is represented by middle Helladic and middle Minoan. This archaeological scenario is not incompatible with the Aegean distribution of the Leleges, although it is not possible to say who the early and middle Bronze Age inhabitants were. The late Bronze Age had 25% of the items. Classical and Byzantine items were minimal, indicating a probable near abandonment of the city at the end of the late Bronze Age. Mycenaean Lacedaemon Archaeology has provided a more complete story for the Mycenaean period. On the left bank of the Eurotas, across from Sparta, is a ridge on which sits a temple called the Menelaon. In the 20th century a survey by the British School of Archaeology revealed that the entire ridge, located in the municipal unit of Therapnes, ancient Therapnē, had been covered by a walled Mycenaean town, dated to the late Bronze Age by the late Helladic (LH3) pottery with some middle Helladic (MH) pottery in "pockets in the bedrock." The archaeologists analyzing the site recognized a building Period I, dated between LH2B–LH3A1, the latter being brought to and end about 1425 BCE by a severe earthquake. Remains of a mansion with Minoan pottery date from Period I. During Period IA, the hill settlement was rebuilt. The structures included kilns for smelting bronze. In Period II, dated to LH3A1, a villa-type structure was built of a terrace formed from previous building material further down to the south. It was probably two-story, megaron-type, with "less substantial walls" but "a massive foundation for what could be a defense tower." It was connected to the top by stairs. Period III, LH3A2–LH3B2, begins with 150 years of apparent abandonment and then a limited reconstruction of a one-story structure on the terrace. The staircase was blocked. The entire ridge was intensely occupied leaving a profusion of Mycenaean pottery. The villa was burned at the end of LH3B2, leaving a destruction level. Two persons buried in the associated rubble appear to have died violently. Occupation of the hill went on through the Greek Dark Age, reduced to the Menelaon shrine in the Archaic and Classical Periods. Dedications to Menelaus and Helen are found in its vicinity starting the Archaic period. The excavators concluded that in the "later 15th century" (BCE) the ridge was "the principal settlement site in Laconia." The shrine and its dedications identify it as the site of Homeric Sparta, capital of a ruling couple