Part III. Commentary

Abstract

Tsountas, as a result of his own excavations in the prehistoric cemeteries of Mycenae, came to the conclusion that the geographical distribution of the tombs in well-defined groups was not accidental, but designed. He found that the tombs were arranged in groups of eight, ten, or more lying close together in definite localities clearly separated from one another. This division of the cemeteries which lie near the Acropolis of Mycenae to the north, north-west, west, and south-west at the foot of the mountain of Hagios Elias, and in the sides of the various ridges that run south-westwards from it, he interpreted as meaning that the inhabitants of Mycenae lived in small villages or townships on these hills, and buried their dead in cemeteries hewn out of the sides of the ridges whereon they dwelt. The Acropolis was little more than a fortified palace protecting with its cyclopean walls the royal house, the great officers of state, chamberlains, captains of the guard, and the necessary servants or slaves, together of course with enough trusty guards to defend the walls in case of danger. The inhabitants of the separate villages were the ordinary civilian population, and Tsountas suggests that they lived in clans or groups of families, and that they continued in the tomb the clanship they had maintained in life. With the knowledge at present available these conclusions of Tsountas are eminently reasonable, and nothing found in the course of our excavations in the prehistoric tombs of Mycenae leads us to disagree with him on these points, for, as has been seen above and as will be explained below, the tombs we excavated have every appearance of being family sepulchres used by the same families over a considerable period of years.