Lerna (Region of the Lernaean Hydra) from Space

In classical Greece, Lerna was a region of springs and a former lake near the east coast of the Peloponnesus, south of Argos. It is most famous as the lair of the Lernaean Hydra, the chthonic many-headed water snake, a creature of great antiquity when Heracles killed it, as the second of his labors.


The geographer Strabo attests that the Lernaean waters were considered healing


Strabo, Geography 8.6.8.



—Pausanias, 2.37.4.



Lerna was occupied in Neolithic times, as early as the 5th millennium BC, then was abandoned for a time. It has one of the largest prehistoric tumuli of Greece, a site of a two-storey palace or administrative center that is referred to as the "House of the Tiles" for the terracotta tiles that sheathed its roof (an early example of tile roofing). The strongly-fortified power center called "Lerna II" in the site's stratigraphy, dates to the Early Bronze Age Early Helladic culture, ca 2500 - 2200 BC. Though five stages of occupation at Lerna have been identified, the site of the "House of Tiles" was not rebuilt upon, whether through respect or fear, until at the end of the Middle Helladic period, shaft graves were cut into the tumulus of the House of Tiles, indicating that the significance of that monument had been forgotten. Lerna was used as a cemetery during the Mycenaean age, but was abandoned about 1250 BC .




  • Carl Kerenyi, The Heroes of the Greeks

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