Agios Vasileios, Laconia

Agios Vasileios (also spelled Ayios Vasileios or Ayios Vasilios; Greek: Άγιος Βασίλεος) is the site of a Mycenaean palace, located near the village of Xerokambi in Laconia, Greece. It was discovered after a Linear B tablet was found accidentally on the slope of a hill, near the Byzantine chapel of Agios Vasileios (St. Basil), in 2008; two more tablet fragments were found in a survey conducted the same year. Excavations, carried out by the Archaeological Society of Athens and directed by archaeologist Adamantia Vasilogamvrou, began in 2009 and have brought to light a palace complex with a large central courtyard with colonnaded porticos along the sides. This palace was first constructed in the 17th-16th BCE, destroyed in the late 15th-early 14th century BCE, rebuilt, and finally destroyed again in the late 14th or early 13th century BCE. Finds include an archive of Linear B tablets, kept in a room adjacent to the colonnade; cult objects such as figurines made of clay and ivory; a collection of twenty bronze swords; and fragments of wall frescoes. The discovery of Agios Vasileios was chosen by the 2013 Shanghai Archaeology Forum as one of its 10 most important archaeological discoveries worldwide.