Rise of Peloponnese | Introducing Mycenaean Archaeology

As we move into the LB II we begin to see far more Mycenaean influence, even on Crete. Last post, I left off with the steady decline and transformation of Minoan culture in the generation after the Thera eruption, and explained how the ash clouds from the volcano could have destabilised agricultural production for the Cretans, therefore having a knock on effect on their organisation and structure across the Aegean, thereby allowing a new culture to emerge and fill the gap that was left. That culture was the Mycenaeans, primarily from the mainland Penepolese. 

Now, before we get into analysing the Mycenaeans themselves, I want to revisit something I mentioned in the last episode. Remember Arthur Evans? The 19th/20th century archaeologist who helped to define and reconstruct a large portion of Minoan culture, for better or worse? Well, during the 20th century there was a fierce debate between Evans and certain other Mycenaean specialists over which culture -the Minoans or Mycenaeans, really held claim to the title of progenitor of the Greek civilisation. This debate ended up creating what we can describe as a meaningless boundary or contrast between the Minoans & the Mycenaeans.

For Evans, the Minoans were characterised as peaceful, largely egalitarian societies (since the palaces didn’t have a central throne room) that specialised in -and ultimately spread through, sea faring. They wrote in a romantic lost language -Linear A, and worshipped the Bull as an image of fertility & strength, but held a fundamentally matriarchal, mother cult, centred around Crete. On account of their frescos and murals that bedecked the palaces, they were clearly superior, both artistically and culturally.

The Mycenaeans on the other hand, were believed to characteristically be warriors. In the later Mycenaean palaces we find clear evidence of throne rooms in the centre, signalling strict hierarchy. They primarily spread through conquest over land and favoured chariots and horses over the peaceful boats and connections with nature & the sea. They wrote in Linear B and were inherently patriarchal, potentially having a male centric cult. They were based out of the Peloponnese and clearly superior in war and conquest, oftentimes to the detriment of cultural and artistic expression.

While these ideas have become pretty firmly rooted in modern Western culture since the 20th century, they are completely wrong! These stereotypes are a product of Culture Historic archaeological paradigms from the early days of archaeological theory, which often sought to characterise cultures as an easy box to place styles, behaviours & ideas into. In reality, a huge amount of these characteristics overlap and can be found in both cultures. 

The idea that Minoans were entirely peaceful and not warriors is completely wrong. Research, carried out by Dr Barry Molloy of the University of Sheffield's Department of Archaeology has shown that war was in fact a defining characteristic of Minoan society, and that the warrior identity was one of the dominant expressions of male identity. Speaking to Science Daily, Dr Molly pointed out that "the study shows that the activities of warriors included such diverse things as public displays of bull-leaping, boxing contests, wrestling, hunting, sparring and duelling. Ideologies of war are shown to have permeated religion, art, industry, politics and trade, and the social practices surrounding martial traditions were demonstrably a structural part of how this society evolved and how they saw themselves."

Even the later Mycenaeans, the heroes of the Greek Trojan War, took up the Minoan way of war -- adopting its weaponry, practices and ideologies. "In fact, it is to Crete that we must look for the origin of those weapons that were to dominate Europe until the Middle Ages, namely swords, metal battle-axes, shields, spears and probably armour also. Molloy found an enormous amount of violence in the symbolic grammar and material remains from prehistoric Crete. Weapons and warrior culture were materialised variously in sanctuaries, graves, domestic units and hoards and could also be found in portable media intended for use during social interactions,, administration, feasting, or personal adornment. In fact, it seems like there were few spheres of interaction in Crete that did not have a martial component, right down to the symbols used for writing Linear A.

Equally, on the other hand, the idea that the Mycenaeans did not have well developed artistry is easily disprovable by examining the complex burial goods in Shaft Tombs. When compared against new data, there really doesn’t seem to have been a huge amount of difference between the two cultures…there is much more of a grey area than has been afforded over the last century. The idea that Linear B may in fact be a Mycenaean adaptation of Linear A, could explain more about the role of Crete in creating the Mycenaean culture as we understand it. Even Knossos is actually the first & earliest Mycenaean palace that we know of! It never disappeared or stopped being inhabited in the Minoan-Mycenaean transition, it became or at least, adopted Mycenaean traits much earlier than we see other palaces did in the Peloponnese. 

The Shaft Grave Period

To begin understanding the Mycenaeans, we have to go back a bit earlier, to the Shaft Grave Period, stretching from around 1700 - 1500 BCE. This period corresponds to the time where Crete was at its peak under the Minoan culture. Back on the Greek mainland, in the Peloponnese, things are very different. We don’t have any palaces here. However, there are some famous cemeteries from Mycenae that give us insight into the beginnings of Mycenaean Culture. Importantly, two shaft graves, complete with walled enclosures were discovered unplundered and undisturbed. 

The graves, called Grave Circles A & B, both have deep, rectangular shafts above stone-walled burial chambers, and lie in two circles. The first one, Grave Circle A was excavated in 1876 by the Classical Archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann and the other wasn’t found until 1951 by accident, when workmen were digging at a nearby 13th century tholos tomb, known as the Tomb of Clytemnestra when they stumbled on it. The following year, extensive excavations were carried out by archaeologists Ioannis Papadimitriou and Georgios Mylonas. Of the two graves, A is earlier & noticeably richer in materials and finds,

What we can tell from Grave Circle A is that at some point during the erection of the walls of the palace at Mycenae, they clearly made an effort to include the grave inside the tower walls, raising questions about how the people there were trying to cultivate a memory of the people inside. The sheer quantity and nature of the burial goods in both of these graves tell us something very different is going on culturally, economically and probably politically for the Mycenaeans. Interestingly, most of the tombs included in the shafts are grouped together, so they are either a group of elites or perhaps even an influential family. Many of the grave goods are high quality, prestige wares, so it almost seems like these people are making a deliberate statement during a time period where things are progressing and changing very quickly.

It will still take another 200 years yet for the Mycenaean palaces to show up, so the question around what’s going on here during this time is a big one for current archaeologists. Among the finds, we have the famous “Death Mask of Agamemnon” (which is actually much earlier than the Trojan War, which is LBA  I, and so not related to Agamemnon at all). There is also a beautifully carved rock crystal bowl with a duck motif that is likely Egyptian in origin. The famous bronze daggers, majorly from Grave Circle A are inlaid with gold using a Syrian technique called Niello, which was probably done by a Cretan artist. One of the best preserved daggers has a hunting scene with lions inscribed on it, which interestingly is not a Cretan motif. So there seems to be a huge deal of cultural exchange even outside of Greece, not just in the making of tools and sourcing of materials, but also in the trade of ideas & myths.

Heading west to the palace of Pylos, the supposed palace of Nestor, we have more tombs that are similar to the circle graves, except isolated. One particular grave is the so-called Griffin Warrior, discovered in 2015, which again, is about 200 years earlier than the actual palace itself. Again, we’re looking at a rich tomb, with a lot of gold objects, but this one seems to have a lot more Cretan influence, with many of the prestige goods even being made by Cretans themselves. Among the burial goods we find a mix of high quality daggers, swords, offering cups and ornate jewellery such as rings and signet seals. One notable example is a signet ring with bull-leaping iconography, typical of Cretan artistry. The huge quantity of weapons signals an interesting shift from Cretan culture. Although, the gold coated blade on some of the swords would not have been practical in battle, so may in fact be a sign the deceased is wanting to appear as a warrior in death.

Further, the presence of combs, personal hygiene items and mirrors seem to imply that the concept of masculinity in Mycenaean culture is not entirely dependent on warfare or warriorhood, but also on how you present and look, in terms of body image. Thinking more broadly, what we have going on here, both at Pylos & Mycenae is elite culture expressing itself through grave goods 200 years before palaces arise, interestingly in the exact centres and locales in which they do. One of the clearest examples of extremely high quality craftsmanship is the Combat Agate though.

This is a seal stone, found in the Griffin tomb which depicts two warriors engaged in hand-to-hand combat, with a third warrior lying on the ground. The iconography on the left appears to be trying to depict a Cretan person, based on the weapons, hairstyle and clothing. The person on the right is unclear, but must have been known at least in motif to the carver, based on the distinctive helmet and shield. The scene shown is not new however. The motif resembles one depicted on a gold cushion seal from Grave Circle A in Mycenae, and is similar to other Late Bronze Age signets or seals, such as the "Battle of the Glen" gold signet from the Shaft Grave IV. It seems like all these objects were modelled after a well-known prototype or myth, perhaps a wall painting. 

We could be looking at a depiction of a very early well known myth or narrative tale here. These are 2-300 years before the Trojan War is supposed to have happened. This of course raises questions about the Epic tradition that eventually culminates with Homer. Are we seeing the beginning of a shared Mythos? Now, bearing all this in mind, I should say, this Agate is 3.4cm (about 1.3 inches for you Americans). Seriously! Pause this video right now, and go and find a ruler, and measure 3.4cm/1.3 inches. Look at the sheer quality of this carving! The definition of the hair and muscles, the clothing, how comfortable the artist is with the composition of the lying body fitting the shape of the gem. The quality of the craftsmanship, along with the grasp of potential mythic narrative is truly outstanding and has been called the single best piece of glyptic art ever recovered from the Aegean Bronze Age.

This kind of understanding of proportion and bodily depiction is unprecedented until the Classical Era. 

Sources:

Molloy. B. 2012: Martial Minoans? War as social process, practice and event in Bronze Age Crete. The Annual of the British School at Athens; 107: 87

Nobuo, K. 1982: The Grave Circles at Mycenae and the Early Indo-Europeans. Research Reports of Ikutoku Technical University (A-7): 59–70

Neer, R, T. 2012: Greek Art and Archaeology: A New History, c. 2500-c. 150 BCE. New York, NY: Thames & Hudson

Oliver, D. 1999: Invasion, Migration and the Shaft Graves. Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies. 43 (1): 97–107

Antonaccio, C M. 1995: An Archaeology of Ancestors: Tomb Cult and Hero Cult in Early Greece. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers

Castleden, R. 2002:  Minoans: Life in Bronze Age Crete. Taylor & Francis

Kyriakidis, E. 2005: Unidentified Floating Objects on Minoan Seals. American Journal of Archaeology. 109 (2): 137–154

Marinatos, N. 1993: Minoan Religion: Ritual, Image, and Symbol. Columbia: University of South Carolina

Marinatos, N. 2004: The Character of Minoan Epiphanies. Illinois Classical Studies. 29: 25–42.