The main ancient source on Messene is the Guide to Greece of Pausanias, who visited there between 155 and 160 AD.
Excavation of the site began in 1828 in connection with the French Morea Expedition during the Greek War of Independence. The French left in 1833; meanwhile, only exploratory excavation had been performed. The current excavator, Petros Themelis, who received permission to dig from the Council of Athens Archaeological Society in 1986, suggests that systematic excavation of the site was first undertaken by George Oikoumenos of the Athens Archaeological Society in 1895. Since then a number of noted archaeologists have made contributions, not the least the current excavator. A museum of their extensive finds has been constructed within the old city walls.
Bronze Age Messana
During the Bronze Age the palace at Pylos controlled Messinia politically and economically. A Linear B tablet from there, Cn3, mentions a region called Mezana in local Mycenaean Greek, from which groups of men named from places in the Peloponnesus each contributed one ox to an official named Diweus. These groups were members of the coast-watchers, a military or quasi-military unit that presumably were stationed to guard various locations on the coast. Their failure is attested by the burning of Pylos a few months later by assailants unknown from the sea. The watchers include some Olumpiaioi (Olympians) from Orumanthos (Mt. Erymanthos). John Bennet expressed the opinion that by Mezana is meant Messana, a Mycenaean Greek form of Messene. He supposed that the region around Ithome would already have had that name, to be reutilized by Epaminondas a thousand years later.
Messene restored by the Thebans
Reconstitution of the city
After the defeat of the Spartan army at the Battle of Leuctra in Boeotia, 371 BC, the helots of Messenia revolted yet again against their Spartan overlords. This time the victorious general, Epaminondas,
