Ancient Messene megalithic blocks and knobs

Ancient Messene megalithic blocks and knobs. Messene (Greek: Messini), officially Ancient Messene, is a local community within the regional unit of Messenia in the region (perifereia) of Peloponnese. It is best known for the ruins of the large classical city-state of Ancient Messene. The site was founded in the Bronze Age as Ithome, an ancient city originally of Achaean Greeks which eventually came under the hegemony of the military state of Sparta with which it had a long struggle. During the latter period many inhabitants went into exile, and eventually it was destroyed by the Spartans and abandoned for some time. During the Bronze Age the palace at Pylos controlled Messenia politically and economically. A Linear B tablet from there, PY Cn 3, mentions a region called Mezana in local Mycenaean Greek (Linear B: me-za-na), from which groups of men named from places in the Peloponnesus each contributed one ox (Linear B: qo-o; also denoted by the BOS ideogram, i.e. ) to an official, possibly a priest i