/lecture/B2p2v/mycenaean-civilization-ca-1500-1150-bce
We spoke last time about the Minoan civilization, about its slightly troubled past that is, at least in terms of its archaeology and history, about the vision of Sir Arthur Evans, the excavator there. And how it shaped what he did at Knossos. We also mentioned a couple of larger, sort of thematic issues, or interpretive issues such as the peer-polity model, re-distributive economy, etcetera. We're going to be coming back to some of those. Because now, we're going to move from Crete, up onto the mainland, and to this site, called Mycenes. As with Minoans, so with Mycenian, we have to remember that these are just labels of convenience. This was a peer polity situation. That is you had a number of communities that were organized along the same lines, engaged in competition and emulation with each other, shared certain cultural values, and engaged in some kind of trade. As we look at the site of Mycenae itself, one of the things I think we're first struck by, is the fact that it is on top of this hill. It's a fairly steep hill. The Mycenaean sites share a general predilection, a preference for, a location that can be easily defended, and a location that has access to ample fresh water. Mycenes itself, for example, has not one, but two springs supplying it. As on Crete, so on the mainland, we have a charismatic archaeologist, whose name is forever to be linked with this site. In this instance, it's the German, Heinrich Schliemann. Born in 1822, he made his fortune as a very successful international businessman. He traveled quite widely, including to Russia and the United States, he knew any number of foreign languages, estimates vary. And then, having made his fortune in middle age, he decided that he wanted to devote his life to archaeology. There's a whole mythology around Schliemann, about how, when he was a child at his dad's knee, his Dad had infused him with a love for Homer. Eh, probably not, but he none the less set about trying to define what Homeric reality might have been like, trying to locate the events of the Iliad and the Odyssey in the real world. He went first, to Troy, as he said. And he found a site in the northwest corner of modern day Turkey, called Hissarlik. And as he dug down he found a stratum, roughly about the time of what the legendary Trojan war would have been. And he found there an enormous amount of treasure, which, of course, he called Priam's treasure, After the name of, king of Troy, in the Iliad. And here you see Schliemann's young wife, Sophia, wearing some of the jewelry that he found there. This was a spectacular, popular hit, news of the excavations at Troy were diffused through the popular press. Schliemann became, one might say, an international celebrity. He then moved on to the Greek mainland, to the ancient Bronze Age site of Mycenae. You can see him here, perched on top of one of the great walls next to the famous Lion Gate, which is the main entrance to this site with a number of, another archeaologist. And we can identify Dorpfeld up there in the little window. And in 1874, Schliemann again, at least allegedly, claiming to be guided by the voice of Homer, began to excavate at Mycenae. Now one of the things that you probably have noticed already is how very different the construction is here from what it was at Knossos. Here, this is clearly built for defense, I've mentioned this already. And in fact, these massive stones are so big that they came to be called Cyclopian. Because it was thought that only a creature as big as a cyclops, massive and massively muscled, could've carved these stones and lifted them into place. As Schliemann began his excavation, he found a grave circle, quite unusually within the city walls, usually cemeteries are outside the city. And these graves had a number of distinctive features. They were marked with upright slabs, tombstones, gravestones, called stelae, like this one. With carvings, many of them, in high relief, this one showing some kind of battle scene, it seems, with a warrior and a chariot about to spear another warrior standing on the ground. The whole content of Mycenean art is much more aggressive as we'll see, then that of Minoan art, even in the condition that we have it. These stelae were meant to mark out graves. Some people have called them sort of imaginary doors to the underworld, the boundary markers between the world of the living and the world of the dead. There are no names on any of these. The elite who were buried here didn't leave behind any identification. What they did leave behind, however, was gold, an enormous quantity and extraordinary quality. Among the most famous things that Schliemann found were funeral masks such as this one, which were put over the face of the deceased. Or, this one, which has come to be called the mask of Agamemnon, the famous Greek hero who figures so large in the Iliad. As with Arthur Evans, however, there's some questions about Schliemann. This mask, for example, is unlike any of the others that were found. If you think about the one we just saw a second ago it's much rounder. This one has unique features, such as these eyes, that look like they're simultaneously open and closed. The elegant, up-curling mustache, the fact that the ears are separated from the surrounding panel. Some people have gone so far as to claim that Schliemann had this made, by a contemporary goldsmith and simply put it in the find. Some people still very much believe this, I'm less persuaded. I think that what has happened, is as one scholar has suggested, that this was a genuine find that was, so to speak, cleaned up, or to use Arthur Evans' term, reconstituted. It is an extraordinarily elegant piece. Schliemann's reputation is, among some people somewhere between sketchy and nefarious. I don't want to go into that right now because what I'd like to do, is to concentrate on what he found, which as I say, was gold in abundance. Those members of the elite who had themselves interred in these deep shaft graves, called cyst graves, took with them treasure in enormous quantity. The Mycenaean Lords supported this high degree of craftsmanship and the people who could make it. Here's another set from the Archaeological Museum in Athens. These were used both for personal adornment and display and they played a very important role in trade. At this time Greece was very much part of a network of East Aegean Economies. It didn't look that different from places in the middle east, with a ruling elite, an agricultural base, production of luxury goods. And these luxury goods circulated among the members of this class no matter where they were living, in Greece, or elsewhere. Sometime, somebody commissioned this extraordinary bulls head rhyton, it might remind you of the one we saw from Knossos. Gold horns, beautiful gold rosette on the forehead. Or this dagger, this is actually a relatively small piece, not much bigger than this. But with this intricate inlay of gold and silver showing a hunting scene, again that, that hint of violence, more than a hint. Some time after the cyst graves, and the, of the grave circles, the Mycenaeans constructed those enormous cyclopian walls and they also began to treat their dead somewhat differently from before. Instead of the cyst graves, now they enhumed their dead or they buried, I shouldn't say enhumed, but they buried their dead in these massive tombs called tholos tombs. These have a long runway, these are built into the side of a hill. They have a long runway, this one, the so called Treasury of Atreus, is some 115 feet long, what would that be about 45 meters, is very long. The interior has a dome, a bee hived shape dome, we'll see that in a second, some 38 feet high. And it's been estimated that this single piece of stone above the doorway, might way as much as 100 tons. Again, vast amounts of anonymous labor must have been conscripted to make this. Here's the view inside. And what's extraordinary as well is, that every time it seems, that a burial is performed here, they have to dig out that whole long entry way, which had been covered in after the last burial. Then the deceased were brought in, put in a pit inside here, their goods burned on a pyre above them, and then, it was sealed up until the next time. This provides evidence of tremendous social stratification. The picture that we get, is of a warrior elite, at the top of the social pyramid, engaged in rivalry with other elites nearby. Some kind of international, if I can use that anachronistic term, trade with others of their class elsewhere. And also supporting technologies, not only of gold, but of literacy, because like the Minoans the Myceneans were literate. In the proto-Greek that we call linear B, here is a Mycenaean linear B tablet. It's one of the little ironies that the flames that engulfed the Mycenaean Citadels baked these clay tablets, which were never meant to be preserved for a very long time. They were just sort of temporary notations of storehouse contents, and saved them for us. Archaeologists love catastrophe, it leaves them a rich deposit on which to work. But we also get indications of social unrest or at least of high military prepardness. One of the most famous pieces of art from the Mycenaean times, is the so-called warrior vase showing men with spears in their right hands, shields over their left arms, some kind of armor. I want you to look especially carefully at the helmets. Because one of the most extraordinary objects that survives is a boar's tusk helmet, that is in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. And this is, Homer describes this kind of helmet. He talks about his warriors wearing this sort of headgear to protect themselves. Whatever the cause, we'll talk about that more next time, Mycenaean civilization underwent a sudden, massive systemic collapse. Between 1200 and 1150 BCE, in one citadel site after another, we find evidence of burning, and pillaging, and destruction. The inhabitants were killed or dispersed. Their homes left for scavenging, maybe for people who are just sort of camping out there from then on. Next time we'll talk about some of the reasons why this might have happened and what happened afterward.
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