Week 2- Early Greece and the Mycenaean Age

Importance of Greece

·        Greek tradition: a major element in the development of Western thought (in Middle Ages through Latin, and since the Renaissance through direct study of Greek).

·        Philosophy, history, literature, Classical architecture.

·        Greek: Indo-European language.

·        During the Bronze Age, speakers of Greek entered mainland Greece.

·        Where they came from and when they arrived are complicated issues (lack of writings).

Archaeology Of Greece

·        Before the 1870s, our main source was Homer (The Iliad, about the Trojan War).

·        Nobody in the early 19th.century put much faith in all this.

·        To write about early Greek history was considered as impossible.

·        But in the 1870s Heinrich Schliemann used the geographical notices in the Iliad to find Troy in Western Asia Minor.

·        Other discoveries: Mycenae, home of Agamemnon, in the 1870s and Tiryns in the 1890s.

·        Mycenae gave the designation of the culture.

·        In 1900 Arthur Evans dug up a huge site in Crete: Knossos.

·        A new culture was found, called Minoan after king Minos.

·        Also at Knossos were found many baked tablets with an unknown pictorial script on them.

·        In 1939, Americans began digging at Pylos (Nestor’s place) and found a palace with more of these tablets.

Writing in Bronze Age Greece

·        Sir Arthur Evans uncovered a great many clay tablets inscribed with an unknown script.

·        Some were older: Linear A.

·        The bulk were of more recent vintage: Linear B.

·        Evans spent the next several decades trying to decipher both, to no avail.

·        He was convinced that Linear B was a language he called "Minoan."

·        After his death, Alice Kober noted common aspects of Linear B with Greek.

·        Using this clue, Michael Ventris and John Chadwick, during the 50s, deciphered the Linear B and proved that the underlying language was archaic Greek.

·        Linear B is thus a script that was used for writing Mycenaean, an early form of Greek.

·        This early form of Greek preceded the Greek alphabet by several centuries.

·        Partly syllabic, with additional logographic signs.

·        The other script (Linear A) is still undecipherable.

Minoans

Geography of Crete

·        Located in the center of the eastern Mediterranean at the crossroads of Africa, Asia, and Europe.

·        About 200 Km from east to west, and between 12 to 58 Km from north to south.

·        One of the largest islands in the Mediterranean sea.

·        The temperate climate.

·        Decentralized culture based on the abundance of the land's natural resources, and on intense commercial activity.

·        Important forest in ancient times.

Economy and naval power

·        Crete exported timbers, food, cypress wood, wine, currants, olive oil, wool, cloth, herbs, and purple dye.

·        Its imports: precious stones, copper (from Cyprus), ivory, silver, gold, and other raw material.

·        They also imported tin (for bronze alloys) from far.

·        Cultural influences from Egypt, Syria  and Mesopotamia.

·        Significant naval power.

·        In contact with all the major civilizations without being threatened by external forces.

·        Credited as the first European civilization.

Chronology of Crete

·        Archaeological evidence of habitation since the 7th millennium BC.

·        After the 5th millennium BC, first evidence of hand-made ceramic pottery: beginning of the civilization.

·        Evans named this civilization "Minoan" after the legendary king Minos.

·        He divided the Minoan civilization into three eras on the basis of the stylistic changes of the pottery:

o       Early (3000-2100 BC),

o       Middle (2100-1500 BC),

o       Late Minoan period (1500-1100 BC).

·        A better chronology was developed by N. Platon, which is based on the palaces' destruction and reconstruction (adjusted later thanks to archaeological discoveries):

o       Prepalatial (2600-1900 BC),

o       Protopalatial (1900-1700 BC),

o       Neopalatial (1700-1400 BC),

o       Postpalatial (1400-1150 BC).

Prepalatial Minoan Crete (3500-2000 BC)

·        Neolithic period: major settlements at Myrtos and Mochlos.

·        Contact with Egypt, Asia Minor, and Syria (trade for copper, tin, ivory, and gold).

·        Decentralized culture with no powerful landlords and no centralized authority.

·        Palaces focused around communities.

·        Tholos tombs were the major architectural structures of the time.

·        Society without hierarchical structure : the tholos tombs were used for centuries by entire villages.

·        Most of the tholos tombs were circular.

Protopalatial Minoan Crete (2000-1800 BC)

·        Began with social upheaval, external dangers, and migrations from mainland Greece and Asia Minor.

·        Around 2000 BC: new political system, authority concentrated around a king.

·        The first large palaces were founded: centers for their respective communities.

·        Development of a bureaucratic administration.

·        Social hierarchy: nobles, peasants, and perhaps slaves.

·        Peaceful and prosperous period.

·        Minoans continued to trade with Egypt and the Middle East.

·        Construction of a paved road network to connect the major cultural centers.

·        Development of some settlements outside the palaces.

·        Extensive use of tholos tombs.

·        The palaces were destroyed in 1700 BC by forces unknown to us (earthquake? Invaders?).

Neopalatial Minoan Crete (1800-1550 BC)

·        Destroyed palaces quickly rebuilt on the ruins.

·        Time of Knossos, Phaistos, Malia, and Zakros.

·        Appearance of villas in the rural landscape (modeled after the palaces).

·        Lesser centers of power away from the palaces, and homes for affluent landlords.

·        Evidence of administrative and economic unity throughout the island.

·        Minoan Crete reach its zenith.

·        Women played a powerful role in society.

·        The paved road network vastly expanded.

·        Minoan culture dominates the Aegean islands and expands into the Peloponnese.

·        The Minoan culture's fusion with the Helladic traditions of the time eventually morphed into the Mycenaean civilization.

End of Minoan supremacy

·        The Mycenaean civilization challenged the Minoan supremacy in the Aegean with their own powerful fleet.

·        Beginning of Mycenaean influence in Minoan Crete.

·        Life became more militaristic (large number of weapons).

·        Destruction of most of the palaces and villas of the country side in the middle of the 15th century.

·        Destruction of Knossos in 1500.

·        During this late period, the Mycenaeans controlled the entire island.

·        Uncertainty about the causes for this sudden interruption of the Minoan civilization (invasion of outside forces? eruption of the Thera volcano?).

• After that, diminuition of Mycenaean influence on Crete (local leaders).
• 13^th century: prosperity again.
• 1200 BC, many Cretan settlements destroyed and abandoned (Sea Peoples?).

Minoan Religion.

• Religion probably the base of Minoan rulership.
• Minoan religion:  a hotly contested subject.
• Numerous interpretations linked to the study of images.
• Elements: caves, grottoes, mountains, bronze and terracotta figurines, vases, double headed axes, pairs of horns.
• Remnants of a former aniconic cult (the cult of the pillar).
• Central female divinity (Mother Goddess).
• Minoan king: the presiding priest of the cult?
• Blood sacrifices (bull, favored victim?).
• Religion intimately involved with natural life than that of those other cultures.

The Great Goddess

• Protectress of all living creatures; goddess of the underworld.
• Among figures found, divinities are overwhelmingly female.
• Great Goddess associated with doves and snakes (connection with air and earth).
• Also lions.
• Kinship with nature and outdoor life.

The Double Axe (Labrys)

• The most common of all Minoan religious symbols.
• A sacrificial instrument?
• Connected with the mythological name for Minos' Palace: Labyrinthos.
• It is the house of the double axe, the temple of the Goddess.

The Cretan Zeus

• The male Deity is rarely represented and usually on a smaller scale than female figures.
• Young god.
• He may have been introduced by the Mycenaeans (they had him born by the Earth Goddess in her own Cave Sanctuary, gave him her symbol of sovereignty – the Double Axe).
• Reconciliation of two religious systems, one having a God, the other a Goddess, as Chief Divinities.
• Zeus Kourous, or young Zeus found in Palaikastro.
• The divine young Cretan Zeus dies and is resurrected each year in the spring to ensure the renewal of the vegetation cycle.

Mycenaeans (early Greeks)

The Early Helladic Period, ~2750-2000 BC

• Between 3000 BC and 2000 BC, arrival of a metal-using agricultural, non Indo-European people.
• Some of their geographical names were preserved by the Greeks ("-ssos")
• We know almost nothing of these people. "Early Helladic" period.
• Around 2000 BC, sites destroyed in fire or abandoned outright.
• A new invader imposed himself: the Greek.

 The Middle Helladic Period, ~2000 BC-1550 BC

• They settled all the parts of Greece and began to dominate Greek culture.
• Indo-Europeans (speaking Greek).
• Society primarily based on warfare; their leaders were essentially war-chiefs.
• They traded with the Minoans.
• Under their influence, they began to urbanize and translated their culture into a civilization.

 The Late Helladic Period, ~1550 BC-1150 BC

• Around 1600 BC, their cities grew larger, their graves more opulent, their art more common, their agriculture more efficient, and the power of these new warlord cities began to be felt around the Aegean.
• Period of the Mycenaeans proper.
• For four centuries their culture thrived until it fell.
• For thousands of years, their civilization was only known through literature (Homer), until Schliemann’s discoveries (Troy, Mycenae, Tiryns).

The wanax

• Archaeology tells us very little about the Mycenaeans.
• They derived much of their culture from the Minoans, but with some important differences.
• Mycenaean society was monarchical : a wanax (king) ruled over a large administration as a kind of head bureaucrat.
• The kings accumulated vast wealth in concentrated form.
• Their cities were heavy fortresses.
• Mycenaean art was about warfare and hunting.
• Warlike people, defensive and offensive.
• Hittite and Egyptian records categorize them as raiders.
• After a series of earthquakes, the Mycenaeans seems to have conquered Crete and other Aegean civilizations.
• Legendary Trojan War (13th century).

Trade and wealth

• Mycenaeans traded raw goods such (oil, animal skins) for jewelry and other goods from Crete, Asia Minor, and Egypt.
• Piracy.
• The Kings and a few officials were very wealthy.
• Wealth spent on warfare and defense and also crafts, jewelry, and expensive burials.
• Tombs:  at first deep shaft graves, but around 1500 BC: tholos tombs (large chambers cut into the side of a hill).
• Main purpose: display of power.

Palace

• Elaborate central complex (workshops, storage, defense, massive fortifications).
• Cyclopean walls.
• Lion Gate at Mycenae.
• The central palace at Pylos: a typical mainland palace. Four main elements:
  • a narrow court on which the structure fronts,
  • a double-columned entrance portico,
  • a vestibule, and
  • the richly frescoed megaron, or hall (throne room).
• Large archives associated with palace at Pylos.

Tholos (tholoi in plural)

• Circular building with a conical or vaulted roof.
• Large ceremonial tombs, sometimes built into the sides of hills (beehive-shaped).
• Their evolution began in Minoan Crete but culminated in the so-called Treasury of Atreus at Mycenae (1250 BC).
• Diameter: almost 50 feet (15 meters); Height: slightly less.
• Enormous monolithic lintel over the doorway (120 tons).
• A small side chamber contained the burials. The main chamber probably reserved for ritual use.

Fall of the Mycenaean civilization

• At the very peak of their power, the Mycenaeans suddenly disappear.
• 1250 BC: major renovations to the walls of the major centers (as if the owners expected sieges).
• Wall built across the Isthmus.
• 1190 BC major destruction of these centers.
• At Mycenae: three stages of destruction (the last around 1150 BC).
• Followed by a minor reoccupation at an impoverished level (sub-Mycenaean period).
• Population greatly reduced.
• The sub-Mycenaean period ends in 1050 and is followed by the so-called Dark Ages.
• When Greece re-emerges from this shadowy period, its civilization is quite different.

Possible causes of the destruction

• Unlikely to be solely internal warfare (this wouldn't explain why all centers are destroyed).
• Wall across the Isthmus: a threat from the North? Not necessarily.
• The date is suspiciously close to the time of arrival of the Sea Peoples (but no evidence).
• Maybe an economic collapse drove people from the cities out into the countryside.
• Maybe this collapse is due to the invasion of the Sea Peoples in Eastern Mediterranean.
• The Greeks themselves believed in a Dorian invasion (another Greek-speaking people, the Dorians).
• If that were the case, those chose to live in small, tribal, agricultural groups.

Mycenaean religion

• Much of it survives into classical Greece.
• Difficult to distinguish Mycenaean and Dark Age religions.
• Our knowledge based on ruins and a few fragments of writing.

The sky-god

• Polytheistic and syncretistic religion (addition of foreign gods).
• Pantheon headed by some ruling sky-god (Dyeus in early Indo-European).
• Common heritage for all Indo-European peoples (in Greek, “Zeus”).
• Hindus: “Dyaus Pitar” (“pitar” means “father”)
• Romans: Jupiter.

The other gods and goddesses

• No priestly class identified.
• Mycenaean pantheon reassembled from inscriptions in Linear B found at Pylos and at Knossos in Crete.
• Some deities are familiar; others are note (e.g.: Ares = Enyalios, epithet).
• Apollo = PA-JA-WO, (“Paian”).
• A-TA-NA PO-TI-NI-JA  =  « Athena Potnia »),
• E-RE-U-TI-JA = Eileithyia (goddess of childbirth),
• Dionysus,
• Poseidon the “Earth-Shaker”,
• The “Two Goddesses” (Demeter and Persephone?),
• The Erinyes (or Furies).
• The original Mycenaean religion persisted and adapted until it finally emerged in the two great epic poems of Homer.