The site of Malthi was inhabited from Neolithic era, but was heavily fortified in the the Middle Helladicperiod. Malthi could be identified with Dorium a site mentioned in the Catalogue of Ships of Homer’s Iliad, where the bard Thamyris was blinded and robbed of his divine power of song [Dorium, where the Muses met Thamyris the Thracian and made an end of his singing, even as he was journeying from Oechalia, from the house of Eurytus the Oechalian: for he vaunted with boasting that he would conquer, were the Muses themselves to sing against him, the daughters of Zeus that beareth the aegis; but they in their wrath maimed him, [600] and took from him his wondrous song, and made him forget his minstrelsy] .
See:
- Natan Valmin, The Swedish Expedition of Messenia. Lund University Press, C.W.K. Gleerup.1938
- Rebecca Worsham, Michael Lindblom & Claire Zikidi, Preliminary report of the Malthi Archaeological Project, 2015–2016, Opuscula 11 (2018)