Archaeological Museum of Lykosoura

The hilltop fortification above the archaeological site of ancient Lykosoura, in the southern Arcadian foothills, began life as the city's acropolis. Tradition holds that Lycosura was founded by the mythical king Lycaon, and Pausanias, visiting in the second century AD, called it the oldest city on earth. The sanctuary complex below, dedicated to Despoina, dates from the second century BC, but the acropolis itself is two or three centuries older. After a long, undocumented Byzantine existence, the site was repaired and refortified in the thirteenth century, during the struggles between the Franks of Achaea and the Byzantines of Mystras. It has been tentatively identified with the Castle of Saint George of Skorta, captured from the Franks in 1296 in a moonlight operation involving a vengeful merchant and Turkish mercenaries, and later retaken by Andronikos Asan Palaiologos in 1320. The surviving ruins are rough, approached by a path from the old eastern gate. The village below, once called Astala, was renamed Lykosoura in 1926.