Kazimierz Lewartowski

Right-handedness dominates among all human populations but the question is if and how the
Aegean artists depicted it in their art, or whether they compromised between reality and artistic concepts.
In order to find answers to those questions, this paper examines wall and vase paintings, stone and metal
vases, ivories, bronzes and terracottas, larnakes, stelae, daggers (seals and sealings are excluded because
of the seal/sealing problem). These are examined according to the categorisation of skilled and unskilled,
bi- and unimanual activities. The results suggest a domination of right-handedness in the Aegean iconography with some exceptions resulting mainly from the symmetry of specific compositions. It is also
notable that the Aegean artists tended to represent right hands as the near ones and they preferred to show
shoulders supporting long objects like spears as the near ones regardless of the orientation of depicted
subjects.

After years of considering the problem of whether traces of memories from the Late Bronze Age, or Mycenaean period, can be found in Greek historical or literary sources, one should first ask whether conditions existed for them to be preserved in the first place.
With the demise of the Mycenaean palatial system, its system of writing also vanished. For roughly the next 500 years, Greece was dominated by an oral culture that did not help cultivate historical memory. More helpful in that regard were the ruins of ancient buildings and other Mycenaean or Minoan relics that could be found throughout Greece. We can also observe various elements of cultural continuity. For example, the existence of the ancient past, at least in its broadest outlines, was acknowledged in the archaic period, even if it differed drastically from contemporary realities. We know, too, that modern Greeks are descendants of the Bronze Age inhabitants of Hellas. That tells us little enough, but if we are ready to entertain the possibility that vestiges of ancient times could survive in popular memory, we must consider where and under what conditions this might have happened.
Crete seems to be the place where traditions of past glories had the greatest chance of survival and transmission. The island’s mythology seems closer to Minoan realities than to the Theban or Mycenaean cycles. We can also observe many elements of cultural continuity, the preservation of art forms or sacral architecture. At the turn of the Bronze and Iron Ages, Crete had not experienced the disasters that afflicted mainland Greece and many of the islands. Population movements and migration had mainly a local character. Homer, in mentioning the five tribes inhabiting Crete, almost certainly in his own times, was careful to point out the aboriginal inhabitants, who dwelled there before the arrival of the Achaeans and the Dorians. There was also a surviving language, called Eteocretan, which was probably spoken by the island’s Minoan rulers. Moreover, it was customary on Crete to refer in various ways to the glorious past.
Taken together, all this suggests that shards of memories from the Minoan period could possibly have survived on Crete. Evidence of whether this could be true must be sought in tales about King Minos, the Minotaur, Glaukos, Akakallis or the Labyrinth.

In 2015, an intaglio gem was discovered in Pylos (Messenia, Greece) from the beginning of the Late Bronze Age with a scene of two warriors in combat. This representation is part of a group of similar images on seals. The analysis of these objects allows the suggestion that the scenes depicted on them are based on the same story/myth. This story helped to build the ideology of the Mycenaean elites based on, among other things,the use  time linking the Mycenaeans living in different parts of Greece, especially in Mycenae, Pylos and Vapheio. Perhaps it had an epic dimension similar to Homer’s much later work.

Abstract
In 2008-2010, the Polish Archaeological Mission to Ptolemais of the Institute of Archaeology, University of Warsaw continued the research begun in 2001 in one of the insulae (exxi) sited in the central part of the ancient town of Ptolemais – to the east of the Palazzo delle Colonne. Work has been suspended on this site since the
end of the campaign of 2010. The work of this period was concentrated on  examining the area to the north and east of the area previously explored containing part of the House of Leukaktios. Conservation work was also undertaken on the discovered remains. The better-preserved wall paintings were removed from the walls of the buildings and taken to the museum in Tolmeita for further conservation, while the more fragmentary remains were conserved in situ. The mosaics, also left in situ, were also conserved. In addition another project involved the documentation of all the Christian basilicas identified in ancient Ptolemais.
The excavations uncovered traces of different phases of use of the insula. The latest of these (of the Post-Antiquity period) was a wall in herringbone bond and an adjacent surface which lay just below the surface of the ground on the eastern side of the insula. There was a clear change in the area after an earthquake in 365, which destroyed the residential structures. Their ruins were used as the site of industrial activity, totally altering the character of this part of the town.
Evidence of this are the kilns for firing ceramic lamps, ceramic building materials and burning lime which were built here on the bedrock or former floors. There were also found deposits of well-cleaned clay in the storage vats. There were also platforms and circular vats of waterproof mortar, which probably served for wine production.
The exploration of a Late Antique building with an internal apse, built into the ruins of a house with a geometric mosaic to the north of the House of Leukaktios was suspended and left for future work due to the thick layer of destruction rubble filling its interior.
The buildings of the phase predating the earthquake (third to mid-fourth century AD) were the result of successive reconstructions, changes in ownership and property divisions. The oldest walls, especially the two limiting the insula from the east and west come from the Hellenistic period, setting the width of the insula at 36.5
m, while the walls limiting the House of Leukaktios and the House of the Atrium on the north and south are the probably the original frontier of a property at that time
occupied by one house. To the east of the previously exposed parts of the House of Leukaktios was revealed a large courtyard covered with opus signinum. Its entrance led from the east, and under the surface of the courtyard a water tank with two inlets had been built. The premises located along the northern wall of this courtyard resulting from the reconstruction of this part of the adjacent house. A doorway, probably arched, the jambs of which had a richly-decorated base, dates to the last phase of the use of this part of the site.
In the south-eastern part of the excavation, a courtyard paved with stone slabs, containing an impluvium with a mosaic was uncovered. This belonged to yet another house that was not fully explored in this campaign. The large quantities of coarse pottery found dates from the Hellenistic to the Late Roman periods, with the dominant mass being of the Middle Roman period. The assemblage is composed of both local as well as imported products. The pottery has close analogies in the finds from other towns in Cyrenaica.
The non-invasive surveys of areas in the west and north parts of the town were continued with the use of caesium vapour magnetometers and fluxgate radiometers. The Hellenistic street network was clearly visible, as was the Byzantine one, which – together with the use of observation of surface traces and aerial photography – allows the reconstruction of the plan of the town.

Burials were found in the dromoi of more than 135 chamber tombs all over Greece with special concentrations in Mycenae, Prosymna and Asine in the Argolid, and Alyki in Attica. They never deserved much archaeologists' attention and were interpreted usually in 4 ways: 1. bones removed from the chamber in order to make room for new burials; 2. bodies disposed of outside the chambers because of lack of space there; 3. bodies of persons who didn't have the right to be buried inside because of their age or inferior social position; 4. human sacrifices.
The burials can be classified in two different ways: 1. on grounds of method of deposition (primary and secondary burials); 2. on grounds of grave construction (pits, cists, niches, niche-pits, pit-caves, pithoi and bones deposited directly in fill).