Editing Lerna

{{Short description|Region in classical Greece}}
{{other uses}}
{{Infobox ancient site
| name           = Lerna
| native_name    = 
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| image          =Lerna1.JPG 
| alt   = 
| caption        =Stairs to an upper floor in the Early Helladic ''[[House of the Tiles]]'' 
| map_type       = Greece
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| coordinates    = {{coord|37|33|N|22|43|E|display=inline,title}}
| location       = [[Myloi, Argolis|Myloi]], [[Peloponnese (region)|Peloponnese]], Greece
| region         = 
| type           = Settlement
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| builder        = 
| material       = 
| built          = 2500 BCE
| abandoned      = 1250 BCE
| epochs         = [[Helladic period|Early Helladic II]] to [[Mycenaean Greece|Mycenean]]
| cultures       = 
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| occupants      = 
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| excavations    = 
| archaeologists = 
| condition      = 
| ownership      = 
| management     = 4th Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities
| public_access  = 
| designation1   = 
| other_designation =
| website        = [http://odysseus.culture.gr/h/3/eh351.jsp?obj_id=2381 Lerna]
| notes          = 
}}

In classical Greece, '''Lerna'''<ref>Corinthian Lerna was a summer resort near [[Corinth]].</ref> ({{langx|el|Λέρνα or Λέρνη}}) was a region of springs and a former lake located in the [[Lerna (municipal unit)|municipality of the same name]], near the east coast of the [[Peloponnesus]], south of [[Ancient Argos|Argos]]. Even though much of the area is marshy, Lerna is located on a geographically narrow point between mountains and the sea, along an ancient route from the [[Argolid]] to the southern Peloponnese; this location may have resulted in the importance of the settlement.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/artifact?object=Site&name=Lerna|title=Lerna (Site)|website=www.perseus.tufts.edu|access-date=2017-10-02}}</ref>

Its site near the village [[Myloi, Argolis|Mili]] at the [[Argolic Gulf]] is most famous as the lair of the [[Lernaean Hydra]], the [[chthonic]] many-headed water snake, a creature of great antiquity when [[Heracles]] killed it, as the second of his [[Heracles#Labours of Heracles|labors]]. The strong [[Karst topography|Karstic]] springs remained; the lake, diminished to a silt lagoon by the 19th century, has vanished.

Lerna is notable for several archaeological sites, including an Early Bronze Age structure known as [[House of the Tiles]], dating to the [[Helladic period|Early Helladic period II]] (2500–2300 BC).

==Myths==
The secret of the Lernaean spring was the gift of [[Poseidon]] when he lay with the "blameless" daughter<ref>Harrison, ''Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion'', 3rd ed. 1922:334; [[Jane Ellen Harrison]] credited [[Gilbert Murray]] with the observation concerning that "blameless" (άμύμων) was an epithet of the heroized dead, who were venerated and appeased at shrines. Zeus even applies the epithet to [[Aegisthus]], the usurper, Harrison observes. <blockquote> "The epithet άμύμων in Homer is applied to individual heroes, to a hero's tomb [''Odyssey'' xxiv.80], to magical, half-mythical peoples like the [[Phaeacia]]ns and Aethiopians [''Iliad'' x.423] who to the popular imagination are half canonized, to the magic island [''Odyssey'' xii.261] of the god [[Helios]], to the imaginary half-magical Good Old King [''Odyssey'' xix.109]. It is used also of the 'convoy' [''Iliad'' vi.171] sent by the gods, which of course is magical in character; it is never, I believe, an epithet of the Olympians themselves.  There is about the word a touch of what is magical and [[Daemon (classical mythology)|demonic]] rather than actually divine."</blockquote></ref> of [[Danaus]], [[Amymone]]. The geographer [[Strabo]] attests that the Lernaean waters were considered healing: 
<blockquote>Lake Lerna, the scene of the story of the Hydra, lies in [[Ancient Argos|Argeia]] and the [[Mycenae]]an territory; and on account of the cleansings that take place in it there arose a proverb, 'A Lerna of ills.' Now writers agree that the county has plenty of water, and that, although the city itself lies in a waterless district, it has an abundance of wells. These wells they ascribe to the daughters of Danaus, believing that they discovered them ... but they add that four of the wells not only were designated as sacred but are especially revered, thus introducing the false notion that there is a lack of water where there is an abundance of it.<ref>Strabo, ''Geography'' 8.6.8.</ref></blockquote>

Lerna was one of the entrances to the [[Underworld]], and the ancient Lernaean Mysteries, sacred to [[Demeter]], were celebrated there, along with a festival called the [[Lernaea (festival)|Lernaea]], which was also held in her honor. [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] (2.37.1) says that the mysteries were initiated by Philammon, the twin "other" of [[Autolycus]]. Heroes could gain entry to the netherworld via the Alcyonian Lake. [[Prosymnus]] aided [[Dionysus]] in his search for his mother [[Semele]] by guiding him to this entrance. For mortals the lake was perilous; Pausanias  writes:
<blockquote>There is no limit to the depth of the Alcyonian Lake, and I know of nobody who by any contrivance has been able to reach the bottom of it since not even [[Nero]], who had ropes made several stades long and fastened them together, tying lead to them, and omitting nothing that might help his experiment, was able to discover any limit to its depth. This, too, I heard. The water of the lake is, to all appearance, calm and quiet but, although it is such to look at, every swimmer who ventures to cross it is dragged down, sucked into the depths, and swept away.<ref>Pausanias, 2.37.4.</ref></blockquote>

At Lerna, Plutarch knew (''Isis and Osiris''), Dionysus was summoned as "Bugenes", "son of the [[Bull (mythology)|Bull]]" with a strange archaic trumpet called a ''[[salpinx]],'' while a lamb was cast into the waters as an offering for the "Keeper of the Gate." The keeper of the gate to the [[Underworld]] that lay in the waters of Lerna was the [[Lernaean Hydra|Hydra]].

==Archaeology==
Excavations at the site were initiated under [[John L. Caskey]] in 1952, whose efforts initiated the series of publications of Bronze Age Lerna, ''Lerna''  I-V, inspiring many other publications.

[[File:Lerna SE fortification wall.jpg|thumb|Early Helladic fortification wall of Lerna III]]

Lerna was occupied in Neolithic times, as early as the fifth millennium BCE, then was abandoned for a time before the sequence of occupation from the Early to Late Bronze Age (Early [[Helladic]] through Late Helladic or [[Mycenaean Greece|Mycenaean]] period). On-site techniques of [[flint-knapping]] with imported obsidian and chert attest to cultural continuity over this long stretch of time, with reduction in the supply of obsidian from [[Melos]] testifying to reduced long-distance trade at the end of Early Helladic III, corresponding to Lerna IV.<ref>Britt Hartenberger and Curtis Runnels, "The Organization of Flaked Stone Production at Bronze Age Lerna" ''Hesperia'' '''70'''.3 (July 2001:255-283).</ref>

The site of Lerna is one of the largest prehistoric [[tumulus|tumuli]] in Greece (ca. 180 m by 160 m across), which accumulated during a long Neolithic occupation. The crest of the mound was levelled and extended in the Early Bronze Age (Early Helladic II period, ca. 2500–2200 BC), as at [[Eutresis (city)|Eutresis]] and [[Orchomenus (Boeotia)|Orchomenus]],<ref>[[John L. Caskey]], "The Early Helladic Period in the Argolid" ''Hesperia'' '''29'''.3 (July 1960:285-303); Caskey, the excavator, offers an overview of Lerna.</ref> for the construction of a new settlement, known as Lerna III in the site's stratigraphy. Lerna III lacks signs of continuity with the previous occupation. It was strongly fortified by a double ring of defensive walls with towers<ref>(Caskey 1960:289),</ref> and was the site of a two-storey palace or administrative center known as [[House of the Tiles]], for the terracotta tiles that sheathed its roof (an early example of tile roofing).<ref>The walls of the building were just under a meter thick, and the entire structure was 12 m wide by 25 m long; only the great ''[[Tholos (Ancient Rome)|tholos]]'' at [[Tiryns]], 28 m. in diameter, compares with its scale (Caskey 1960:288).</ref>  This building was destroyed by fire at the end of the Early Helladic II period.<ref>"Violent destruction appears... to have occurred about the same time at Lerna, [[Tiryns]], [[Asine]], [[Zygouries]], [[Aghias Kosmas]] and perhaps at [[Corinth]]. Stratigraphic evidence for this period is inadequate at [[Asea, Greece|Asea]], [[Prosymne]] and [[Mycenae]]" (Caskey 1960:301)</ref> In the following period (Lerna IV = Early Helladic III) the site of the "House of the Tiles" was covered by an earthen tumulus and not built upon again, whether through respect<ref>The "quite extraordinary respect paid to its ruins" is noted in Caskey 1960:301, who concludes "that a foreign invasion created widespread havoc in this region."</ref> or fear, until, at the end of the Middle Helladic period, shaft graves were cut into the tumulus, suggesting that the significance of the monument had been forgotten. Lerna was used as a cemetery during the Mycenaean age (Late Helladic period), but was abandoned about 1250 BCE.

Ceramics of Lerna III include the hallmark spouted vessels that archaeologists name "sauceboats", with rims that sweep upwards into a curved spout, as well as bowls with incurving rims, both flat-bottomed and with ring bases, and wide saucers, sometimes with glazed rims, more pleasant for the drinker's lips. Jars and [[hydria]] have swelling curves. Painted decoration is sparse; stamped sealing form decorative patterns on some pieces, or rolled scribed cylinders have been used to make banded patterns. Remarkably, banded patterns made with the self-same seal have been found at Lerna, [[Tiryns]] and [[Zygouries]].<ref>Caskey 1960:293.</ref> The burning of the House of Tiles brought the Third Period at Lerna to a decisive close; a low round tumulus marked its undisturbed, apparently sacrosanct site.

Lerna IV (Early Helladic III) marked a fresh start, not as a fortified seat of central authority this time, but as a small town, with houses of two and three rooms with walls of crude brick set upon stone foundations; several had central circular hearths. Narrow lanes separated houses. A great profusion of unlined pits (''[[bothros|bothroi]]'') was characteristic of this phase: eventually they became filled with waste matter, bones, potsherds, even whole pots. The pottery, markedly discontinuous with Lerna III, shows a range of new forms, and the first signs— regular spiral grooves in bases and parallel incised lines— marking the increasing use of the [[potter's wheel]]. Painted linear decoration in dark glaze on the pale body is characteristic of Lerna IV. Caskey identified<ref>Caskey 1960:297.</ref> early examples of the ware that in Middle Helladic contexts would be recognized as [[Minyans|Minyan ware]], and, among the few examples of imported pottery, a winged jar characteristic of [[Troy]], perhaps Troy IV.

Lerna V is continuous with the preceding phase, distinguished largely by new styles in pottery with the sudden, peaceful introduction of matte-painted ware, the thick-slipped Argive version of gray Minyan ware, and a vigorous increase in the kinds of imported wares, coming from the [[Cyclades]] and [[Minoan civilization|Crete (Middle Minoan IA)]]. A new custom of burying the dead in excavations within the houses or between them is universal at the period.

Modern geological techniques such as core drilling have identified the site of the vanished [[Sacred lake|sacred]] '''Lake Lerna''', which was a freshwater lagoon, separated by barrier dunes from the Aegean. In the Early Bronze Age Lake Lerna had an estimated diameter of 4.7&nbsp;km. Deforestation increased the rate of silt deposits and the lake became a malarial marsh, of which the last remnants were drained in the nineteenth century.

==Etymology==

The lake is called "the Lake of Darkness" in [[Shakespeare's]] [[King Lear]]; see [[Nero in the arts and popular culture]]

==Notes==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
*{{cite book |last=Kerényi |first=Károly |author-link=Károly Kerényi |year=1999 |title=The Heroes of the Greeks |publisher=Peter Smith Publisher |isbn=0-8446-6947-4}}
*{{cite journal |last1=Wiencke |first1=Martha Heath |title=Mycenaean Lerna |journal=Hesperia: The Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens |date=1998 |volume=67 |issue=2 |pages=125–214 |doi=10.2307/148404 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/148404 |issn=0018-098X|url-access=subscription }}
*{{cite book |last=Piccardi|first=Luigi|year=2005 |title=The head of the Hydra of Lerna (Greece). |publisher=Archaeopress, British Archaeological Reports, International Series N° 1337/2005, 179-186.}}

==External links==
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20040627165841/http://homepage.mac.com/cparada/GML/Lerna.html Carlos Parada, "Greek Mythology link":] Lerna
*[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/siteindex?entry=Lerna Perseus Site:] Lerna
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20060206061357/http://www.bu.edu/jfa/Abstracts/Z/ZanggerE_18_1.html Eberhard Zangger, "Prehistoric Coastal Environments in Greece: The Vanished Landscapes of Dimini Bay and Lake Lerna"]: (Abstract)
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[[Category:Populated places established in the 3rd millennium BC]]
[[Category:Populated places disestablished in the 2nd millennium BC]]
[[Category:1952 archaeological discoveries]]
[[Category:Argolis]]
[[Category:Mycenaean sites in Argolis]]
[[Category:Populated places in ancient Greece]]
[[Category:Former populated places in Greece]]
[[Category:Former lakes of Greece]]
[[Category:25th-century BC establishments]]
[[Category:Sacred lakes]]