The postwar village · Ancient Lerna · Railway
A trench right beside the railway
1953 Proven
In 1953 the diggers opened Area D right next to the Argos–Myloi railway, so trains passed only a few metres from the trench. The plates in Hesperia show both the ancient walls and the tracks.
Read the full story: The man who gave Lerna a face
- Threads
- Ancient Lerna, Railway
- Certainty
- Proven confirmed by primary sources
Pictures

Hesperia plate showing excavation Area D at Lerna, with the Argos–Myloi railway right beside the trench, plus pottery. J. L. Caskey / ASCSA Lerna excavation
Sources
- J. L. Caskey, Hesperia 23 (1954), pl. 2
Also in this period
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1950–1969
Souvlaki passed up to the train windows
Because so many trains stopped at the junction of Myloi, the village became known for souvlaki. Sellers walked along the carriages with trays of skewers and passed them up to passengers at the open windows; a magazine…
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1952
John Caskey starts digging at Lerna
In 1952 the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, led by its director John L. Caskey, opened the first trenches in the low mound by the springs, at the edge of Myloi. The work went on every year until 1958.
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1952–1953
Caskey photographs the marshes of Lerna
Caskey's first report shows the site from Mount Pontinos: marshes, the stream Amymone running from the spring to the gulf, orchards and the railway. It is one of the best pictures of the water landscape just before the…
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1954
The House of the Tiles comes to light
By the summer of 1954 a large part of the House of the Tiles was exposed: a big Early Bronze Age building (around 2500–2200 BC) whose roof had been covered with baked clay tiles. Caskey published the first photographs in…
