north of the Tiryns knoll. At the same time it deposited up to 4 m of coarse alluvium in the eastern parts of the palatial lower town. This depositional event may have coincided with a destruction phase in the archaeological record of Tiryns. To protect the lower town from future floods the inhabitants of Tiryns installed an artificial river diversion consisting of a 10-m-high dam and a 1.5-km-long canal.