Panorama of the Hero Shrine of Menelaus, The Menelaion, located to the east of the modern city of city of Sparta in the plain of the Eurotas river (right). It is built on the hill Profitis Ilias on the opposite side of the river to the city which Pausanias dubbed Therapne. With its impressive ashlar blocks he Menelaion is not the only archaeological feature to be found at this site. The remains of Mycenaean palaces, or mansions, dating back centuries before the shrine have also be found from the 15th-13th centuries BC, putting them in the same time period as the supposed Trojan War. Each mansion was built on top of the other after its apparent destruction, by an earthquake and by fire respectively. Remains at the site are associated with it being the possible home and palace of Menelaus himself. Excavations in 1974 also discovered the remains of three skeletons.