Menelaion

The Menelaion is an archaeological site on Profitis Ilias Hill, about 5 km from modern Sparta in Laconia, Greece. It preserves Mycenaean palace remains from c. 1550-1400 BC, including megaron-style buildings destroyed successively by earthquake and fire. In the 8th century BC, the site became a hero shrine dedicated to Menelaus and Helen of Troy, with a limestone temple erected in the 7th-6th centuries BC. First systematically excavated by the British School at Athens in 1909, finds include a bronze aryballos inscribed with a dedication to Helen, wife of Menelaus.