Pylos

Maria Zacharopoulou spent hours as a young girl on her balcony watching American and Greek archaeologists hard at work in the building next to her family home in the village of Hora in Messinia, in the southwestern Peloponnese. She was awed and intrigued by the discoveries they were making in local archaeological digs and dreamed of one day becoming a part of their team.

US archaeologists have discovered two monumental royal tombs dating from about 3,500 years ago near a major Mycenaean-era palace in Greece's southern Peloponnese region, the Greek culture ministry said Tuesday.

The monumental palace complex of Iklaina, majestic in its well-ordered simplicity, comes as something of a surprise in the hills northeast of the seaside town of Pylos in the southwestern Peloponnese.

Greek archaeologist Georgios Papathanasopoulos, one of the founders of the Hellenic Institute of Maritime Archaeology and a pioneer in the field, has died, the Culture Ministry said in an announcement on Monday. He was 95.

The increasingly popular Navarino Challenge, an annual two-stage race involving swimming and running organized by the Costa Navarino luxury resort in the southwestern Peloponnese with the aim of promoting a healthy lifestyle, is taking place on October 11-13 this year and includes all sorts of fun parallel events for the entire family.

The Badisches Landesmuseum in Karlsruhe, Germany, is dedicating a major exhibition to the Bronze Age civilization of the Mycenaeans.

Titled "Mycenae - The Legendary World of Agamemnon," the exhibition runs to June next year and aims to provide comprehensive insights into the Mycenaean era, which stretched from 1600 to 1200 BC.

Firefighters and water-dumping airplanes were battling strong winds on Friday as they struggled to contain a large fire that broke out in a forested area near the historic site of Pylos Castle in the southwestern Peloponnese.

According to local media, the fire was near the fortification, which overlooks Pylos Bay, the site of the 1827 Battle of Navrino.

Not-for-profit educational institution College Year in Athens and the International Center for Hellenic and Mediterranean Studies (DIKEMES) have invited University of Cincinnati researchers Jack Davis and Sharon Stocker, co-directors of excavations at the Palace of Nestor, to discuss the exciting discovery at Pylos in the southwestern Peloponnese of the so-called grave of the "Griffin Warrior"

A group of 41 undocumented migrants were rescued on Thursday off Pylos in the southwest Peloponnese, the Greek Coast Guard has said.

A distress call by one of the passengers to the European 112 hotline prompted a search-and-rescue operation early Thursday.

Officials said all 41 were transferred to the port of Pylos.

In the more than two years since University of Cincinnati researchers unearthed the 3,500-year-old tomb of a Bronze Age warrior in southwest Greece, an incredible trove of riches has emerged, including four gold signet rings that have challenged accepted wisdom among archaeologists about the origins of Greek civilization.