Mycenaean Greece and Cross-Cultural Interaction

“I have gazed on the face of Agamemnon” ~Heinrich Schliemann

Mycenaean Death Mask

Dating Scheme after J.-B. Bury (following Evans)

Early Minoan I II III

2800-2500 BCE 2500-2200 BCE 2200-2000 BCE

Early Helladic I

II (arrival of Greeks?) III

Middle Minoan I II III

2000-1900 BCE 1900-1700 BCE 1700-1550 BCE

Middle Helladic I II III

Late Minoan IA

IB (mainland takeover?)

II IIIA IIIB IIIC

1550-1500 BCE 1500-1450 BCE 1450-1400 BCE 1400-1300 BCE 1300-1200 BCE 1200-1050 BCE

Late Helladic IA IB II

IIIA IIIB IIIC

Trading Contacts from Minoan Crete

Height of Mycenaean Greece: ca. 1400-1200 BCE (LH II-IIIB)

Cultural Influences (palace architecture, frescoes, seal stones, fine gold work)

Trading Emporia in the Near East and West (Taranto)

General Characteristics

Centralized Administration (king or wanax); Palace as Redistribution Center

Highly Organized Bureaucracy (Linear B Palace Inventories)

Complex Social Structure Royal Family (wanax: military, legislative, judicial, religious

functions) Nobility (priests and scribes) Merchants (?); Agricultural Workers and Craftsmen Slaves

Mycenae: Shaft Graves (circles A and B): ca. 1650-1550 BCE; tholos (“beehive”) tombs: ca. 1500 BCE; “Treasury of Atreus”: ca. 1300 BCE

Royal Grave Circle Acirca 1600 BCE

Entrance, “Treasury of Atreus”

Cross-Section of Tholos

Interior of “Treasury of Atreus”Corbeled Arch (ca. 1300-1250 BCE)

Mycenaeans and Minoans

Significant Differences Mycenaean Palaces are closed; strongly

fortified Mycenaean art: war motifs predominate

The “Warrior Vase”circa 1200 BCE

Vapheio Cup (ca. 1400-1300 BCE)

The Citadel of Mycenae

Aerial View of Citadel at Mycenae

The Lioness Gate at Mycenae

Excursus: Heinrich Schliemann

Excavator of Mycenaean civilization Autodidact; early fascination with

Homeric poems “Outsider” to academic establishment

W. Doerpfeld and credibility

Entrepreneur and Treasure Hunter Modern Assessments

Heinrich Schliemann

The Mycenaean Argolid

Writing: Linear B Script

Monopoly of the Elites Linear B script virtually unchanged

destruction at Knossos, ca. 1380 BCE (following Biers)

destruction at Pylos, ca. 1250 BCE

Linear B Tablets

The End of Mycenaean Civilization and the Trojan War

Thirteenth and twelfth century Mediterranean context: Turmoil in the Mediterranean basin and the Near East (“Sea Peoples”). ca. 1200 BCE--Egypt weakened; Hittite empire collapses; destruction at Mycenaean centers (Tiryns, Mycenae, Pylos, Thebes; ca. 1150 BCE: final destruction at Mycenae)

Greece--lines of trade disrupted (e.g. contact with Cyprus, a source of copper, is broken)

Fortifications rebuilt at Mycenae; secret passageway to underground cistern

Secret passageways to water sources at Athens and Tiryns The Isthmian Wall Archaeological Evidence of Troy VII A--a last gasp

Mycenaean expedition?

Collapse of Mycenaean Civilization

Explanations: Intruder, Environmental, Class Conflict

Tradition: return of Heracleidae and the Dorian invasion

Problem: tradition dates invasion to ca. 1100 BCE; archaeological evidence indicates a date closer to 1200 BCE

Identifying the Dorians? Alternatives: climatic--famine leads to

internal social revolutions; inter-city wars Joseph Tainter’s theory of complexity and

collapse