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The Greek Mainland, c. 1150 — c. 1000 B.C.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 May 2014

Vincent Desborough
Vincent Desborough
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Manchester
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Extract

In this article, an attempt will be made to review briefly the relative significance of surviving Mycenaean and intrusive elements on the Greek Mainland south of Macedonia during the late 12th and the 11th centuries B.C. Not all the area has been thoroughly investigated. Indeed there is no district that would not repay further exploration and excavation, but certain regions such as Arcadia, North Elis, the Megarid, Phocis and Locris, much of Boeotia, Phocis and Locris, and even parts of Attica, Corinthia and the Argolid need basic surveys. This irregularity of our knowledge should be borne in mind.

The century immediately preceding the period under discussion appears to be characterized by extensive depopulation in many areas, and by the destruction of a number of major Mycenaean sites. Invasion would seem at least in part to have been responsible for the upheaval, though that upheaval was so great that the side effects of some climatic change are perhaps not to be ruled out as a contributory cause. So far as one can tell, an increase of population was registered only in Achaea, and in the relatively secluded Aegean-facing coasts of the Peloponnese and Attica. It would not be incorrect to say that the whole fabric of Mycenaean civilization on the Mainland, with the possible exception of Thessaly, had suffered a fatal blow in the period shortly before 1200 B.C. The course of Mycenaean history faltered and then (at different times in different areas) ceased, a phenomenon observable partly in the further abandonment of sites, but perhaps more in the discontinuation of the characteristic chamber tomb and tholos cemeteries.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 31 , December 1965 , pp. 213 - 228
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1965

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References

page 213 note 1 This article is an adaptation of a paper read to the Prehistoric Society at its annual London Meeting on 3 April 1965. I am much indebted to the Editor for suggesting that the paper should be published. I would also like to express my gratitude to Lord William Taylour for permission to make use of unpublished material from his excavations at Mycenae, and similarly to Mr M. Popham in respect of the finds at Lef kandi in Euboea.

page 213 note 2 For a general analysis, see my Last Mycenaeans, pp. 221 ff. It is significant that the recent excavations at Lefkandi, a coastal site near Chalkis in Euboea, seem to show a further instance of increase of population from c. 1200 B.C. onwards.

page 213 note 3 BCH, vol. 56, pp. 170 ff. Cf. PGP, p. 313.

page 213 note 4 AA, 1955, pp. 192 ff. Cf. Last Mycenaeans, pp. 133 f.

page 214 note 1 Ergon for 1960, p. 58Google Scholar.

page 214 note 2 Cf. Antiquity, vol. 39 (no. 153), p. 33Google Scholar.

page 214 note 3 See Hesperia, vol. 16, p. 202Google Scholar. There is no preceding Mycenaean settlement. The earliest house (of elliptical construction) is of the Geometric period. Hesperia, vol. 2, pp. 542 ff.Google Scholar

page 214 note 4 Corinth, VII, pt. i, pp. 3 ff.Google Scholar

page 214 note 5 Hesperia, vol. 27, p. 29Google Scholar.

page 214 note 6 Praktika, 1952, p. 425Google Scholar. BCH, vol. 81, pp. 677 and 680 f. Ibid., vol. 83, pp. 762 ff. Études Archéologiques, pp. 59 ff. (Courbin).

page 214 note 7 Asine, pp. 64, 81 f., 312.

page 214 note 8 BCH, vol. 84, p. 720. BCH, vol. 85, p. 722. No full publication yet.

page 214 note 9 AE, 1957, pp. 31 ff. AJA, vol. 65, p. 224.

page 214 note 10 BCH, vol. 84, p. 700. AJA, vol. 65, pp. 248 f.

page 214 note 11 AJA, vol. 65, p. 255.

page 214 note 12 Ergon for 1962.

page 214 note 13 AE, 1892, pp. 1 ff. AM, vol. 52, pp. 1 ff. Even here, no objects can clearly be attributed to the 11th century. Proof of continuous worship depends on the associated worship in later times of the pre-Greek Hyakinthos and the Greek Apollo.

page 214 note 14 See the chart in Ålin, , Das Ende der mykenischen Fundstätten, p. 148Google Scholar.

page 216 note 1 AE, 1914, p. 141. Verdhelis, passim.

page 216 note 2 BSA, vol. 31, pp. 1 ff.

page 216 note 3 BCH, vol. 61, pp. 44 ff. The tomb is said to be of beehive shape.

page 216 note 4 AJA, vol. 63, p. 127. Not earlier than the 10th century.

page 216 note 5 ibid., vol. 65, p. 226.

page 216 note 6 BCH, vol. 85, p. 697.

page 217 note 1 So far as is known the inhabitants of Athens, with rare exceptions, changed from inhumations in cist tombs to cremations in urns c. 1075 B.C. Elsewhere in Attica there is evidence that cist tomb inhumations were current in the 10th century and later, but there is no earlier material.

page 217 note 2 In Corinthia and Achaea, no post-Mycenaean tombs earlier than the 9th century have yet been found. See Last Mycenaeans, p. 39. Except for the pithos burial at Derveni in Achaea these are cist tombs. The sites set out in the table above are all from the Argolid.

page 218 note 1 Boll. d'Arte, vol. 35, pp. 316 ffGoogle Scholar. Cf. PGP, p. 222.

page 219 note 1 Athens: Angel, , Hesperia, vol. 14, pp. 322 fGoogle Scholar., 328; Argos: Charles, , BCH, vol. 83, p. 306Google Scholar.

page 219 note 2 Cf. PGP, pp. 287 f.

page 219 note 3 Cf. Last Mycenaeans, p. 25.

page 220 note 1 Mycenae: BSA, vol. 49, p. 264. Of Geometric date, but Taylour has found it in a Protogeometric tomb. Argos: BCH, vol. 77, p. 260.

Asine: Asine, pp. 435 f. Protogeometric.

Tiryns: Tiryns, 1, p. 159. AM, vol. 78, pp. 48 and 53, pls. 22, 6 and 25, 1.

page 220 note 2 Hesperia, vol. 30, pp. 170 ffGoogle Scholar. with references to the Kerameikos finds.

page 220 note 3 AA, 1948–9, pp. 29 ff.

page 220 note 4 Corinth, VII, pt. i, pp. 7 fGoogle Scholar. No earlier tombs are known from this site.

page 220 note 5 Intramural burials are only most rarely found in the Mycenaean period; the only two exceptions I know of were close together on the citadel of Mycenae—cf. BSA, vol. 25, pp. 403 ff., and especially p. 404, fig. 91. But the burials themselves, one unenclosed, the other in a pithos, are almost unparalleled. Nor are intramural burials found in the succeeding period. The argument that later cemeteries do not coincide with those of the Mycenaeans may not be used, as the difference in type of tomb itself accounts for the different siting.

page 221 note 1 Mylonas, , Προϊστορικὴ Ἐλευσίς; AJA, vol. 40, pp. 415 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar. AD, vol. 15 suppl. pp. 1 ff. Praktika, 1952 ff. Ergon for 1956, pp. 17 ffGoogle Scholar. Cf. Last Mycenaeans, p. 114; Ålin, , Das Ende der mykenischen Fundstätten, p. 113Google Scholar.

page 221 note 2 Cf. Ålin, p. 132 with references.

page 221 note 3 Asine, pp. 129, 354 f.

page 221 note 4 Praktika, 1909, pp. 182 fGoogle Scholar. Cf. Ålin, p. 52.

page 221 note 5 Tsountas, , Ἁι προϊστορικαὶ ἀκροπολεῖς Διμηνίου καὶ Σέσκλου, pp. 150 ff.Google Scholar

page 221 note 6 AA, 1959, pp. 56 ff. Cf. Ålin, p. 139.

page 221 note 7 Ergon for 1938, 1959 and 1960.

page 221 note 8 Asine, pp. 128 f., 354.

page 221 note 9 BCH, vol. 79, pp. 310 ff.; vol. 80, pp. 361 ff.; vol. 83, pp. 768 ff.

page 221 note 10 Praktika, 1955, p. 99Google Scholar; 1957, pp. 31 ff.

page 221 note 11 Cf. the references in Hesperia, vol. 24, p. 188Google Scholar, nn. 3 and 4.

page 222 note 1 Cf. Ålin, , Das Ende der mykenischen Fundstätten, p. 148Google Scholar, where he notes over 900 chamber tombs and over 100 tholos tombs covering the Late Helladic period (the vast majority after 1400 B.C.), spread over every district of the mainland.

page 222 note 2 Antiquity, vol. 38, p. 261Google Scholar.

page 222 note 3 AE, 1956, pp. 114 ff.

page 222 note 4 Cf. Snodgrass, , Early Greek Armour and Weapons, p. 119Google Scholar. This is his Type B, and he stresses that it is ‘a well-known Danubian type’.

page 222 note 5 Ergon for 1960, p. 110Google Scholar.

page 222 note 6 See n. 3 above.

page 222 note 7 Ergon for 1963, p. 119Google Scholar, fig. 124.

page 222 note 8 Addenda, p. 228.

page 223 note 1 Cf. Last Mycenaeans, pp. 244 ff.

page 223 note 2 There are, so far as I know, no significant objects other than pottery in the settlements discussed above. At the sanctuary of Amyklai, however, it is worthy of note that the bronze votive gifts most probably associated with the Protogeometric pottery are of an entirely different type from the human and animal terracotta figurines associated with the Mycenaean material. Cf. AM, vol. 52, p. 35, fig. 17 and pl. vi.

page 223 note 3 References to finds from sites already mentioned will not be given unless necessary.

page 223 note 4 Cf. Snodgrass, op. cit., pp. 117 f. Nos. A 6–8; Ker., IV, p. 47Google Scholar, pl. 38.

page 223 note 5 No sword of this type has been found in any of the cist tombs discussed—which are in any case singularly devoid of weapons.

page 223 note 6 Cf. Catling, , Antiquity, vol. 35, pp. 115 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 223 note 7 Cf. Snodgrass, op. cit., pp. 93 ff. (Type 1) and 108.

page 223 note 8 Cf. Last Mycenaeans, pp. 70 f.

page 224 note 1 Hesperia, vol. 30, p. 175Google Scholar. Comparison may perhaps be made with a fragment of iron partially encased by a globe of glass paste, found in the L.H. IIIC cemetery at Perati: Ergon for 1960, p. 21Google Scholar, fig. 28, d.

page 224 note 2 Cf. AJA, vol. 41, pp. 79 f. Kaloriziki tomb 25 (c. 1100–1050 B.C.) has a pin with a conical ivory head, but the shaft is of bronze.

page 224 note 3 pp. 185, 202 and pl. xix.

page 224 note 4 AM, vol. 35, p. 30, no. 17.

page 224 note 5 BRGK, vol. 30, pp. 4 ffGoogle Scholar., fig. 8, 3. From Pass Lueg in Austria. Cf. Verdhelis, AM, vol. 78, pp. 17 ff.

page 224 note 6 BCH, vol. 80, p. 361.

page 225 note 1 A full discussion of the evidence will be found in Snodgrass, op. cit., pp. 38 ff.

page 225 note 2 Op. cit., pp. 50 f.

page 225 note 3 AE, 1904, p. 46, fig. 11.

page 225 note 4 Cf. Last Mycenaeans, pp. 56 f.

page 226 note 1 This suggestion may, of course, run counter to the evidence from central Europe and Italy, evidence with which I am not familiar.

page 226 note 2 BSA, vols. 53–4, pp. 236 f.

page 226 note 3 loc. cit.

page 226 note 4 BCH, vol. 79, p. 312 (tomb XIV); vol. 80 p. 365 (two from tomb XXIX); vol. 83, p. 771 (tomb XXXIII).

page 226 note 5 CVA, Mainz, I, pp. 12 ff.

page 226 note 6 BSA, vols. 53–4, pp. 236 f.

page 226 note 7 Greek Pins, p. 181.

page 226 note 8 Praktika, 1954, p. 97Google Scholar (tomb 19); 1955, p. 102 (tomb 36); 1958, pl. 22, b (tomb 74).

page 226 note 9 BCH, vol. 80, p. 365 (tomb XXIX).

page 227 note 1 pp. 336 ff. She thinks, however, that the Mycenaean type of dress was still used.

page 228 note 1 I would stress again my ignorance of the material and literature on this point. The answer may already be there without my knowing it.