Mycenaean Greece - Mycenaean Civilization

Mycenaean Civilization

The Mycenaean civilization flourished during the period roughly between 1600 BC, when Helladic culture in mainland Greece was transformed under influences from Minoan Crete, and 1100 BC, when it perished with the collapse of Bronze-Age civilization in the eastern Mediterranean. The collapse is commonly attributed to the Dorian invasion, although other theories describing natural disasters and climate change have been advanced as well. The major Mycenaean cities were Mycenae and Tiryns in Argolis, Pylos in Messenia, Athens in Attica, Thebes and Orchomenus in Boeotia, and Iolkos in Thessaly. In Crete, the Mycenaeans occupied Knossos. Mycenaean settlement sites also appeared in Epirus, Macedonia, on islands in the Aegean Sea, on the coast of Asia Minor, the Levant, Cyprus and Italy. Mycenaean artifacts have been found well outside the limits of the Mycenaean world: namely Mycenaean swords are known from as far away as Georgia in the Caucasus, an amber object inscribed with Linear B symbols has been found in Bavaria, Germany and Mycenaean bronze double axes and other objects dating from 13th century BC have been found in Ireland and in Wessex and Cornwall in England.

Quite unlike the Minoans, whose society benefited from trade, the Mycenaeans advanced through conquest. Mycenaean civilization was dominated by a warrior aristocracy. Around 1400 BC, the Mycenaeans extended their control to Crete, center of the Minoan civilization, and adopted a form of the Minoan script (called Linear A) to write their early form of Greek in Linear B.

Not only did the Mycenaeans defeat the Minoans, but according to later Hellenic legend they defeated Troy, presented in epic as a city-state that rivaled Mycenae in power. Because the only evidence for the conquests is Homer's Iliad and other texts steeped in mythology, the existence of Troy and the historicity of the Trojan War is uncertain. In 1876, the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann uncovered ruins at Hissarlik in western Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) that he claimed were those of Troy. Some sources claim these ruins do not match well with Homer's account of Troy, but others disagree.

The Mycenaeans buried their nobles in beehive tombs (tholos tombs), large circular burial chambers with a high vaulted roof and a straight entry passage lined with stone. They often buried daggers or some other form of military equipment with the deceased. The nobility were frequently buried with gold masks, tiaras, armor, and jeweled weapons. Mycenaeans were buried in a sitting position, and some of the nobility underwent mummification, whereas Homer's Achilles and Patroclus were not buried but cremated, in Iron-Age fashion, and honoured with a gold urn, instead of gold masks.

No Mycenaean priestly class has yet been identified. Worshiper and worshiped are identified in seals, rings and votive figures through their gestures: worshipers fold their arms, or raise the right arm in greeting, or place a hand on the forehead. Deities lift both arms in the "epiphany gesture" or reach forward to give or receive. The pantheon of Mycenaean deities has been reassembled from inscriptions in Linear B found at Pylos and at post-palatial Mycenaean Knossos in Crete. Some of the deities' names are recognizably present in the Olympic pantheon of written myth. Others are not: Ares, for example, is represented only as "Enyalios" which was retained as an epithet. Apollo may be recognized at Knossos as PA-JA-WO ("Paian"). Far more prominent are A-TA-NA PO-TI-NI-JA (Athena Potnia, "Athena the Mistress"), E-RE-U-TI-JA (Eileithyia, later merely invoked during childbirth), Dionysus, and Poseidon, already the "Earth-Shaker", either with his consort Poseida, who was not retained in the transition to Classical Greece, or, at Pylos, with the "Two Goddesses", apparently Demeter and Persephone. The Erinyes or Furies are already present, as are the Winds.

Mycenaean frescoes have been discovered in palace contexts, notably at Pylos, Mycenae, Orchomenos, Thebes, and Tiryns, and in a few non-palatial, perhaps privately-owned contexts. The earliest fresco decorations are of the LH IIA period (ca. 1500 BC). The subjects hold tenaciously to Minoan traditions, whether directly derived or through Cycladic intervention, and have in some cases been reduced to decorative formulas, embodying themes appropriate to their locations: lions and wingless griffins in audience chambers, processional figures in corridors, etc. In a change from the Minoan delight in the life of animals, the Mycenaean relation to nature is reflected in their depictions of animals which are shown only in relation to man or as victims of the hunt. Bull-jumping fresco panels appear at Mycenae and at Tiryns.

Around 1100 BC, the Mycenaean civilization collapsed. Numerous cities were sacked, and the region entered what historians describe as a dark age for its lack of inscriptions, with some Mycenaeans fleeing to Cyprus as well as other Greek islands and coastal parts of Anatolia. During this period, Greece experienced decreasing population and the limited literacy, connected with bureaucrats of palace culture, disappeared. Historians have traditionally blamed this decline on an invasion or uprising by another wave of Greek people, the Dorians, who may have been a subjugated local people, although Pylos was probably destroyed by sea peoples. Alternate theories for the decline also include natural disasters such as a series of earthquakes or large-scale drought, although these recent theories are more controversial.