Ancient Greece (Part 12): The Late Mycenaeans (c.1400 - 1200 BC)
With the construction of their new palaces, the Mycenaeans entered the final stage of their wealth & power.
The architecture & decoration of the palaces was very similar to the Minoan style, but there were some differences. The Mycenaean centres were much smaller, usually built on a commanding hill, and had high, thick walls as fortifications. The Minoan palaces had had little defensive function, but the Mycenaeans had defense as the most important feature of theirs. The fortification walls of Mycenae and Tiryns were made of huge stone blocks, and are still impressive today despite being in ruins. The later Greeks called them Cyclopean walls, believing that they were so enormous that only the giant Cyclopes could have built them. The fortifications were well-engineered, taking advantage of natural slopes. There were refinements that allowed defenders to fire down on two sides at attackers at the gates.
Building, maintaining and repairing these fortifications would have required a huge amount of manual labour, and cost a great deal. It is true that this walled citadel provided protection for the ordinary people as well, as the town below was unfortified. But that wasn't the only reason for this extravagance – the walls were over 6m thick in places, far more than was necessary. So part of their purpose would have been to show off the king's wealth & military power.
City walls built in later periods were on a far smaller scale, but were impregnable until workable siege machinery was invented in the 300's BC.
Lion Gate (Mycenae, c.1200 BC).
Another difference between the Mycenaeans & Minoans was how they used the space inside the palace. Instead of an open paved courtyard, the palace's focus was the megaron – a large rectangular hall with a small antechamber. The antechamber had a portico in the front, opening out into a courtyard outside.
In the middle of the great hall was a large, raised circular hearth. It was surrounded by 4 columns, which held up a balcony. An oculus (plural oculi – a circular opening in the centre of a dome/wall) in the roof above drew away the smoke.
Megaron diagram. 1) Anteroom 2) Main Hall 3) Columns (porch & hall).
The megaron was the main ceremonial centre of the palace, and they used it for councils, visitor receptions and feasts. In the following Dark Age, the megaron would survive in the form of the chieftain's house. From the 700's onwards, it would be the main plan of a Greek temple.
The Mycenaean palaces gave the elite a life of luxury & beauty almost as great as the Minoans'. There were fewer rooms, and didn't have all of the Cretan architectural embellishments, but these palaces had Minoan features such as indoor plumbing and wall paintings.
The frescoes were in the Minoan style (although in a more formalized manner), and focused more on martial scenes, such as personal combat, sieges, and hunting scenes. Women and men are depicted wearing traditional Minoan dress, but other depictions (such as on vases) show that mainland Mycenaean men usually wore a loose woollen/linen tunic, cinched with a belt; the women wore a longer version of the same tunic.
It used to be believed that there was a united Mycenaean Greek kingdom, ruled by the king of Mycenae, but this is now known to be untrue. The highest level of political/military expansion was the formation of small, regional kingdoms under single centres. One example is the kingdom of Pylos (in Messenia).
In regions where major centres were very close to each other, the situation isn't as clear. The region of Argolis, for example, had 10 major centres, including Mycenae and Tiryns, only a few miles apart. Perhaps the king of Mycenae was the sole ruler of Argolis, and thus the palace of Tiryns was an outpost of Mycenae. Or perhaps Tiryns (and other major centres) were semi-independent settlements, with their leaders acknowledging the king of Mycenae as their superior, and pledging loyalty to him.
Whichever it was for Argolis, not all Mycenaean kingdoms were necessary alike in structure. The palace-towns of Athens & Thebes may have had similar dominant positions as Mycenae, in the regions of Attica and Boeotia respectively.
From 1600-1200 BC, relations between & within regions were pretty stable, with few example of all-out warfare. Thebes was burned in the early 1200's [i.e. near 1300], perhaps by a neighbouring centre. One possibility is Orchomenus, a rich & populous site, which would be Thebes' rival during the Classical period later on.
At their peak (around 1300 BC), the Mycenaean kingdoms were trading all across the Mediterranean – from Sardinia (southern Italy) and Sicily in the west, to Troy & down to Egypt in the east, to Macedonia in the north. There were Mycenaean settlements & trading posts along the Asian coastline, and throughout the islands (including Rhodes and Cyprus).
The Mycenaean culture was remarkably uniform across this whole region. Even experts find it difficult to say where an object was made.
The elite's wealth wasn't just from trade, but also from international piracy – they could easily afford to mount large seaborne invasions to plunder. Even though the overall Mycenaean Greek population was small compared to the East, they were the 3rd-highest power in the Mediterranean, after the Hittite Empire (covering Anatolia and Syria) and the New Kingdom of Egypt.
Hittite archives from the 1300's & 1200's mention a people called the Ahhiyawan, which may be the cuneiform version of the Mycenaean word Akhaiwoi – i.e. the “Achaeans”, which was an inclusive word for “Greeks” in the 700's epic poems. In one letter, the Hittite king addresses his “brother, the king of Ahhiyawa (Achaea”. Another record mention an exchange of gifts between the kings of Hatti & Ahhiyawa; another mentions Ahhiyawans being sent to Hatti to learn chariot warfare; another mentions an Ahhiyawan god being summoned to cure a Hittite king.
However, relations between the Hittites and Mycenaeans were not always peaceful. In the 1200's, “a man from Ahhiyawa” was invading Hittite territory in western Anatolia. These forces probably came not from mainland Greece, but from one/more of the nearer Mycenaean kingdoms (from the islands or on the Asian coast).
According to the Iliad and Odyssey, one of the most important leaders of the Trojan War was Nestor, who lived in a magnificent house with many rooms in the town of Pylos, from where he ruled over a large kingdom in Messenia. In 1939, Carl Blegen discovered the “palace of Nestos”. This was not just a confirmation that it had really existed, but also showed that a centre far away from the great palaces of east & central Greece could be just as rich and important.
Messenia is a region in the south-western Peloponnese. It is fertile and well-watered, and during the Mycenaean Age, it was one of the most heavily-populated areas. In the Early Helladic, there were about 4000 people living there; by the Middle Helladic, it was 10,000; by the Late Helladic, it was over 50,000 (perhaps as high as 100,000).
Pylos became a regional power centre at about the same time as Mycenae and other centres. Its peak was during the Late Helladic IIIA & IIIB (about 1400-1200 BC). The palace was built aroudn 1300 BC on a hill 8km from the sea, on the ruins of an earlier, small complex of buildings. “Pylos” is written as Pu-ro in Linear B.
The site had been undisturbed since 1200 BC. That, and the many Linear B tablets in the archive rooms, give us the best picture of the administration & workings of a Mycenaean-Age kingdom. The Pylos and Mycenaean Knossos tablets show much of the day-to-day administrative details of the Mycenaean Palaces.
These tablets were sun-dried, and intended as temporary records, until their information was transferred onto larger, permanent records. This information was recorded by palace scribes, and focuses on personnel & production. The ones we have survived only because they were baked hard by the fires that destroyed the palaces. Therefore, they refer only to a small part of the last year before the fire (for each palace), but they are still representative of the palace administration throughout the later palace period.
From the tablets, we have some information on the Mycenaean ruling hierarchy. The wanax was at the top – this may mean “lord” or “master”. Below him was the lawagetas, which appears to be a combination of the words for “people” and “leader”. He is believed to be the army commander.
A high-ranking group called telestai received the same allotment of land as the lawagetas, but their function is unknown. They may have been priests.
Other people have the title hequetas, which possibly means “follower”, and they may have been high-ranking military officials.
The above people were in the top tier. Below them were lesser officials, who seem to have been in charge of the outlying areas. The kingdom of Pylos was about 3625 square km, with over 200 villages & towns. It was divided into 2 provinces, and each province was divided into several districts, which were named after the principal town in each one. The titles of korete & prokorete may have been for a district governor & his deputy.
Finally, a large group of officials with the title pasireu were in charge of things at the town/village level.
The officials & military officiers named in the tablets would have been only the tip of a large bureaucracy. Many lower-level officials were subordinate to them, and dependent on them. The higher officials received land from the wanax in exchange for their service to the palace, and also a share of their crops. Probably a similar relationship existed between them and these lower-level officials.
The highest officials (and maybe some of the lower-ranking ones) lived in substantial private houses. Some of them were quite large. These private houses were in the citadels, lower towns, and also small country towns.
Only the highest-ranking families were buried in the tholoi (perhaps because of cost, or perhaps only they were allowed to). The lesser elite were buried in “chamber tombs” – rectangular crypts cut into the soft rock. Some of them were grander than others, and had more grave goods (and more expensive ones). Perhaps some of the inhabitants of the private houses & chamber tombs were private merchants & traders who acted as agents of the palace.
The majority of people lived in small, modestly-furnished houses with few amenities. They were buried in simple graves with only a few small items. Their standard of living was the same as their ancestors', and they worked as farmers, herders & artisans. This would stay pretty much the same in the later history of Greece. Most of the farmers & herders lived in rural villages, and most of the craft specialists lived in regional centres & larger settlements.
Many farming families were tenants on land belonging to the nobles (some of the nobles had very large holdings). Others owned plots in their own names (craftsmen & herders are listed as “owners” of private land). 50-75 families made up the typical Mycenaean village, either having shares in the village's land, or renting land that was allocated to high-level officials.
Palace supervision over the people was very thorough. Officials were regularly sent into the countryside to carry out inspections. Produce & animal taxes levied on individuals & villages were recorded exactly, including deficiencies in the assessments. For example, a Knossos tablet states: “Men of Lyktos 246.7 units of wheat; men of Tylisos 261 units of wheat; men of Lato 30.5 units of wheat.” We don't know how much a “unit” was, but it seems as though the farmers weren't too heavily taxed.
Village men farmed their plots and tended to their trees, vines and livestock. They paid their taxes, contributed labour to the palace, and served in the army. The women would have helped with the farm chores, and done the domestic chores of spinning & weaving, food preparation, and childcare. Some village women were textile workers for the palace, and received rations of wool & flax for this.
Slaves were at the bottom of society. The tablets make reference to “captives” and “bought”, showing that the warrior-aristocrats of Mycenaean Greece were very active in the slavery business. There were many slaves, many of whom were female – Pylos tablets record over 600 slave women, and about the same number of children.
The women named on the tablets had jobs such as bath attendants, flax-workers, grain-grinders, and weavers. Most of them were attached to the palace, but some lived in other towns and received rations of food from the palace.
High-ranking people also owned slaves, thought not as many as the wanax did. Slaves were valuable possessions, both for what they produced and as commodities to sell for a profit. Some were also domestic slaves, so that their owners didn't have to do any work at all.
Slavery was very much the norm throughout all of Ancient Greek history, and its morality was unquestioned (with few exceptions). It was practised everywhere and during all time periods. However, large-scale slavery wasn't practised until about the 500's BC.
It's possible that not all the lowest-status workers listed on the tablets were true slaves (i.e. captured/bought foreigners) – some may have been native individuals & families that had been reduced to a state of permanent dependence on the palace. If this was the case, then their condition would have been not much different from the slaves', but they would have been recognized as individuals, not as chattel. These “semi-slaves” weren't uncommon in Greek history; the most famous were the “helots” of Laconia & Messenia, owned by the state of Sparta.
Many types of specialists are listed on the Linear B tablets, both for the palace and other locations. Men worked as masons, carpenters, goldsmiths, bronzesmiths, armorers, bow-makers, leather-workers, perfume-makers, and many other positions. A physician is mentioned on one tablet. Women worked mostly in the textile sector – spinners, carders, weavers and embroiderers.
The wanax kept a close eye on the workshops. His scribes recorded how much raw material was provided to the workers, the objects they produced, and the rations of food they received in return. One entry says: “one ebony footstool inlaid with figures of men and lion in ivory”.
Most labour-intensive objects (such as the footstool, made of expensive imported material) have crumbed away over time, but the inventories of what was made were fully comprehensive. Individual chariot wheels were listed, along with their condition (“serviceable” & “unfit for use”). Even damaged bronze cauldrons were listed in the inventories.
About 1/3 of the Knossos tablets are about sheep & wool – this was a major industry. From one district alone, 19,000 sheep are recorded. Many women worked at Knossos & the surrounding towns, spinning wool and weaving & decorating the cloth.
The Pylos wanax also controlled a large textile induxtry (wool & linen). Another important Pylos industry was metal-working. There were perhaps 400 bronzesmiths, and the quantities of bronze they received shows that the production of bronze objects (including weapons) was far greater than local consumption.
The size of these manufacturing objects shows that textiles & metalwork would have been the two leading exports of the palace economy. Other exports were olive oil (plain & perfumed), wine, hides, leather, and leather products.
High-quality items, such as painted ceramics, jewellery, and the footstool mentioned above, also sold well internationally. Ceramics are very durable, so it’s those which have mostly survived in distant locations. Their presence there shows that other, more perishable goods had also been sold there.
The palaces imported items that Greece lacked, including gold, copper, tin, ivory, amber, dyes and spices. They also imported foreign varieties of things they already had, such as wine, textiles, ceramics, jewellery, and other exotic luxury goods.
Ceramics at the Pylos palace.
The Bronze-Age peoples of the Greece mainland, Crete, and the islands followed the same religious themes as other agrarian cultures. Their religion was tied up with agriculture. They honoured the gods with processions, music and dance; they gave them gifts and sacrifices. The most solemn ritual was the butchering of animals on outside altars. The early Minoans may have practised human sacrifice as well.
The main deity in Minoan art is a goddess, depicted as a woman dressed in the Minoan style, in an outdoor setting with trees, other plants, and animals. These types of worship scenes were also depicted in Mycenaean frescoes, and on gold & silver rings.
Minoan religious symbols were also used in Mycenaean (mainland & island) art – birds, snakes, bulls, stylized bull-horns, and double-headed axes. However, the meaning of these symbols is not well understood.
Minoan goddess (c.1600 BC, Knossos).
Minoan goddess on a gold ring (?). A double-headed axe is also depicted.
There were quite significant differences between Minoan & Mycenaean rituals & religious practices. A lot of Minoan worship was done in caves & mountain-peak sanctuaries, but the mainland Mycenaeans didn't build shrines outside of the centres. The Minoan palaces had more shrines than the Mycenaean palaces did, and they were more elaborate. For the Mycenaeans, the megaron was the main place for religious ceremony.
The goddess that appears constantly in Minoan-Mycenaean art was originally believed to be a single, pan-Aegean mother goddess who ruled over all nature. It is now thought these representations were actually of various goddesses, some of them local deities. They might have had specific fertility functions within the community, or presided over aspects of life besides fertility.
The tablets call these female deities potnia (“lady/mistress”), and also reveal that there were as many male gods, who were just as important as goddesses. It is unknown why they were seldom depicted in art, though.
Names of about 30 gods & goddesses have been recognized (some firmly, some tentatively) on the Knossos & Pylos tablets. Many of these deities were unknown in later times, but some are familiar from the later Greek religion – Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Hermes, Athena, Artemis, and possibly Apollo, Ares & Dionysus. There are also some of the later minor divinities.
Zeus was originally the Indo-European “sky-father”, and was brought in by the earliest Greek-speakers. Zeus pāter (“Zeus the father”) is the same god as the Indic Dyaus pitar, Roman Iuppiter, and Germanic Tiew (which is where we get the word “Tuesday”). Hera, Poseidon and Ares' names also come from Indo-European roots.
Some of the Mycenaean deities (particularly the goddesses) were probably pre-Greek (i.e. pre-Indo-European). The Mycenaean deities, beliefs & rituals would have been a combination of the pre-Greek, Aegean fertility-mother religions, and the Indo-European worship of sky-weather gods. Some elements may also be from the Near East. But because the Mycenaean religious traditions had evolved over 700yrs, it's impossible to figure out much of what came from where.
In Mycenaean Greece, the palace controlled the kingdom's religious organization. The Linear B tablets list the gifts from the palace to the gods, of land, animals, precious objects & human labour, to be used for the maintenance of the sanctuaries and the priests & priestesses.
The king exercised tight economic & political control over the sanctuaries & priesthoods, which shows that he was probably able to claim divine right of rule as the sole, undisputed sovereign. When he officiated at religious ceremonies, he did so as the special representative of the community to the gods. However, there isn't any evidence to suggest that the wanax was divine himself (during life or in death), or that he functioned as a priest-king over a theocratic state.
The Mycenaean kings were definitely the commanders-in-chief of their military forces. In most other small warrior-states, the king (wanax) and his military commander (lawagetas) both fought in major battles alongside their subordinate commanders, and this was probably the case in Mycenaean Greek kingdoms, too.
The military was socially stratified – the officers were nobles, and the ranks were levied from among the farmers, herders & artisans. The palace directed all military operations. The Linear B tablets record troop movements of “rowers” and “[coastal] watchers”, as well as the weapons & rations given to the troops. We don't know how the military was actually organized, but it was made up of units from all over the kingdom.
The ordinary soldier wore a leather helmet with bronze strips sewn on, and body armour made of leather or padded linen. His shield was a wooden frame with ox hide stretched over it.
Officers had more elaborate body armour. Their helmets were made of bronze or boars' tusks; they wore bronze-plate armour over their torso, and bronze greaves for their knees & shins.
Weapons were bronze swords & daggers; heavy, bronze-tipped thrusting spears, and lighter, shorter throwing spears; and bows & arrows.
We don't know much about tactics or how the weapons were combined in battle. The most confusing issue of Mycenaean warfare is how they used the chariot.
The chariot was invented in the early 1000's BC [i.e. near 2000 BC], and it quickly became very popular in Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Syria and Egypt, because of its speed. It consisted of a small platform, on top of two high spoked wheels, and was pulled by two horses. Horses couldn't pull the heavy 4-wheeled carts (which had been around for centuries) because the harnesses constricted their necks & chests, and this problem wasn't solved until the invention of the horse collar in the Middle Ages. But because the chariot was so light (a man could easily lift it by himself), a pair of horses could pull two passengers for a long way. A horse & rider could go faster than a chariot, but only for a short distance.
The nobility originally used chariots for fast communication, hunting, ceremony, and racing. In the 1600's BC, the chariot began to be used in the army, and eventually the chariot corps became the main military arm in the Near East. Their primary manouevre was the massed chariot charge, carried out against the enemy's chariots, with one man driving and the other firing arrows. Cavalry (mounted warriors fighting in formation) wasn't used in the Bronze Age.
Chariots appeared in Greece around 1600 BC, after the Hittites & other major states had perfect the art of chariotry. The Mycenaeans used it in battle right from the start, as well as for peaceful purposes.
However, it's believed that the chariot's main use was to take heavily-armed elite warriors to & from the fighting, as this is the only function that Homer's epics give it. The broken terrain of Greece would have made the usage of mass chariot formations almost impossible, unlike in the East's vast plains.
But it's possible that mini-versions of Eastern chariot warfare did take place on the plains below the Mycenaean fortresses. The Knossos wanax had a chariot corps of perhaps 200 chaeriots, and Pylos may have had nearly this many. It's true that these chariot corps were very small compared to the Eastern ones, but they would fit the scale of the small Mycenaean kingdoms.
The chariot's significance in Greece was not in battle, but for its high prestige value. Like the grand palaces, and the tholoi with their rich burial offerings, the Mycenaean adoption of chariotry was a statement that the warrior-chiefs were at the same cultural level as the great kings of Asia & Egypt. The chariot was the most expensive & intricate item of manufacture known to the Mycenaeans, and it would keep its purpose as a prestige symbol long after its military use had ceased.
