Mycenaean Greece

324 Pages·1976·19.24 MB·English

by  J. T. Hooker

Mycenaean Greece
J.
T. Hooker
Department ofG reek
University College, London
Routledge & Kegan Paul
London, Henley and Boston
First published in 1976
by Routledge (5 Kegan Paul Ltd
39 Store Street,
London WC1E 7DD,
Broadway House,
Newtown Road,
Henley-on-Thames,
Oxon RG9 1E N and
9 Park Street,
Boston, Mass. 02108, USA
Manuscript typed by the author
Printed in Great Britain by
Morrison f.S Gibb Ltd, London and Edinburgh
©J. T. Hooker 1976
No part of this book may be reproduced in
any form without permission from the
publisher, except for the quotation of brief
passages in criticism
ISBN o 7100 8379 3
Contents
PREFACE xiii
THE NATURE OF THE EVIDENCE
2 BEFORE THE MYCENAEAN AGE II
Introduction
II
The Greek historians
II
The evidence of language
1:2
The evidence of archaeology 15
Linguistic objections 20
Archaeological objections 24
Conclusions 29
3 THE BEGINNING OF THE MYCENAEAN AGE
(c. 1650-1525 BC) 34
The earliest contacts with Crete
34
The Shaft Graves 36
The origin of the Shaft Graves and their contents
45
Conclusions
54
4 THE CRETAN CONNEXION {c. 1525-1375 BC) 59
Evidence from the mainland
59
Evidence from overseas 66
Evidence from Crete 70
Conclusions 78
s THE MATURE MYCENAEAN AGE IN GREECE
(c. 1375-1200 BC) 81
The material culture of the mainland 81
The Mycenaean sites of the mainland
93
6 THE MYCENAEAN EXPANSION OVERSEAS 110
Introduction 110
Archaeological evidence for foreign connexions IIO
Mycenaeans and Semites II7
The Mycenaeans and the Hittites 121
Conclusions
132
Vil
Contents
7 THE END OF THE MYCENAEAN AGE
(c. 1200-1050 BC) 140
Introduction 140
The fragmentation of the Mycenaean culture 141
The great destructions and their effects 148
Evidence from overseas 152
The evidence of legend history and language 163
The causes of the great destructions 166
8 THE MYCENAEAN CIVILIZATION 183
The economic and political structure of a Mycenaean state 183
The religion of the Greek mainland 190
Conclusions 209
APPENDIX 1:
THE 'DORIAN INVASION' IN GREEK SOURCES 213
APPENDIX 2:
CATALOGUE OF MYCENAEAN SITES IN GREECE 223
TABLES 231
FIGURES 242
ABBREVIATIONS 252
BIBLIOGRAPHY 256
INDEX 309
viii
Illustrations
TABLES
I The Chronology of the Bronze Age 23r
2 Horizons of Destruction in Early and Middlt Helladic 232
3 Affinities between the Mycenae Grave Circles and the
Peristeria Tombs 233
The Pottery of Grave Circle A at Mycenae (with Karo's
4
numeration) arranged in Chronological Sequence 235
s Motifs of Miniature Art in Grave Circle A 236
6 The Ancestry of Aigyptos and Danaos 236
7 The Distribution of Linear B Inscriptions on the
Mainland 237
8 Late Bronze Age Destructions at Mycenae 238
9 Cultural Changes in three Areas of Greece in Late
Helladic Ille 239
10 Imports in the Perati Cemetery (Numbers from
Iakovidis, 1969) 240
II Campaigns of Ramesses II, Merenptah, and
Ramesses III 241
FIGURES
I Sketch-map of the Central and Eastern Mediterraenean 242
2 Sketch-map of Greece 243
3 Bronze Age pottery 244
4 Swords 246
IX
Illustrations
5 Art in the Shaft Graves 247
6 The throne-room complex at Knossos 247
7 Part of the Tiryns chariot-fresco (restored) 248
8 Mycenaean chamber tomb 249
9 The most elaborate form of tholos tomb (Orchomenos
and Treasury of Atreus, Mycenae) 249
10 The citadel of Mycenae 250
II The citadel of Tiryns 250
12 The principal buildings of the palace of Pylos 251
13 Gold rings 251
x
Prefa ce
I wish to thank Professor R.F. Willetts for his invitation
to contribute this book to the series of which he is gene
ral editor and for his constant encouragement. I am most
grateful to Mr J.H. Betts and Mr J.S. Hutchinson, both of
whom read the whole text and greatly improved it, to Pro
fessor O.J.L. Szemerenyi (who read and criticized part of
Chapter 2), and to Dr M.E.J. Richardson (who performed the
same service for part of Chapter 6.) To Mrs B.M. Timmins
and Miss B. Laverack I am indebted for the drawings.
My book, such as it is, I dedicate to the memory of the
great teacher who introduced me to the study of the Bronze
Age of Greece.
University College, London J.T.H.
April 1976

The nature of the evidence
1
This book is not, and does not profess to be, a work of
archaeology. Nor does it offer a comprehensive survey of
the Greek Bronze Age. Readers who need such a survey will
go, as I have very often gone, to Mrs Vermeule's 'Greece in
the Bronze Age' (Vermeule, 1964). With that masterly
achievement I cannot compete. Again, I have not attempted
a short general treatment of the kind undertaken, with ad
mirable results, by Taylour, 1964 and by Finley, 1970. I
propose, rather, to discuss, from a historical point of
view, some of the crucial periods in the development of
Aegean lands during the Bronze Age. 1be subject is often,
by its nature, controversial. Fields in which historians
are in broad agreement with one another (and those fields
are still very wide) will be indicated comparatively
briefly, so as to concentrate on the investigation (and, it
is hoped, the elucidation) of the more controverted mat
ters.
My principal subject is the so-called 'Mycenaean' cul
ture, which arose in Greece during the sixteenth century
BC, expanded in the next few generations, spread over the
Aegean and parts of the eastern Mediterranean during the
fourteenth and thirteenth centuries, and declined in the
twelfth century: a decline which was accompanied by wide
spread devastation. Only Chapter 2 is concerned with a
topic which falls outside this period, but it is one to
which we are irresistibly led even by the most superficial
examination of the Mycenaean age: namely, the origin of
the 1Helladic1 culture of mainland Greece. lbe Mycenaean
civilization itself arose from the a~similation of this
Helladic culture with the 'Minoan' culture of Bronze Age
Crete. It will therefore become necessary to consider
some problems which arise in the study of Minoan Crete;
for this cannot be dissociated from the Mycenaean world.
The outlines of Aegean prehistory in the Early and Middle
1·
2 Chapter 1
Bronze Age have been drawn with a firm hand by Branigan,
1970a and by Renfrew, 1972: books which enable me to take
many things as read.
The epoch of human history known as the Bronze Age is,
by definition, the period in which bronze came to be the
predominant metal for the manufacture of weapons and of the
more valuable domestic utensils. It used to be thought
that the rise of bronze as a useful material was accompan
ied by the first appearance of many features which we
loosely associate with 'civilization', especially urban
civilization. But recent discoveries in Greece, the Near
East, and Anatolia have shown that the main trends of dev
elopment in the Bronze Age were already being followed by
the close of the Late Stone Age ('Neolithic'). Towns of
sizable proportions flourished long before the beginning of
the Bronze Age, notably at ~atal Huyilk in central Turkey
and at Jawa in Jordan. In Greece itself, domestication of
animals, cultivation of crops, manufacture of pottery, and
burial of the dead in graves with funerary offerings are
all attested within the Neolithic period. What was once
considered a unique mark of Bronze Age civilization, the
use of writing, is known at a Neolithic settlement in Ru
mania (Hood, 1967). Finally, the diffusion of obsidian
from the Cyclades shows the existence of means of trans
port and communication over a wide area, from Thessaly in
the north to Crete in the south (Renfrew, 1972, 442-3).
The Bronze Age in Greece, no less than the Neolithic, is
called a 'prehistoric' period. In the Aegean
accurat~ly
area (unlike the situation in Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and
Egypt) the peoples of the Bronze Age do not speak to us
directly. No literary texts, no explicit statements of
myth or of religious belief, no annals or historical re
cords have come to light. Treaties and diplomatic let
ters, which testify to relations between states in other
parts of the Mediterranean, are completely lacking here;
in fact, we possess virtually no written document which
looks forwa?'d or backward more than a year' or so. In de
fault of more permanent or informative documents, we have
at our disposal five sources for the reconstruction.of the
course of events in our area: 1 the material remains
('monuments') of the Bronze Age civilization; 2 inventor
ies and accounts kept by the Mycenaeans and Minoans in the
Linear B script; 3 the Greek language, as recorded during
the Bronze Age itself and again in the historical period
(from about 700 BC); 4 references to and depictions of
the Aegean peoples by contemporaries; 5 echoes of the
Bronze Age in ancient Greek authors and Bronze Age surviv
als in the cults and legends of the classical Greeks.