Mycenae

ABSTRACT: This documentary response sheet contains a series of 112 sequential questions drawn from the video, PBS: Helen of Troy (115 minutes; presented by Bettany Hughes).  The documentary examines what we know about Helen of Troy from Homer's Iliad and the mixed opinions and assessments of later writers and popular folklore. Bettany Hughes also places Helen of Troy within the broader perspective of what we know about elite Late Bronze Age women in Mycenaean Greece and Anatolia (e.g., Hittites), and other aspects of the circumstances revolving around the Trojan War, similar situations known from the Late Bronze Age, and other aspects of this period (e.g., warfare; trade; etc.). These sequential questions aim to maximize both student attention to various pertinent points made throughout the documentary and greater retention of the materials covered by the documentary.  In addition, the documentary has been vetted for overall content accuracy (albeit updated and/or corrected in-class), and selected to provide supplementary visual aids (e.g., images of regions, sites, finds, and other materials), additional specialist views (e.g., interviews), and other data to aid in student comprehension of the course lectures and readings from the textbooks.

Modern visitors to Mycenae, which will include many classicists, are likely to wonder in amazement at the enormous stone blocks which were piled up to construct the enclosure walls, and may well pause at the Lion Gate to imagine Agamemnon leaving the citadel on his fateful journey to Troy. Modern tourists are but the most recent of generations of travelers who have made their way to this celebrated site since Antiquity. All of these visitors need to find a way to connect their mythological knowledge to the physical remains which they encounter. This article explores the tensions that exist between literary and mythical, and archaeological and material perspectives on ancient Mycenae. By examining the various ways in which visitors have attempted to make sense of the site we aim to provide a more nuanced archaeological interpretation of the ruins and their settings. We argue that meanings emerge from the interplay of mythologies and archaeological remains which are actively connected to each other.

SUMMARY: Lecture 15 provides coverage on the art, architecture, state, administration, and economy of the Late Bronze Age Mycenaeans, and a discussion of the presumed Mycenaean takeover or domination of Crete (Minoans); the Minoan initially influenced mainland Greece, while the Mycenaeans later influenced Crete. This lecture is designed mainly as an educational resource for college students (i.e., normally posted only on my institution's course website), the public (e.g., people auditing my course), and interested colleagues from other disciplines (to whom I provide copies privately).  I am posting it here, both as a broader access, educational tool, and especially to promote the study of this region and its past societies.  For further knowledge about this region and period, I refer interested parties to the textbooks and other sources from which the materials were extracted (see syllabus), and/or the bibliographies in these works and my online resource guides (see other files in my academia folders).  The lecture summarizes the pertinent materials in the course textbook(s), adding in other data, and furnishing numerous images to clarify information encountered within the textbook(s).  Some generic imagery (usually indicated as such) is posted to aid in transmitting various concepts visually, and/or when a specific image remains not located (temporarily).  I update and revise such lectures each time, with such elective courses normally being taught once every two years.  I try to cover the most current, mainstream views, and usually place summary notes at the end of each lecture alongside some of the key sources used for compiling the ppt.  Over time, each lecture is improved, errors rectified, and additional data placed within the lecture.  These ppt. lectures take many hours to compile, but they have proved useful to many of my more serious students and I hope they can be of benefit to others as well.  My apologies for any errors I may have made, and my liberal usage of educational imagery from professional sources and vetted internet sources. REVISED: March 2024, new formatting, slides, and text, with some text modifications, also adding a Late Minoan IIIC (1200-1100 BCE) summary section at the end, and additional sources.

Kratos & Krater, the Bronze Age Antecedents, excerpts and adapts material from Kratos & Krater: Reconstructing Athenian Protohistory, Oxford 2017, to concentrate on the roots of the theme of Kratos & Krater in the preceding Greek Bronze Age

En este trabajo, nos planteamos descifrar quiénes eran estas deidades femeninas del mundo micénico, qué importancia tenían y qué vinculación tuvieron con las divinidades del mundo griego posterior. Un área poco explorada por los especialistas y hecha mediante el análisis que aparece en las inscripciones en Lineal B y los trabajos hechos por los historiadores, arqueólogos y lingüistas que se interesaron en esta cultura. También se abordarán algunas interpretaciones sobre representaciones y textos que nos esclarecerán la función o existencia de alguna divinidad.

Mycenae culture became due to its own merits, the most important one in continental Greece for more than four centuries all along the II Millennium B.C. Its commercial importance due to the fact they took advantage of the minoans exchange routes and their own economic interests made them reach far regions even in Central Mediterranean and the Near East. But all of that must’ve been difficult if they hadn’t encountered a powerful army who support their colonial and commercial adventures. Numerous Lineal B writings, pictorial and archaeological remains are witness to the importance the military world provides to those former Mycenaean. Therefore, in this article we will try to show the diverse aspects related to the Mycenaean army who supported its power in continental Greece in spite of this, neither the reforms taken in 13th century B.C. got that mycenaeans culture survival, when their settlements were destroyed.

This paper examines the representations of the objects brought by the Aegean emissaries depicted in the foreigners’ procession scene in the tomb of Senenmut (TT 71). Through comparison of the depicted objects with the ones found in the Aegean it is argued that not only is it possible to find close analogies for single objects but also for the whole assemblage. The assemblage depicted in the tomb of Senenmut is found in elite burials of the Late Bronze Age I Aegean, and it can be interpreted as a diplomatic gift. The very fact that the same assemblage is found both in the Aegean princely burials and depicted in Senenmut’s tomb, as a gift to the Egyptian king, is of great importance for the discussion on historicity behind this scene. The paper also discusses the transformation of the Aegean gift assemblage after its arrival in Egypt.

In the summers of 1952 and 1953, during the excavation of Grave Circle B at Mycenae,  Ioannis Papadimitriou located and excavated an early Mycenaean chamber tomb, that remained until now unpublished. Its position and finds preserve evidence for the honouring of the dead and ancestors in successive periods, each time with a different content. 
The extended presentation of the tomb’s architecture is followed by the evidence on the “hero-cult”, as the excavator interpreted the rich remains of the LG period, inside and over the chamber.  There is also a discussion on the neighboring of important burial monuments (Grave Circle B, Clytemnestra Tholos tomb, Papadsimitriou’s chamber tomb) to the Hellenistic theatre of the city, where the misfortunes of the House of Atreus relived. Finally, tribute is paid to the excavator himself, the diaries of whom reveal a great archaeologist and an ordinary man. The tomb’s study is followed by an appendix presenting the animal skeletal remains found inside the chamber and on top of it, by the LG altar.

The recent discovery of a large fragment belonging to the massive stone throne of the palace at Mycenae—the only Mycenaean throne found so far on the Greek mainland—triggered an intriguing process of identification and
reconstruction that involved several interrelated criteria, including its findspot, taphonomy, context, type, shape, morphological features, size, proportions, material, construction, comparanda and the undeniable similarities with the throne at Knossos and the throne base at Tiryns. The throne is a tangible symbol of power ideology, portraying royal and, often,
divine status, serving as a visual manifestation of the ruler’s power and sovereignty. The choice of material and decoration for the Mycenaean throne echoes the ‘royal’ combination of conglomerate (throne) and green marble/serpentine (throne base), a feature of Mycenaean palatial architecture employed for the decoration of facades on contemporary royal tholos tombs at Mycenae. Unlike the Knossos throne that was made of alabaster, an imported material alluding to Minoan ties with Egypt, the choice of local material for the Mycenae throne may have been intended to convey political symbolisms of indigenous power and to construct collective memory upon a visual image of autochthony, stability, antiquity, and tradition, as the massive stone throne must have stood inside the palace like a solid outcrop of the natural bedrock of the rocky hill on which Mycenae stands. The experience of the sudden destruction of the palace and violent crash of the throne into the ravine below during a massive earthquake in c. 1200 BC was vividly preserved in collective memory as a visual manifestation of the gods’ wrath and may have given rise to the transformation of historical memory to cultural memory through mythology and poetry.

The 'golden' Homeric city of Mycenae, in Greek Tragedy, is one of the most tragic cities, covered in blood, devasted by murder, pain, deception, injustice... But memory of the ancient epic brilliance can be felt, and, if we look carefully, its recovery is the inner sense of the Mycenaean Tragedies. We find a regular mythical structure around this city: Mycenae, in Tragedy, is first of all the 'stolen city', because the hero has been violently driven out from his homeland, during prior events; but Mycenae is also the 'missed and recovered city' because in the present of drama the hero desires to return home, and something happens (a character arrives from off-stage) that makes this return possible - a return that corresponds to the restoration of the Homeric golden age.
The 'Mycenaean Tragedies' can be divided in two great groups:
1) evil is 'inside' the city: in this situation, the hero has not only to return but also to free Mycenae from its usurpers (this is the case of Sophocles' 'Electra', Euripides' 'Electra', and Euripides' 'Heracleidae'). The model here is that of the 'Telemachia', in particular the case of the royal palace of Ithaca invaded by the Suitors;
2) evil is 'outside' the city, by now free from the usurpers: so, the hero must simply return to his homeland, to recover the ancient Homeric happiness (Euripides' 'Iphigenia in Tauris' and 'Suppliants'). The model can be recognized in Odysseus' painful journay, fraught with vicissitudes, to get back to Ithaca.

Since the beginning of archaeological exploration on Crete, agricultural storage has attracted a great deal of scholarly interest. The discovery of several palaces on the island has provided a range of evidence concerning storage: the development of a complex written accounting system, the production of thousands of storage jars, the building of storerooms, and built installations apparently devoted to long-term grain storage (the so-called kouloures at Knossos, Malia, and Phaistos). However, the presence in nonpalatial sites of structures that can plausibly be interpreted as silo complexes for long-term grain storage has not attracted much attention. This article is concerned with the Late Bronze Age evidence from Ayia Triada in the Mesara Plain, which has four such complexes, two of which are still unpublished. By drawing on the results of recent fieldwork, I contrast these buildings with those of other Mycenaean and Near Eastern sites to place Ayia Triada in its wider Aegean and Mediterranean context. Through the use of information found in the local Linear A and nonlocal Linear B documents, together with the archaeological evidence, this article highlights the role that long-term grain storage played within the local political economy in the 14th and 13th centuries B.C.E.

This thesis investigates differences and similarities in the funerary material of Late Bronze Age Cyprus in order to answer questions about a possible uniqueness of the pit/well tombs at the Late Bronze Age harbour city of Hala Sultan Tekke. The thesis also tries to explain why these features stand out as singular, compared to the more common chamber tomb, and the reason for their existence.
The thesis concludes that although no direct match to the pit/well tombs can be found in Cyprus, there are features that might have had enough similarities to be categorised as such, but since the documentation methods of the time were too poor one cannot say for certain. The thesis also gives an explanation of why not more of these features appear in the funerary material in Cyprus, and the answer is simply that the pit/well tombs were not considered to be tombs but wells. Furthermore, direct parallels to the pit/well tombs can be found on mainland Greece, first and foremost at the south room of the North Megaron of the Cyclopean Terrace Building at Mycenae but also at the Athenian Agora.

Η μελέτη αυτή πραγματεύεται την οργάνωση και αίσθηση του χώρου κατά την Ύστερη Εποχή του Χαλκού στην Αργολίδα, με κύριο αναλυτικό εργαλείο τη χρήση Συστημάτων Γεωγραφικών Πληροφοριών. Στόχος της είναι να ανιχνεύσει το βαθμό στον οποίο η διαμόρφωση και διαχείριση του τοπίου συνέβαλε στη διαπραγμάτευση και προβολή των κοινωνικών ταυτοτήτων των κατοίκων της περιοχής έρευνας. Η συνθετική προσέγγιση του υλικού πολιτισμού και του τοπίου που ακολουθείται επιτρέπει την πληρέστερη απεικόνιση του χώρου κατά την Ύστερη Εποχή του Χαλκού. Κυρίως, όμως, είναι μία απόπειρα προς μία πιο ολοκληρωμένη ανασύνθεση της αίσθησης που είχαν οι άνθρωποι του κόσμου που τους περιέβαλε, των μηνυμάτων και των νοημάτων που εγγράφονταν στο τοπίο μέσα από τις πρακτικές τους και των τρόπων με τους οποίους προσλάμβαναν και προσπαθούσαν να διαπραγματευτούν τις ατομικές και συλλογικές τους ταυτότητες.

This dissertation investigates aspects of the spatial organization of different Mycenaean settlements in the Argolid in order to grasp the mechanisms used to demonstrate and manipulate social identities of the people who lived there. The methodological tool used, the Geographic Information Systems, allows for a systematic and broadened analysis of spatial patterns and the lived experience of the
landscape. This study suggests that a variety of strategies, such as spatial Association or disassociation, architectural conspicuous consumption, and use of dramaturgical elements in architectural design and implementation, was used in what appears to have been a constant concern with the display and manipulation of people’s Social identities.

The aim of this paper is to identify the functional role urban shrines played within the palatial societies based on topography and spatial organization. In addition the evidence from the postpalatial period will be analyzed in order to identify the possible consequences of the social and economic changes in the religious expression and organization. It will be argued that shrines of public character were basic elements and played an important role both in the palatial and postpalatial settlements. The area under investigation is Argolid in north-eastern Peloponnese, an area with important palatial and postpalatial sites, investigated and published to a great extent, for which there is adequate evidence for spatial organization and independent buildings used for cult activities.

SUMMARY: Lecture 14 provides an overview of the Middle Helladic through Late Helladic societies in mainland Greece, with a progression from "Big Men" (tribal societies) to chiefdoms, and eventally to various kingdoms emerging via palace centres (i.e., the Mycenaeans). This lecture is designed mainly as an educational resource for college students (i.e., normally posted only on my institution's course website), the public (e.g., people auditing my course), and interested colleagues from other disciplines (to whom I provide copies privately).  I am posting it here, both as a broader access, educational tool, and especially to promote the study of this region and its past societies.  For further knowledge about this region and period, I refer interested parties to the textbooks and other sources from which the materials were extracted (see syllabus), and/or the bibliographies in these works and my online resource guides (see other files in my academia folders).  The lecture summarizes the pertinent materials in the course textbook(s), adding in other data, and furnishing numerous images to clarify information encountered within the textbook(s).  Some generic imagery (usually indicated as such) is posted to aid in transmitting various concepts visually, and/or when a specific image remains not located (temporarily).  I update and revise such lectures each time, with such elective courses normally being taught once every two years.  I try to cover the most current, mainstream views, and usually place summary notes at the end of each lecture alongside some of the key sources used for compiling the ppt.  Over time, each lecture is improved, errors rectified, and additional data placed within the lecture.  These ppt. lectures take many hours to compile, but they have proved useful to many of my more serious students and I hope they can be of benefit to others as well.  My apologies for any errors I may have made, and my liberal usage of educational imagery from professional sources and vetted internet sources. REVISED: March, 2024, new formatting, text modifications, etc., plus many selected sources.

Η γεωφυσική έρευνα στα άνδηρα νοτίως της ακροπόλεως (2003-2012) και η συστηματική ανασκαφή του οικισμού εκτός των τειχών (2007-2011) έχουν αλλάξει δραστικά την εικόνα των Μυκηνών την τελευταία δεκαετία. Η συστηματική γεωφυσική έρευνα και ανασκαφή της Κάτω Πόλης των Μυκηνών έχει έως τώρα εντοπίσει εκτεταμένο υστερομυκηναϊκό οικισμό (πιθανώς τειχισμένο), αλλά και σημαντικά οικοδομικά κατάλοιπα της πρωτογεωμετρικής, γεωμετρικής και αρχαϊκής εποχής, τεκμηριώνοντας για πρώτη φορά συνεχή χρήση και κατοίκηση του χώρου των Μυκηνών σε όλες τις διαδοχικές φάσεις από την ΥΕ ΙΙΙΒ έως και τον 6ο αιώνα π.Χ. Η διαπίστωση της συνέχειας του χώρου, παρά τη μεγάλη συρρίκνωση των Μυκηνών ως απόρροια της κατάρρευσης της κεντρικής εξουσίας και ανακτορικής οικονομίας, είναι εξαιρετικά σημαντική, καθώς ενισχύει και συμπληρώνει τη μεταμυκηναϊκή μεταβατική εικόνα της Πρώιμης Εποχής του Σιδήρου στην Αργολίδα με την ύπαρξη σύγχρονων εκτεταμένων οικισμών στο Άργος, τις Μυκήνες, την Τίρυνθα, την Ασίνη, καταδεικνύοντας έτσι την πολιτισμική συνέχεια του χώρου.

ABSTRACT: This documentary response sheet contains a series of sequential questions drawn from the video, BBC: In Search of the Trojan War, episode 6: The Fall of Troy (shown in-class; also available online via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBk9j9Slb1Y [58.24 minutes]).  These sequential questions aim to maximize both student attention to various pertinent points made throughout the documentary and greater retention of the materials covered by the documentary.  In addition, the documentary has been vetted for overall content accuracy (albeit updated and/or corrected in-class), and selected to provide supplementary visual aids (e.g., images of regions, sites, finds, and other materials), additional specialist views (e.g., interviews), and other data to aid in student comprehension of the course lectures and readings from the textbooks. REVISED: April 2024.

Τα χάλκινα ξίφη και εγχειρίδια της Εποχής του Χαλκού στο Αιγαίο ανήκουν στα εντυπωσιακότερα ευρήματα αυτής της περιόδου, όσον αφορά την τεχνοτροπία και τον πλούτο των υλικών τους. Η ερμηνεία της χρήσης τους ποικίλει από τον καθαρά τελετουργικό χαρακτήρα στη λατρεία, σε αντικείμενα γοήτρου για την εκάστοτε αριστοκρατία, μέχρι την προφανέστερη χρήση τους στον πόλεμο ή το κυνήγι. Τα αρχαιότερα αιγαιακά ξίφη αποτελούν εξέλιξη των μινωικών χάλκινων εγχειριδίων που σταδιακά επιμηκύνονται, λόγω της προόδου της μεταλλοτεχνίας.

Δυο μικρά άρθρα στα ελληνικά και ιταλικά για την on line φωτογραφική έκθεση του Museum of Classical Archaeology αφιερωμένη στον Robert McCabe. Οι 200 αναλογικές φωτογραφίες αναφέρονται στο 1955, όταν ο Robert McCabe επισκέπτεται τις Μυκήνες και φωτογραφίζει τις ανασκαφές του Wace αλλά και την καθημερινή ζωή των κατοίκων.

A persistent issue with the study of Late Bronze Age (ca. 1600-1100 BCE) chamber tombs in Mainland Greece remains our limited understanding of the factors that governed the choice of location for their construction. Mee and Cavanagh (1990) examined various parameters, such as religious beliefs, distance from settlement, the tombs' use as territorial markers or relation to roads. They remained, however, inconclusive. The present study revisits this theme, but focuses on one of the factors formerly discussed, that is the relation of the tombs' locations to roads. As the most extensive record of Mycenaean roads is preserved at the settlement of Mycenae in the Argolid and its hinterland, this site is considered to be the best case-study for analysis. In order to ascertain the significance of roads on the locations chosen for the chamber tombs, this paper builds a methodological approach that makes use of GIS-based mobility analysis and historical cartography. The analysis has shown that, at least at Mycenae, issues of accessibility to the tombs did not play as crucial role as the actual performance of rituals such as the funerary procession. It also sheds light on the form funerary processions probably took at Mycenae and on common notions of wheeled traffic use for the transfer of the dead to their tomb.

"For the reconstruction of the military Mycenaean world scarcely
we possess the information extracted from diverse slats written in Linear B, as well as the remains of some pictorial representations and scanty archaeological remains extracted from warriors' diverse tombs. It is for it that the reconstruction of this important aspect inside the Mycenaean culture is not simple, and in this respect it turns out very interesting to manage to raise approximations as the one that occupies us. Across the analysis of few remains which we possess,It occupies. Across the analysis of few remains which we possess, authors of John Chadwick's taya have proposed interesting theories on the Mycenaean systems of defense and, in this case, we will try to approach each other the system that could be used in Pilo's accession."

This paper uses Driessen’ s concept of ‘crisis architecture’ to explore a particular case study that demonstrates the response of the community at Mycenae to a probable earthquake that took place during the Late Bronze Age Palatial period. The Megaron was one of five complexes on the south-western slope of the acropolis collectively known as the ‘ Cult Centre ’. Recent restudy of this building has revealed the repairs and adaptations carried out within the Megaron complex’ s basement level in
the immediate aftermath of the destruction event. Despite these actions, and the lack of evidence for substantial damage to the structure of the building, the Megaron complex apparently fell out of regular usage before its eventual destruction at the end of the Palatial period. This paper questions whether it is reasonable to interpret the actions undertaken in this building as an example of ‘ crisis architecture ’, and suggests that the treatment of the Megaron complex shows there was a significant realignment of socio-cultural priorities after this mid LH IIIB earthquake, which appears to have affected the role of the entire Cult Centre in the community at Mycenae.