Mycenaean Greece Research Articles

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Cyprus has received attentions of many foreign powers because of her copper and her suitable location for the trade and the strategic point in the east Mediterranean.Her relation with Mycenaean civilization can be roughly divided into three stages as follows;1) the trade. Its zenith was shown by the overwhelming appearance of the Pictorial style pottery in Cyprus, wherever the homeland of this style might be. Not as the colonists but as the residents, especially at Enkomi and Kition, the Mycenaean merchants and craftmen were engagedin the trade with the Mycenaean world and the Levant. Though this trade brought Cyprus prosperity, it seems that they had not so great political power in Cyprus. And by the 13th century B. C. they became independent from the Mainland to some extent. Cyprus had not belonged to the Mycenaean world yet.2) the refuge of the Mycenaean civilization. Soon after a series of the destructions in the Mycenaean world at the end of the 13th century B. C., Cyprus also suffered from destructions but in the rebuilt cities we can see the high standard of the technique of LH. IIIB which no more in the Mainland. Before the culture of the Mycenaean refugees gave influences on that of Cyprus fundamentally, there happened the second destruction in Cyprus and many destricts were desolated. Both destructions in Cyprus, I think, were caused by the Sea People. The Mycenaean Greeks among them played the leading part in their movements toward the east. The Trojan war, for instance, was one of the conflicts between them and the great powers of the east. After the final destruction in c. 1150 B. C., the Mycenaean Greeks again began to immigrate in Cyprus and other places. This series of immigrants succeeded in establishing themselves in Cyprus and introduced the Granary class pottery which influenced on the Cypriot ones. When Cyprus got out of the following Dark Ages, she had been almost completely hellenized.3) influence on the Greek world. Though the center of the culture had disappeared and the so called Dark Ages had begun, the Mycenaean way of life in the Mainland still continued in narrow streams untill the middle of the 11th century B. C., when iron used as working tools and the Protogeometric pottery appeared. These novelities, which seem to have received some influences from Cyprus or through Cyprus from somewhere in the east, introduced the new era.

Syrian and Anatolian Bronze Age figurines in Europe

This paper attempts to bring together all the figurines of Syrian and Anatolian character that have been recorded from Bronze Age Europe. Several groups are distinguished, Syrian figurines from south Russia, Hittite and Syrian figurines from Mycenaean Greece, figurines from northern Europe, and post-Mycenaean forms in Greece.Notes to the text appear at the end of the paper.

Was Homer a Liar?

...une tradition à la fois antique et directe, ininterrompue, orale, deformée, méconnaissable et vivante.M. ProustThis is a deliberately provocative title, chosen in an iconoclastic moment, when I was annoyed by reading yet another book, in which the author prostrates himself abjectly before the altar of Homer the historian. The worship of this false god has reached such proportions that every writer on Mycenaean Greece devotes a great deal of space to what Homer says, and spends page after page trying to reconcile the Homeric account with the archaeological evidence. The idea that Homer can tell us about the Mycenaean Age dies hard; it is time to administer the coup de grâce.

Greek Funerary Animals, 450-300 B. C.

Mythological beasts, the sphinx chiefly, belong in a wider study of classical grave monuments, but it can be noted that among the Attic animals of the fourth century there is at least one griffin, poised nowadays on top of a Roman rectangular tomb in the little park behind the Hephaisteion. The creature is, unfortunately, headless and thus cannot be associated to a satisfying degree of precision with any cousins that are birds in the Mycenaean period (Lefkandi), self-contained quadrupeds in archaic times (Olympia bronzes, Burdur plaques), and felines in the Hellenistic age (Belevi, Tarentine gilded terracottas). The mourning Siren atop marble shafts falls outside this study.*

The Development of Mycenaean Terracotta Figurines

Mycenaean figurines have been known for as long as Mycenaean pottery itself, for they were found both by Biliotti on Rhodes and by Schliemann at Mycenae. It was, however, Schliemann's (1878, 10 ff.) imaginative interpretation of female and bovine figures alike as representations of ox-eyed Hera that ensured their conspicuous place in the history of Mycenaean culture and religion. Not only did he illustrate a considerable number in his works, but he also preserved with great care all fragments found. Indeed, even today there are some five hundred figurines from his excavations in the National Museum at Athens, and others have gone as gifts to the museums of Europe. These finds, with those of the Greek excavations at Nauplia, supplied a happy hunting ground for early scholars of prehistoric religion such as Mayer (1892) and Reichel (1897).

‘House’ and ‘Palace’ in Homer

The interesting thing about the word for ‘palace’ in Homer is that there is no such word. All the words that mean ‘house’ (δόμος, δῶ, δῶμα, μέγαρον, οἶκος, οἰκία) may be applied to a royal palace, but all of them (and their plurals) may equally well be used of the house of an ordinary citizen, μέγαρον is often translated ‘palace’, or some other word with connotations of kingly majesty. But it too, when it is not more narrowly localised to the living-room, means just a house in general.Just as there is no separate word to designate a palace in Homer (τὰ βασίλεια occurs first in Herodotus), so a qualifying adjective is never used to indicate that a particular house is ‘royal’ (the first occurrence of such a periphrasis is βασίλειοι οἶκοι Aeschylus, Ag. 157). In fact, to Homer there is no sharp distinction between a palace and a house, except that a king is likely to have a bigger and better home, more sumptuously furnished.The Iliad and the Odyssey are much concerned with kings. So it is odd that no word serves to designate the king's palace and no other dwelling, especially when the poet so delights in describing the splendour of royal homes (for example, the description of Alcinous' palace and its grounds in Od. vii 81 ff.). The major archaeological sites of the Mycenaean period, in which the main stories of the poems are set, all contain a palace which is easily recognised, even in its ruinous state. Can one imagine a new arrival at a great Mycenaean site needing to be shown which was the palace, as Odysseus was shown at Phaeacia? It seems highly unlikely that the Mycenaeans should have had no special word for a palace, though there is so far no firm evidence for (or against) the existence of such a word in Linear B. If a ‘palace’ word existed, its special significance, if not the word itself, must have been forgotten by Homer's time, when a great many houses might be found within the city wall, as at Smyrna. There may, however, be traces of the ‘palace’ meaning still detectable.In Table 1, which has been compiled from the concordances of Prendergast and Dunbar, I have tabulated the frequency with which each of the regular words for ‘house’ is used to denote a dwelling occupied by gods, lesser divinities, mortals or animals. Various interesting points arise from this table.It is apparent that there is a far higher proportion of gods' houses mentioned in the Iliad than in the Odyssey. The figures for δόμος and δῶμα show this particularly clearly. But the difference is probably due entirely to the subject-matter: far more of the action is taken up with scenes among the gods in the Iliad than in the Odyssey.

Olive production in Greece

The great triangular pediment over the west entrance to the Parthenon in Athens depicted the legendary contest between the goddess Athena and Poseidon, god of the sea, for control of Attica and Athens. Athena offered the olive tree and wisdom; Poseidon offered the horse and the power of the sea. The decision went to Athena, who became the patron of the city (12). Athena's sacred olive tree, according to the Greek historian, Herodotus, writing in the 5th Century B.C., was burned by the Persians but sprouted again from the roots. The present sacred olive tree (Fig. 1) of Athena was planted in more recent times and now grows at the top of Athens' rocky Acropolis near the Erechtheum, home of the famous Caryatids. The cultivated olive certainly must have had its beginning as selections from the wild olive, which seems to have originated in the eastern Mediterranean region (4, 5). The olive tree has been grown in Greece at least since the time of the Minoan civilization on the island of Crete, circa 3,000 B.C. Engravings of olive trees on vases, frescos, and rings unearthed at the palace at Knossos show that the people of that era ate olives and used olive oil as a fuel for their earthen lamps. A gold cup (Fig. 2) found among remnants of the Mycenaean civilization in

Chemistry Probing the Past

Chemistry Probing the Past

Progress into the past: The Rediscovery of Mycenaean Civilization. William A. McDonald

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsProgress into the past: The Rediscovery of Mycenaean Civilization. William A. McDonald Chester G. StarrChester G. Starr Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Classical Philology Volume 63, Number 4Oct., 1968 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/365421 Views: 1Total views on this site Copyright 1968 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Progress into the Past: The Rediscovery of Mycenaean Civilization. By <italic>William A. McDonald</italic>. (New York: Macmillan Company. 1967. Pp. xx, 476. $9.95.)

Progress into the Past: The Rediscovery of Mycenaean Civilization. By William A. McDonald. (New York: Macmillan Company. 1967. Pp. xx, 476. $9.95.) Get access Progress into the Past: The Rediscovery of Mycenaean Civilization. By McDonald William A.. (New York: Macmillan Company. 1967. Pp. xx, 476. $9.95.) Emmett L. Bennett, Jr. Emmett L. Bennett, Jr. University of Wisconsin Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 74, Issue 1, October 1968, Pages 117–118, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/74.1.117 Published: 01 October 1968

Progress into the Past: The Rediscovery of Mycenaean Civilization

Progress into the Past: The Rediscovery of Mycenaean Civilization

Chronological Problems of the Early Bronze Age Early Bronze I-II: The City of Arad Early Bronze III: The Khirbet Kerak Ware

PERIOD V. The transition from Lerna IV to Lerna V occurred without a serious break in continuity. Apsidal house plans persisted, often appearing directly above the place of an older building. Gray Minyan ware was made in canonical Middle Helladic shapes, the kantharos and the ring-stemmed goblet. Some stone implements are like those of Period IV. Innovations include dark Argive and light yellow Minyan wares, Matt-painted pots, and a class of vessels with decoration in lustrous paint (not well known before Lerna was excavated). Intramural burials in cist graves became very common suddenly. Bones of horses and domestic fowl are now found for the first time. Much wider foreign contacts are attested by the appearance of small handmade flasks, possibly from the Balkans, and imported Middle Minoan IA pottery in the first phase of Lerna V. As the period progresses, with many successive building levels, there are examples of MM II and MM III ceramic styles and corresponding types of Cycladic pottery. The latest Middle Helladic strata have been lost by erosion in most parts of the site, but there is no reason to doubt that the transition to the Mycenaean period was gradual, as elsewhere in the Argolid. Two large shaft graves, much like those of Circle B at Mycenae, were found to have been emptied and refilled in antiquity. In the filling were great quantities of potsherds reflecting late MH styles and those of LH I. We call this period Lerna VI.

Climatic Change in Mycenaean Greece

The essence of historical research is the search for the cause of a major event. The same applies to prehistoric research, except that the documents cited in evidence lack written records and may require greater speculation.One of the major events in the history of Greece was the fall of the Mycenaean civilization, which occurred about 1200-1100 BC and ushered in the Greek Dark Ages, when populations in the former Mycenaean lands were small and political organization dispersed. Although falling, strictly, within the historic period, thanks to the recent decipherment of Mycenaean written documents, the available records merely illustrate some of the business transactions of several flourishing kingdoms they give no clues to the cause for the abrupt demise of the culture.It is on this subject, with its paucity of direct evidence, that Professor Rhys Carpenter introduces some speculations drawn from natural science-the notion that climatic change in southern Greece caused repeated failure of crops and the consequent breakdown of the Mycenaean economy.

Hellenosemitica: An Ethnic and Cultural Study in West Semitic Impact on Mycenaean Greece. Michael C. Astour

<i>Hellenosemitica: An Ethnic and Cultural Study in West Semitic Impact on Mycenaean Greece</i>. Michael C. Astour

REVIEWS

REVIEWS Get access MICHAEL C. ASTOUR, Hellenosemitica. An Ethnic and Cultural Study on West Semitic Impact on Mycenaean Greece. 1965. With a foreword by Cyrus H. Gordon. Pp. 414 + 2 maps. ( E. J. Brill, Leiden. Price: 45 guilders.) R. D. BARNETT R. D. BARNETT Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of Semitic Studies, Volume 13, Issue 2, AUTUMN 1968, Pages 256–258, https://doi.org/10.1093/jss/13.2.256 Published: 01 January 1968

Minoan and Mycenaean Art

This survey describes and illustrates in detail all the significant works of art and architecture of ancient Crete and Mycenae and of the Cycladic Islands. An important event in the history of archaeology was the discovery by Heinrich Schliemann in 1876, of the treasures in the citadel of Mycenae - the home of the legendary King Agamemnon. The excavations of Sir Arthur Evans in 1900, at the palace of King Minos of Knossos was equally important archaeologically. Such treasures that were found are frescoes and gold funeral masks from the third and second millenia BC. This revised edition includes greater coverage of the frescoes from Akrotir, on the island of Thera. Other recent findings are described and illustrated in detail, such as the unique ivory figurine from Palaikastro, objects from the palace of Mallia and the intriguing discovery of Minoan-style frescoes in Egypt.

Progress into the Past. The Rediscovery of Mycenaean Civilization

Progress into the Past. The Rediscovery of Mycenaean Civilization

The specialisation of labour in early Greek society

In ancient, as in modern, Greece specialised work was carried out by professionals, who, in early antiquity, were organised in hereditary guilds. In an emergency, however, the services of an amateur might be used. The ability of Odysseus to build a boat and bed is a measure of the hero's versatility and not evidence of a simple society in which labour was less specialised than during the Mycenaean period. The Homeric and Hesiodic poems suggest that, although one collected the material required oneself, a skilled craftsman was responsible for the actual process of construction.

The Cambridge Ancient History Revised Edition, Volume II, Chapter XXVII. The Recession of Mycenaean Civilization

The Cambridge Ancient History Revised Edition, Volume II, Chapter XXVII. The Recession of Mycenaean Civilization

Hellenosemitica: An Ethnic and Cultural Study in West Semitic Impact on Mycenaean Greece

Hellenosemitica: An Ethnic and Cultural Study in West Semitic Impact on Mycenaean Greece