Pylos

Les archives du roi Nestor offers scholars the long-awaited full scholarly edition of the Linear B documents found at Pylos from 1939 to date. For the first time—along with transliterations, information about size and number of fragments, find-spot, publication history and a critical apparatus—, each document is accompanied by drawings and colour photographs. The new analysis of the palaeography of the tablets has allowed considerable improvement of previously proposed transliterations and the suggestion of new readings. Moreover, it has enriched our knowledge of Mycenaean scribal practices by further clarifying the role of individual scribes in the administration chain of the Palace at Pylos. Finally, it has huge philological and historical implications. The following review article tries to discuss the main positions of the book, by contextualizing them in the field of research and by entering into more detailed discussion of some of them.

https://brill.com/view/journals/mnem/74/1/article-p161_11.xml?rskey=Nt9n3N&result=1

The institution of feasting in the Bronze Age Aegean, as in much of the world, has been the subject of considerable recent scholarship, with a broad consensus that feasts provided a locus for the negotiation and performance of sociopolitical and religious hierarchies. Despite the publication of numerous edited volumes, monographs, and journal articles on the subject, the relationship between feasting and gender has been explored only minimally. In the very few cases where gender has been discussed in the context of feasting, the assumption or argument has been that women were excluded from public feasting activities, with the implication that women were excluded from a critical venue for the creation and reinforcement of social and political status. While iconographic evidence for Mycenaean women feasting is almost nonexistent (and indeed, iconographic evidence for anyone at all feasting may also be, insofar as we have no images of anyone in the Bronze Age Aegean eating), there are a few hints that at least elite women and probably most or all women were present at some prehistoric feasts. Comparable public feasts in both the contemporaneous Near Eastern world and in later Greek contexts often included women, including in feasts honoring some of the same divinities whom Linear B tablets tell us were worshipped in the Late Bronze Age. The Ta tablets from Pylos, representing the paraphernalia for a feast, include footstools, which are iconographically and archaeologically associated with women; this suggests that women did indeed participate. The presence of lower status women who attended feasts is more difficult to identify, but the vast quantities of food and wine known to have been provided suggest that access must have been broadly inclusive.

The region of Triphylia in the western Peloponnese has only recently attracted new research in its history and archaeological remains. This coastal strip between the historical regions of Elis
and Messenia was defined by the river Alpheios in the north and the Neda River in the south, and was part of the territory of the Elean state in the Classical period. The study of finds and
sites of the Early Mycenaean period (LH I‒IIA) reveals that the region of Triphylia was connected to Messenia in the south on the level of cultural exchanges. This is the case for the distribution of Early Mycenaean pottery and tholos tombs as well as for the prestige items found in the tholos tombs of Kakovatos which is the most prominent Triphylian site during this period. Amber spacer plates, oriental star disk pendants of blue glass and gold jewelry in the shape of owls illustrate the connections among the elite burials of the early Mycenaean period of Messenia and the southern Greek Mainland.
Relations with Messenia appear to have been strong in the early Mycenaean period, and the palace of Pylos in Messenia may well have exercised some influence on the region of Triphylia
during the periods of LH IIIA‒B. The question of the northern boundary of the Pylos polity in respect to its administrative territory has been a matter of controversy. J. Chadwick and
J. Bennet suggested a boundary line along the Neda River or even further south, while others have argued for a larger area including part or all of Triphylia. Arguments depend on the interpretation of topographical names, and in fact a group of place names and ethnics in the Linear B-texts from Pylos appears to point to the geographical region of the Alpheios valley and its neighborhood. An analysis of the assessments of the nine districts of the Hither Province of Pylos may in fact suggest that the polity of Pylos was possibly larger and included at least parts of Triphylia. Rather than the Neda River the mountain ange of the Lapithos appears to have created something like a visible barrier.

This paper describes new approaches to the documentation and publication of texts in the Greek Bronze Age through discussion of the authors’ ongoing project to study and publish the Linear B documents from the ‘Palace of Nestor’ at Pylos in southwestern Greece. Recent developments move in two dis-tinct directions. The first, digitisation, involves the production of digital models to represent the texts, using both computational photography and three-dimensional modelling. The second, the study of the texts as material culture, involves examining the physical properties of the texts and associated uninscribed documents. Traditional print-based editions are limited in the amount of data they can present, and the use of static images and text requires the user to rely on the authority of the editor, the illustrator, and even the photographer. Digital models, on the other hand, provide a dynamic and interactive environment in which users can work with the texts at a level of resolution that approximates autopsy. That is, they place less emphasis on editorial interpretations and interventions and put more primary data directly into the hands of users. The digital models thus decentre editorial authority by easing scholarly access  to material.

The archaeological evidence has demonstrated that Ithaca and the Ionian Islands, from the Mycenean epoch to the dark age, had strong relationships with the western Peloponnesian regions, such as Elis and Messenia. Archaeologists use to call this phenomenon “western koiné”, but this term, in my opinion, can be applied also to the mythical and poetical tradition developed in the western areas of Peloponnese in the same period. The Odyssey can be safely inserted in this context, since it shows many and strict connections with western Peloponnese. Most of the main Odyssean character have genealogical relationship with Peloponnesian mythical figures, such as Penelope, whose father Ikarios was commonly regarded as Tyndareus’ brother, and Odysseus himself, whose grandfather Autolykos was well inserted in the Peloponnesian mythical traditions. In the Odyssey Pylos, Elis and Sparta appear as the most faithful allies of the Ithacan kings, because of the commercial and political relationships that are clearly presented in many passages and underlined by the use of some typical and recurrent formulas. Moreover, some Odyssean scenes, such as the encounter between Menelaus and Proteus or the theft of Helios’ cattle, present clear parallels with Peloponnesian traditions, particularly with Heracles’ saga: instead of thinking about any direct influence, it is more correct to state that both sagas developed in the same poetical tradition of the “western koiné”.

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.

RENÉ PUAUX ET LE CHRONIQUE DE SA COLLECTION
René Puaux (1878-1936), journaliste français d’une certaine renommée, nourrissait un grand amour pour la Grèce.  Il a entreprit la collection des oeuvres d’art de la période de la Révolution Grecque, et particulièrement de celles liés au mouvement «Philhellénique» qui s’est developpé dans l’Europe d’Ouest pour la Cause Grecque.  En 1935 il a organisé à Paris une première exposition de sa collection sous le titre «Le Philhellénisme».  Il a fait don de l’entité de ce matériel, gravures, documents et autres objects, à la ville de Pylos, puisqu’il croyait que dans ce milieu sa collection trouverait sa propre place.  Il avait visité auparavant la région, en quête de souvenirs de la fameuse bataille navale de Navarin, et s’est senti une amerture profonde de l’absence totale de toute mention de cet événement important.
Il faut noter que cette bataille était un point tournant de la lutte pour l’Indépendance Grecque. Les trois forces alliées, l’Anglettere, la France et la Russie, ont totalement annihilé la flotte turco-égyptienne et ont forcé l’empire Ottoman d’accepter le fait accompli de la Révolution, ce qui a conduit à la formation d’un État libre.
La collection Puaux a connu plusières aventures avant de trouver sa place finale, au bâtiment des Casernes Maison.  Il parâit que le désir de Puaux était de transporter sa collection en Grèce immédiatement après l’exposition de 1935.  Mais, un endroit apte pour son installation à Pylos n’existait pas encore.  C’est la raison pour laquelle plusieurs de ses amis ont essayé de convaincre Puaux d’installer sa collection à Athènes, en disant que “…Navarin se trouve au bout du Péloponnèse…le musée restera inconnu, lointain, et forcement toujours fermé…”
Après la fin de l’exposition de 1935, la plus grande partie de la collection est resté « provisoirement » à la Fondation Hellénique de la Cité Universitaire à Paris, et ça jusqu’au 1992.  Les plus petites œuvres ont été renvoyées chez Puaux.  Après son décès, en 1936, sa veuve a délivré à l’Ambassadeur grec en France, Nikolaos Politis, la partie de la collection qui se trouvait dans son domaine.  Le paquet contenant ces pièces était livré à la Société Historique et Ethnologique de Grèce.  En 1938 était annoncé que la collection allait être installée dans une salle du musée Ethnologique d’Athènes, ce ne fut jamais réalisé.
Après la Seconde Guerre Mondiale, la Municipalité de Pylos a commencé ses efforts pour transporter la collection à Pylos.  En 1948 une commission est formée afin d’ouvrir le paquet, son contenu était remis le 5 Juin 1950 aux représentants de la ville.  Néanmoins, tous les documents de la collection sont envoyés aux Archives Nationales et seuls objets divers sont exposés dans une salle de la Mairie de Pylos en 1952.  Grâce à la donation de Ch. Antonopoulos, un musée est construit en 1955 pour loger la nouvelle exposition de la collection Puaux, elle est inaugurée  en 1961.  La préparation du nouvel aménagement des objets appartient au G. Papathanasopoulos, alors curateur de patrimoine.
Finalement, en 1992, G. Papathanasopoulos, maintenant directeur des Antiquités, a ramené en Grèce la partie de la collection resté à la Fondation Hellénique 57 ans auparavant.  L’entité de la collection est transportée et exposée à nouveau en 1993 à son place actuel.

The Linear B records at Pylos point to large, multifaceted industries in both textile and perfumed oil production, with a large degree of specialization and a complex administrative system. It seems as though both value-added goods - textiles and perfumed oils - would be traded by the Mycenaean palace centers within the Greek mainland and abroad to consumers in the Aegean, Italy, Cyprus, Egypt, Syria and Levant. Perfumed oils and textiles were likely traded for foreign goods such as metal ores and luxury goods such as ostrich eggs and faience materials preferred for conspicuous consumption by the elite at the palace centers. This paper explores the processes, industries, distribution and possible trade of Mycenaean textiles and perfumed oils at the palatial center at Pylos.

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

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.

In this paper we treat changes in weaponry and armament, which occurred in the Aegean and Levantine regions between the late 14th and the early 12th century BC. We aim at reconstructing these changes in a sequence as fine-phased as possible and try to identify the regions in which they originated. As a case study we use a sword of Naue II type found at Ugarit. As it has no clearly stratified context, we try to fix its chronology on one hand by reference to the overall stratigraphy of the site, and on the other by discussing better datable archaeological evidence from the Aegean and Cyprus. Swords of the Naue II group belong to new weapon types introduced to the eastern Mediterranean a few decades before the breakdown of many palace states around 1200 BC. There are different reasons that lead us to believe that these new weapon types arrived together with their users and producers from the central Mediterranean and cannot be seen as a result of goods exchange.

When Spyridon Marinatos excavated the LH I–II chamber tomb cemetery at Volimidia, among other sites in the region of Pylos (1955–1965), Messenia started to emerge as a prosperous and dynamic region of the early Mycenaean world that contributed essentially to the formation of the elite sites of the Mycenaean Peloponnese. The cemetery of Volimidia was founded in the transitional MH III/LH I period, and its rock-cut chambers stand among the earliest examples of this type of tomb, probably as a result of successful local experimentation at the time of the foundation of the first tholos tombs in the region. Despite the fact that the considerable quantity of LH I–II vases from Volimidia were not found in association with the burials they accompanied due to the continuous use of the cemetery until LH IIIC Early, these ceramics constitute the best-preserved assemblage of early Mycenaean pottery from the Pylos region. Their preliminary study points to a local production, consistent with the LH I–II repertoire of northern Triphylia (Elis), but also combining Argive, Lakonian, Kytheran and Cretan elements, which echo the cultural blend thanks to which the hegemonic ‘estates’ of Pylos thrived.

For a long time, the emergence of Aegean states was explained in terms of general evolutionist models based on evidence from a handful of major palatial sites. Recently, however, a growing emphasis on regional diversity has demonstrated the importance of specific models for understanding the multiple pathways to social complexity. It is becoming increasingly clear that static neoevolutionary types do not reflect the fluid and dynamic character of human societies and that top-down explanatory models based on top-tier centers are biased and incomplete. In this article, a detailed historical modeling of the Mycenaean state of Pylos based on new data from the systematic excavation of Iklaina tests the current model and proposes that the Pylian state, as it is known to us from Linear B tablets, was not integrated until an advanced phase of the Late Helladic IIIB period. This analysis suggests that for most of the Mycenaean period both Iklaina and Ano Englianos were primary centers following parallel trajectories and functioning as capitals of independent micropolities. A late date for the unification of the Pylian state could account for its partly decentralized character, the duplication of administrative structures, and the instability that may have contributed to its collapse.

This paper presents the results of the preliminary study of a recently excavated LH IIB pottery assemblage
from the Ano Englianos ridge at Pylos in western Messenia. The deposit comes from Trench 5Z and its six extensions,
situated northeast of Carl Blegen’s Main Building, and was uncovered during the archaeological investigations associated
with the construction of the new roof over the Palace of Nestor. The material fills a gap in the local sequence and
reveals significant information on pottery consumption trends at Pylos during the crucial transition from the early to
the late formative stage of Mycenaean palatial society. Specifically, our analysis suggests that the ceramics from the 5Z
deposit may represent the remains from feasting activities, which occurred during a late stage of LH IIB, and highlights
the importance of Messenian and Minoan cultural traditions in the gradual formation process of Mycenaean Pylos. If
corroborated through future research, these conclusions raise the possibility that LH IIB may have been a key phase for
the elaboration and performance of those feasting practices, which constitute a distinctive feature of the Pylian social
space during the final Mycenaean Palatial period.

The Griffin Warrior Ring No. 2 is a gold Minoan-style engraved signet ring from Pylos dating to the Late Helladic IIA (1580–1490 BCE). The ring’s bezel depicts a seascape with a columnar tree shrine flanked by palm trees situated on a rocky outcrop. Five elaborately dressed female figures stand on either side of the shrine. The tree shrine features a net pattern in the space between its stone or brick piers. It is proposed that this represents a fishing net and that the structure is a sea altar dedicated to an unnamed Minoan tree goddess. The ring’s hoop is decorated with cockle shells, further emphasising its marine theme. It will be argued that the iconography alludes to marine food resources, practical and luxury textile fibres, sea trade, transculturality and cult, and is testament to the importance of the sea in the Aegean Bronze Age.

This paper assesses evidence for the transformation of prestige expression in the southwestern Peloponneseduring the early Mycenaean period (late MH–LH II) with special attention on the shift from patterns of elite behaviourobservable throughout the MH period in the region, especially the kind of prestige conveyed by the construction andmaintenance of funerary mounds or tumuli. It focuses on the appearance of novel perceptions of monumental prestigein architecture, such as the early employment of cut masonry, as well as the emergence of various types of built burialspace, and particularly the tholos form (perhaps a local invention) and its role in the dramatic transformation of thefunerary landscape of the region. Such novelties, apparently appearing in the southwestern Peloponnese earlier in comparisonto other mainland regions, need not have a uniform explanation, as they might reflect cultural imports or localdevelopments responding (or even contributing) to the formation of a new socio-political environment. These lastinginnovations shaped basic elements of an emerging monumental prestige vocabulary that had a considerable impact inother regions of the Greek mainland and contributed, especially from LH IIA onwards, to the formation of a supraregional‘Mycenaean’ elite identity. In this regard, the broader social and ideological change that took place throughoutthe earlier part of the Late Bronze Age Aegean culminated in the adoption of what has been termed the wanax ideology,a kingship institution that is established by LH IIIB times, but whose first appearance on the Greek mainland can beplausibly associated with the formative stages of the palatial administrations established there.

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.