Mycenaean warrior grave find at Pylos

[Duncan Head]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/27/science/a-warriors-grave-at-pylos-greece-could-be-a-gateway-to-civilizations.html?_r=0
http://magazine.uc.edu/editors_picks/recent_features/warrior_tomb.html

includes a sword and some very nice seal-stones.

[Patrick Waterson]

Nice find, Duncan.

It also includes a historical conundrum: shaft graves are traditionally assumed to be Mycenaean ("I have gazed upon the face of Agamemnon," etc.) but this one is occupied by an individual whose associated goods are Minoan.

Given the penchant of Homeric heroes for cremation, I wonder if these shaft graves are in fact Carian.  When Delos became the centre of the Athenian - I mean of course the Delian - League, it was purified by the removal of all corpses from the island, and "it was found that above half their inmates were Carians: they were identified by the fashion of the arms buried with them, and by the method of interment, which was the same as the Carians still follow." (Thucydides I.8.1)

Unfortunately Thucydides does not describe the 'fashion of the arms buried with them' or the 'method of interment', but one is left wondering ...

[Duncan Head]

It also includes a historical conundrum: shaft graves are traditionally assumed to be Mycenaean ("I have gazed upon the face of Agamemnon," etc.) but this one is occupied by an individual whose associated goods are Minoan.

Are they?

Shaft graves originated in Crete in the late Bronze Age (c. 1600–1450 BC) in the Minoan culture, and then spread to the Mycenaean culture.

True shaft graves of the type found in Grave Circles A and B at Mycenae are relatively rare on the Greek Mainland. ... Other shaft graves of the same period are known from Argos, but those from Knossos on Crete, Kambi on Zakynthos, and several sites in Attica (Alyki, Athens, Perati, perhaps Varkiza) are all considerably later.

[Patrick Waterson]

They certainly were when Schliemann was hard at it: since then, shaft graves have been cropping up in a variety of places and cultures around the Aegean.

They have also, one observes, raised other conundra, as noted on the dartmouth.edu page:

Stone Vases

The examples from the Shaft Graves are of standard Minoan types. Ostrich-egg rhyta are probably also Minoan products, although the raw material clearly comes from Egypt or Syria.

Seals and Signet Rings

The technology to make these, and even the idea of the seal as an artifactual form, are Minoan, there having been no seals in use on the Mainland at any point during the earlier MH period. The scenes of warfare and the chase on several of these seals and rings are again Mycenaean in spirit.

Amber

The raw material for numerous large necklaces of amber beads is imported from the Baltic to the far north and was brought to Mycenae by means of a lengthy and no doubt complex exchange network which apparently did not involve Crete at all.

Pottery

The ceramic assemblage from the Shaft Graves is a mixture of Mainland (mostly Gray and Yellow Minyan, fine and relatively coarse Matt-painted), Minoan (some LM IA imports) and Minoanizing (some imitations of MM III light-on-dark-painted vessels whose center of production is as yet unknown), and Cycladic (Matt-painted vessels including several decorated with polychrome patterns) types. Interestingly, the major non-Helladic ceramic component is Cycladic rather than Minoan.

Conclusion

Dickinson observes, "The heterogeneity [of Shaft Grave material] extends to the decoration, and suggests that the craftsmen were manufacturing individual objets d'art rather than an established corpus of types, and had considerable reason to experiment. This would most easily fit a situation in which industries were being newly established on the Mainland, without strong previous traditions." He continues, "...what is clearly lacking is any large or characteristic group of objects whose parallels must be sought elsewhere than the Aegean, and this tells very strongly against any theory that the Shaft Grave people were foreign."


The Problem

The Mycenaean period begins with a great "bang". The contents of the Shaft Graves are the richest finds ever made in the Aegean area. The contrast with the general poverty of the MH period is immensely striking. How is such sudden, dramatic, and peculiarly localized change to be explained?

Curiouser and curiouser ... I think the assumed poverty of the Middle Helladic may be seriously overrated, however.

Overall, the collections seem too eclectic to be properly Minoan or properly Mycenaean, but well suited to potentially peripatetic influential Carians.  Dickinson's conclusion that the shaft grave people were not 'foreign' depends upon the lack of any large or characteristic group of objects whose parallels must be sought elsewhere than the Aegean, the latter being the Carians' traditional stamping-ground.

[Duncan Head]

A more recent article at http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/golden-warrior-greek-tomb-exposes-roots-western-civilization-180961441/ discusses the significance of the combination of Minoan and Mycenaean elements in the Pylos grave.

[Patrick Waterson]

It reflects a reluctant change in the Mycenaean/Minoan influence debate from 'either or' to 'both and'.

Progress, at least.