Mycenaean era archaeology

Sanctuaries in Minoan Crete and Mycenaean Greece appear to have property which they manage. This means that they are not merely ideological institutions, but also command financial power and resources, an important conclusion for the Greek prehistoric social economy.
This wealth amassed by the sanctuaries is result of dedications which can be seen as a form of storage, religious storage.

This article (in Dutch) evaluates the evidence for Mycenaean participation in Royal Gift Exchange, focusing especially the relation between the King of Mycenae and the Great Kings of Egypt and Hatti). It argues that the Mycenaean world was very much a part of the 'international age'.

The performance of funerary ritual is one of the hallmarks of the Mycenaean period. The materiality and performative aspects have often been lost in typologies and classificatory approaches concerned with the identity and status of the dead. This paper focuses on the roles of material culture in the spectacle of performance of funerary rites. Strategies for engagement with mortuary processes through material culture are highlighted in the preparation of the corpse, the procession to the tomb, and the production of the interment context. It is argued that two different aspects of death are reconciled during the funeral. The earlier stages emphasise the subject of the funeral. The processes of interment and incorporation of the corpse within the reorganised context of the tomb emphasise the transformation of the individual characteristics of the dead, completed by later rites which incorporated the bones of the dead among the collective material of the tomb.

Often, contemporary archaeological research is adapted to fit antiquated notions of time and place. This is a development demonstrated atop the Mycenaean acropolis and throughout the surrounding landscape. This paper explores the temporal boundaries that have traditionally forced the direction or scope of archaeological study, using Mycenae as a case study.

When historically dealing with the historical narrative of a place it is often most efficient and useful to assign strict chronological limitations to a site or a region. At Mycenae, this system is represented by the orderly chronological classification of various ages (Early, Middle, and Late Helladic, etc.). However, I argue that, archaeologically, these traditional boundaries hinder the modern researcher in creating an image of the site that is completely faithful to the data on the ground. While certain pasts may be temporally far removed from one another, they can often be in close archaeological proximity. Inhabitants of Mycenae regularly interacted with the physical remains of their past. Due to the polychronic nature of material culture, these chronological phases rarely end archaeologically in the clean manner which history provides them.

Consequently, the use of these temporal boundaries inhibits modern excavators in their ability to tease out the subtle nuances for which archaeology is uniquely proficient. I argue that archaeologists should unshackle their research from these historic boundaries which persist from archaic archaeological research. Instead, archaeological focus must turn to the examination of a site or feature as a whole, devoid of temporal limitations. In doing so, features of the past which escape historical perception may exhibit themselves, and otherwise unattainable connections can be explored.

A (Dutch) publication of a lecture held at Gent University, in the Fall of 2014.

It is only appropriate that the Hellenic Centre of the University of Gent, a city situated not too far away from the trenches of  the Great War dedicates this 2015 issue of its journal Tetradio to the Great Wars that were fought in Ancient Greece. This contribution focuses on what may arguably be considered the most famous and contested of all those wars- the war on Troy (famous, because of the epics of the blind bard Homer and its place in western –and eastern- cultural history and identity; contested because the city was deserted, its location lost, and the veracity of Homer’s songs doubtful). In this paper, I argue for a Bronze Age origin of the Trojan epic, and that various aspects of the Iliad and Odyssey are best understood in a late Mycenaean, i.e. 13th century BC, context.

The article is devoted to significance of metallurgy of bronze, delivering of copper and tin into Aegean and consumption of bronze in Mycenaean centers of the Late Bronze Age. Metallurgy of bronze was vital for the formation and development of Mycenaean society. Excavations of shipwrecks in Uluburun and at Cape Gelidonya showed that Cyprus was the main source of copper supplies to Aegean. However, there were also sources of this metal in Lavrion in Greece, the Taurus Mountains of Anatolia, in Israel and in Sardinia. It was generally believed that Mycenaeans held a monopoly on maritime commerce in the Eastern
Mediterranean but it was not correct. The discoveries in Uluburun and Cape Gelidonya shipwrecks led to conclusion that ships were Near Eastern in origin or perhaps Cypriot. The scale of supplies allows us
to consider it as a real trade in metals. In the mainland Greece, bronze objects were produced in various palace workshops, which are well known from the excavations of Kadmeia - the acropolis of Thebes. Most
of the bronze was involved in the production of offensive and defensive equipment. In the process of analyzing of archaeological material from Thebes and literary sources, the educational function of the objects made of bronze, such as tripods, was also revealed. Bronze object served as a mediator of relations between a man and the past.

A cache of artifacts, recovered in 2014 by the cultural heritage squadron of the Guardia di Finanza (Gruppo Tutela Patrimonio Archeologico of the Nucleo Polizia Tributaria di Roma), included two Mycenaean stirrup jars among the pottery illegally brought into Italy from the Northern Levant. The stirrup jar has one of the most distinctive shapes of the Mycenaean repertoire and is found throughout the Mediterranean around the end of the Late Bronze Age. Even if removed from their original context, both of these stirrup jars can be ascribed to a distinctive cultural milieu within a specific chronological range, based upon morphological and stylistic parameters. Furthermore, their good state of preservation suggests that the original context of deposition may have been a tomb. Comparison with stirrup jars found at key sites in the Eastern Mediterranean allows us to re-contextualize them as part of the wide diffusion of Mycenaean luxury goods in the Levant.

Keywords: archaeophysiology, archaeology, physiology, physical performance, tactical athletes, panoply, armor, armour, ancient swordsmanship, battle, combat, combat stimulation, battle mode, Bronze Age, Homer’s “Iliad”, weapon use, sword, xiphos, spear, horse carriage, shield, helmet, bow, warrior, fighter, soldier, battle physiology, theatre of operations, battle environment, Greeks, Achaeans, Trojans, Trojan War, Mycenean civilization, history, marines, Greek Army, Hellenic Army, special forces, dietary, nutrition, battle psychology, reflexes, body temperature, target deflection, fatigue, glucose, visual stimulation, hearing stimulation, reaction time.
The purpose of this research is to study the manner of battle and the use of weapons by a Greek warrior who was fully armored during archaic times and more specifically in the Bronze Age (Trojan War period). The main question of the research was whether the "Dedra panoply" was useful battle equipment or was an artifact for use only in the rituals and celebrations of the time. Due to the originality of the research and the lack of precedent data, a new branch of science was required: the "Archeophysiology" ®, that is, the combination of archeology (through archaeological findings and ancient texts) and physiology (through the creation of specific physical performance protocols, manufacturing of equipment and taking measurements in a simulated combat environment). Measurements were required to be made, to assess the various factors affecting the human physiology of already trained and professional fighters (warriors), who are now identified as “tactical athletes”.

For the most realistic approach to the battle, noncommissioned officers and privates of the Hellenic Armed Forces (HAF) and in particular from the Special Forces (SF) of the Marines were used, who executed, a Trojan War-based combat protocol created by studying the Homeric Epic of the "Iliad" (Maronitiw D.N., 2016) (Asimoglou P., Petmezas S., Flouris A., Koutedakis Y.2, Fatouros I.2, Giakas I.2, Jamurtas AZ2, Wardle K. & D.3,2017). The creation of the battle protocol took into account: the morphology of the terrain, the environmental conditions, the time constraints of the different phases of the battle (transition - engagement - return), the respective geographical distances traveled by the warriors daily, as well as the different combinations of weapons and fighting techniques of the corresponding time period described in the Iliad (Petmezas S., Asimoglou P., Flouris A., Koutedakis Y.2, Fatouros I.2, Giakas I.2, Jamurtas A.2, Wardle K. & D.3, 2017).
The combat equipment used by the volunteers of the HAF consisted of a complete armor replica of the Mycenaean era, a helmet and replicas of the weapons of the era (shape-weight-materials-construction techniques). The weapons used in the various techniques of armor were: spear (throws – thrusts/close combat blows), Mycenaean sword 85 cm long (thrusts/slashing blows - cuts), Mycenaean bow (close range shots) and other materials found on battlefield, in our case medium /small stone (throws).
A study was also carried out and measurements were taken of the use of a two-horse battle carriage and its effect on the physiology of the user as well as on the nutrition and other habits of the ancient tactical athletes during a whole day in battle engagement. At the same time, measurements were performed of the effect of fatigue on warrior psychology, its effect on target accuracy and fighter’s reflexes (speed) using visual and auditory stimuli equipment.
A total of 13 healthy adult men volunteers (Hellenic Army Special Forces) (age 29.2 ± 7.9 years, height 172.7 ± 4.5 cm, weight 74.1 ± 6.8 kg) participated in the research. The physiology measurements performed throughout the protocol were: skin temperature, produced force (total and mean value) of blows in each different combination of battle techniques, stroke (target) deviation (total and mean value) of the hits in each different type of combat, the difference in the deviation of volunteers’ blows from the target center by type of combat, the subjective perception of warriors’ fatigue, blood glucose concentration, urine specific gravity and color at the beginning and end of the protocol, reaction time to visual and auditory stimuli throughout the protocol.
Results showed a positive low power correlation (r = 0.119, p <0.001) between skin temperature and protocol steps. The total force output of the volunteers’ blows in each different type of battle showed a statistically significant positive high force correlation (r = 0.802, p <0.001) between the total force produced and the blows numbers. The difference in mean power produced by battle type showed statistically significant changes [F (3, 503) = 18.6; p <0.001] by type of battle. Also, the analysis of the total deviation of the volunteer blows from the target in each different type of battle showed statistically significant changes in the total blow number deviation [F (3, 503) = 96.0; p <0.001] by type of battle. The difference in the deviation of volunteer blows from the target based on the type of battle did not show any statistically significant changes in the mean deviation of volunteer blows from the target (p> 0.05). The total force produced, the mean generated force, the total deviation of the blows from the target, as well as the mean deviation of the blows from the target during the different phases of the protocol in battle “1vs1” showed that the total produced force [F (30, 372) = 1.5; p = 0.047] decreased from start to the end of protocol. The total force produced, the mean produced force, the total stroke deviation from the target, and the mean deviation of the strokes from the target during the different phases of the protocol in the “chariot vs chariot” battle did not show statistically significant differences in some of the variables considered (p> 0.05) between the variables considered and the protocol stage. Subjective perception of volunteer fatigue showed a positive high force correlation (r = 0.603, p <0.001) which was statistically significant. The blood glucose concentration of the volunteers showed a statistically significant decrease in glucose concentration [F (7, 95) = 3.0; p = 0.007] which was statistically significant (r = -0.234, p = 0.017). Urine specific gravity analysis and urine color at the beginning and end of the protocol showed no statistically significant differences in any of the variables examined (p> 0.05). The same analysis showed a statistically significant positive correlation between urine specific gravity and urine color (r = 0.683, p <0.001). The reaction time to visual stimulus showed no statistically significant changes (p> 0.05). The reaction time to auditory stimuli showed an increase in reaction time which was judged to be close to statistical significance [F (7, 96) = 1.94; p = 0.07].
Through this research and the science of archeophysiology, it turned out that the particular type of armor used was useful (combat) warfare equipment and not only for ritual use. It was carried on the battlefield by important military agents (commanders/army chiefs) providing maximum protection to the warrior who wore it from the Bronze Age weapons throughout the battle. The similarity of archaic period battle equipment in form, weight and use, to its modern combat equipment, proves the functional perfection achieved by the ancestors of the Greeks some 3500 years ago, both in the manufacture of the equipment and in the manner of training the human body to fully utilize personal combat equipment.

Los micénicos son los griegos del segundo milenio a.C. Su aparición en la historia puede fecharse en torno al 1600 a.C. y su desaparición en torno al 1180 a.C. Toman su nombre de la ciudad de Micenas, cuyos restos arqueológicos impresionaron a los historiadores y arqueólogos de finales del siglo xix. Su escritura, el llamado silabario Lineal B, fue descifrada en 1952 y, junto a la arqueología, constituye la base para adentrarse en el conocimiento de esta civilización que, durante unos cuatrocientos años, controló el mar Egeo y mantuvo contactos comerciales importantes con parte de la costa de Anatolia y de Italia y Sicilia.
Tras analizar las fuentes, esta obra realiza un recorrido, científico pero accesible, por los distintos aspectos de la sociedad micénica, tales como la organización social y cultural, la religión, la agricultura y la ganadería, la economía y la administración, la industria, el comercio y el
arte, con la intención de acercar el estudio de esta civilización a todas aquellas personas que, especialistas o no, estén interesadas en ahondar un poco más en el conocimiento sobre los primeros griegos de la historia.

The performance of Mycenaean funerary rites involved a number of different settings. Some of these are clear from the evidence (tomb, cemetery); others may be inferred (place of preparation and perhaps exposition of the corpse; the processional route from there to the cemetery). This paper examines the affordances of these arenas for funerary ritual as evidenced in material, architectural and landscape traces, and emphasises the importance of the procession as an essential structuring element of Mycenaean funerals.

Using the concepts of fields of discourse and fields of action as developed by Barrett and Robb, this paper considers several such related fields in the course of the Mycenaean funerary cycle: laying out the dead, readying the tomb, the procession, burial, and other interventions in the tomb.

Processions were the means by which the lead organisers of the funeral most fully engaged with the broader community, and conversely the means by which individuals or groups could engage with the funerary process, demonstrating or testing their acknowledged or claimed place in the network of relationships formed around the funeral. Processions to the grave were profoundly public in nature, open to participation through observation and perhaps by joining in, in contrast to subsequent activities at the graveside, which often exhibited a more controlled accessibility. There is a structural tension in the ordering of processions between their open nature and their potential for rigorous hierarchy. Taking time to progress, with a starting point, route, waypoints and endpoint, processions embrace multiple spatio-temporal nodes and scales at which different elements or groups may be separately addressed or assert themselves. The procession is a composite act of ordered and reordered movement, conducted in reference to and structured by the topography through which it passed on its route.

Mycenaean funerary architecture promoted specific enabling and restraining conditions in respect of individual and group movement. The tomb encouraged particular types of movement and group sizes, thus shaping the tempo and scale of activities, and marking a disjuncture with the immediately preceding phase of the procession. In contrast with the procession, the rites in the tomb were conducted in a restricted space with carefully negotiated means of access. Material conditions were also markedly different from the previous phases of the funeral: within the tomb, funerary rites were conducted in a space dominated by the material detritus of past funerary activity. A significant aspect of interment was the production of a funerary context derived both from the material utilised in the preparatory and processional phases, and from material already present in the chamber.

Dieses Buch präsentiert 200 Objekte aus dem antiken Griechenland, die in Museen der ganzen Welt ausgestellt sind. Sie veranschaulichen den Reichtum der antiken griechischen Kultur und bringen sie dem Leser näher. Die hier beschriebenen Objekte zeigen anhand von Handwerkzeugen des Paläolithikums (vor 200.000 Jahren) bis zum hellenistischen Pergamonaltar (2. Jahrhundert v. Chr.) den Aufstieg zur Hochkultur und den Wandel von soziokulturellen und religiösen Traditionen. Dieses wunderschön illustrierte Buch mit Bildern von jedem Objekt ist eine faszinierende Einführung in eine Kultur, die wie keine andere die westliche Zivilisation beeinflusst hat.

Wino jest najstarszym znanym alkoholem. Prawdopodobnie było również pierwszą
dostępną człowiekowi używką.
Na terenie Egei już od wczesnej epoki brązu wino osiągnęło ważna pozycje jako składnik
diety, ofiara, czy półprodukt w wytwórstwie. To dzięki obecności wina i mięsa uczty i festiwale
mogły pełnić ważne funkcje społeczne.
Badania fizykochemiczne potwierdzają stosowanie wina w medycynie już od
najwcześniejszych okresów epoki brązu. Znane są również liczne dodatki polepszające trwałość
trunku oraz zmieniające jego smak.
Winorośl hodowano a wino tłoczono na różne sposoby uzyskując wiele rodzajów napoju,
który gromadzono i redystrybuowano rozmaitymi drogami. Zachowane dokumenty świadczą o
jego istotnej roli w ekonomii świata mykeńskiego.
Wino stanowiąc cenny symbolicznie i strategicznie towar zachowało swoje znaczenie
także po upadku kultur egejskich.

Vpád morských národov do priestoru starovekého sveta neustále láka pozornosť bádateľov. Je to jeden z najpozoruhodnejších a najtragickejších komplexov udalostí v dejinách ľudstva. Nešlo iba o inváziu bojovníkov na dané územie. Do pohybu sa dali celé
národy, etnické a kultúrne zoskupenia, aby na sklonku doby bronzovej najmä vo východnom Stredomorí, ale aj v iných častiach Eurázie, zmenili dávny svet. Ten už bol po tomto veľkom sťahovaní národov iný.

Beads made out of faience appear in various shapes which are rarely very characteristic for a single period or region. The so-called openwork bead (also called lantern bead) of the Late Bronze Age may represent an exception because of its morphological uniqueness. Hence implications on contacts and trade relations might be deduced from the distribution of these beads. I will discuss the following points: the distribution of the openwork bead in the Central/Eastern Mediterranean and the Near East, the archaeological contexts, the origin of the bead type, the implications of scientific analysis and the question of local and foreign production in vitreous materials in Middle and Late Bronze Age Italy. It will be demonstrated that the openwork bead should be considered a Mycenaean type, and consequently that it might be as useful as ceramics in providing evidence for Mycenaean influence in Northern Italy.

The Dendra panoply was originally discovered by Professor Paul Åström and Dr Nicolaos Verdelis, in tomb 12 in Argolis/Greece, near Midea citadel and is dated on LHIIB period. Since it is considered the first complete set of body armor that has ever been found in the archaeological records, it emerges a series of questions of how a warrior could perform under this panoply. The remit of this thesis is to investigate possible answers on the function and the nature of the Dendra panoply in terms of experimentation. The author uses the work of Åström and Verdelis as his primary source, but supplements it with other significant academic works on this subject. The research expands on the relevant archaeological findings and the Linear B ideograms concerning this type of armor. To better understand the function and effectiveness of the armour a series of experiments were conducted in which a replica of this armor was reconstructed and tested in the context of mobility, stability and in conjuction with the use of several weapons. This thesis mainly argues that this was intended for use by infantry who would use a spear as his main weapon, while his operational task could not have been conducted without the cooperation of light troops. It is highlighted that the Dendra panoply warrior needs a lot of open space and cannot operate efficiently in close-combat conditions. The ability of a Dendra panoply warrior to stand on a chariot, while on charge, remains doubtful.

The paper analyzes the design principles involved in the construction of the 13th century BC Lions Gate at Mycenae. It is shown that this design involves Basic Geometry, namely three circles, an isosceles (quite possibly meant to be equilateral) triangle, and a trapezoid containing a square. Moreover, the paper shows that a modulus of the monument was put in place and the 3-d (cubic) dimensions of the modulus (about 3.80 meters on each side) is derived. Issues related to the monument’s morphology are addressed (it resembles a spear), a feature shown to be shared by all Mycenaean Era tombs’ entrance. The topic or corbelling, a construction feature encountered in the monument, is somewhat extensively elaborated. In addition, the roots of the Mycenaean Lions Gate are traced to the Lions Gate at Hattusa. The Elementary Geometry and more primitive in construction Architecture of the Hittite monument are also examined. The paper concludes with a reference to the broader historical context within which the Lions Gate at Mycenae and that at Hattusa appeared. The 2-century long aftermath, following the collapse of both the Mycenaean and Hittite Civilizations at the end of the 13th century BC, is very briefly reviewed.

Ever since the art of the Aegean world first became accessible, its distinctive ornamental designs have been much admired. The floral and foliate motifs and the spiral and circular patterns, which seem to be the essence of Minoan and Mycenaean design, have been extensively discussed to bring out an appreciation of the underlying geometry. In this paper I should like to press the enquiry a little further, and, concentrating on the earlier periods, ask: Just how much geometry did the Minoans really know?

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.

The presence of imported and locally produced Mycenaean pottery in western Anatolia has long caught the attention of scholars and various explanatory models have been proposed to explain the apparent attractiveness of the pottery. In most cases, however, emphasis is placed on the (stylistic) differences between Mycenaean pottery and the various local plain wares, and it is assumed that these differences were actively recognised by local communities and exploited in the formation of social identities. This paper, however, pilots a different approach that focuses not on the stylistic differences between Mycenaean pottery and the various Anatolian wares but on the (perceived) common ground(s) between them and argues that the attractiveness of Mycenaean and previously Minoan pottery lay not so much in its cultural origins or its ‘foreignness’ but rather in its potential to fit in with existing local material assemblages and enhance a sense of communality among cosmopolitan communities.

La sociedad griega mantuvo siempre una marcada diferenciación de roles femeninos y masculinos, lo cual tuvo una enorme influencia en la creación de su espacio mitológico. Las mujeres que transgredían el modelo establecido y aceptado socialmente eran rápidamente identificadas como aquellas que habían cedido a su naturaleza innata, abandonando el orden que las mantenía dentro del mundo civilizado para regresar a la barbarie, como sucedía con las amazonas.
No obstante, también existían aquellas mujeres que, celosas de desempeñar su rol a la perfección se convirtieron en un ejemplo social a seguir, fomentado por la vertiente masculina de la sociedad e inmortalizado por la literatura, tal fue el caso de la esposa de Odiseo, Penélope.

On the origin of the Homeric word for bath: Asaminthos.

On the meaning and etymology of the archaic Greek word ἀσάμινθος, meaning « bathtub », which occurs eleven times in Homer. As a legitimate Mycenaean word (a-sa-mi-to) for a kind of vessel that could be found in any Mycenaean palace, this Linear B term derives from an « Aegean » suffix « -inth- » being appended to an Akkadian loan word with the root « namsû » « washbowl, washing tub ». This luxurious item of the Mycenaean palace culture, which had physically fallen into disuse during the Dark Age, and whose very name had no doubt been forgotten in the vernacular, survived by being embedded in a fossilized system of formulas - a system that can be traced back through the Dark Age to its origins in Mycenaean epic verse.