Lemnos is a Greek island of the northeast Aegean Sea located opposite Troy. Until recently the most interesting archaeological discovery on the island was the important bronze age town of Poliochne excavated by the Italian Archaeological School of Greece in the first half of the 20th c. During the 1994-1997 excavating periods though, Greek archaeologists unearthed a new bronze age settlement on the tiny uninhabited island Koukonesi situated in the Moudros harbor, west of Poliochne.

On Koukonesi the best preserved settlements are from the Middle Bronze Age (c. 2000-1650 BCE), a very important discovery first because Poliochne had declined by that period and second because Koukonesi towns are of the same chronological period with some of the cities of Troy. The findings on Koukonesi prove that its inhabitants had close commercial relations with Asia Minor, other Aegean Sea islands and mainland Greece. It is hoped, therefore, that the study of the discovered vases might provide us with answers to chronological problems encountered in Troy because of the problematic excavations conducted by amateur H. Schliemann in the late 19th c. Koukonesi might be proven to be the exact analogy of Troy because the different settlements were built one on top of the other, a fact that might help us in understanding better the stratigraphy and chronology of the Trojan cities.

Vase from Koukonesi

The Greek archaeologists also discovered on Koukonesi mycenaean ceramics of the late 13th c. BCE which might also prove that a permanent settlement was established around the epoch of the Trojan war. If it is proven that the Mycenaeans had established a settlement instead of just a commercial outpost then we might assume that they had also understood the importance of the Straits connecting the Aegean and the Black Sea which justifies the Trojan war from an archaeological point of view.

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