The expansion of Mycenae's economic and political interests was destined to transform the Saronic Gulf entirely, but this was more a gradual process than the execution of a strategic plan at any one point in time. A brief survey of the evidence of pottery in regions to the north and east of Mycenae is enlightening on this point.4 The areas of the southeastern Corinthia north of Mycenae, such as the Nemea and Longopotamos Valleys, have been considered natural targets for Mycenae to expand into virtually empty landscapes in the early years of the Shaft Grave Era in MH III—LH I (Cherry and Davis 2001). But the ceramic evidence suggests otherwise, indicating a strong measure of independence in the early Mycenaean period (Morgan 1999: 358—61; Mountjoy 1999: 197; Rutter 1989, 1990, 1993; Wright 2004: 124-26). Jeremy Rutter (1990: 452-55) has observed that the pottery used by the first group to resettle Tsoungiza finds close parallels not in the Argolid but in late MH graves in the North Cemetery at Corinth. The MH III assemblage is parochial, with a few imports from Aigina, but only general stylistic links with the Argolid and the Corinthia (Morgan 1999: 360). In LH I, Mycenaean-style fineware is rare while imported Aigine-tan gold-mica storage, cooking, and mixing vessels comprise between 7% and 10% of the total pottery assemblage (Rutter 1989: 12; Lindblom 2001: 41), with smaller numbers of Cycladic and Cretan pots possibly obtained through Aigine-tan intermediaries. Tsoungiza may have looked not south to Mycenae, but west toward the thriving center at Aidonia at this time (Wright 2004: 125). It is not until LH IIA that a significant connection can be demonstrated with Mycenae. Although imports of Aiginetan utilitarian vessels held steady at approximately the same levels as in LH I (Rutter 1993: 82-85, table 1), trench EU 10 produced high-quality Mycenaean fineware, including a Vapheio cup and four piriform jars so similar to examples from Mycenae that they may have come from the same workshop (Mountjoy 1999: 199; Rutter 1993: 74-75, 79). By this time, then, Tsoungiza was being drawn into Mycenae's orbit, although we cannot say with certainty that Tsoungiza had been incorporated politically as opposed to simply participating in economic transactions with an emerging center of pottery production and trade at Mycenae (Rutter 1993: 91). Indeed, in LH IIB both Mycenaean and Aiginetan imports actually declined and the LH IIIA1 subphase is not well known (Mountjoy 1999: 200).
The more distant northern Corinthia was slow to adopt the Mycenaean style. At LH I Korakou, there are a few sherds only of LH I style, and a small number in the palatial and pseudo-Minoan styles of LH IIA (Davis 1979). Instead the main connection in the early Mycenaean period was with Aiginetan trade networks. As mentioned above, this relationship began in the MBA, but by LH I the inhabitants of Korakou were importing a range of Aiginetan cookware, kraters, and large storage and pouring vessels (Davis 1979: 241, 258-59; Lindblom 2001: 41; Morgan 1999: 351; Mountjoy 1999: 199-200). MH traditions persisted longer in the northern Corinthia than in the Argolid: in the East Alley, gray Minyan, matt-painted, and yellow Minyan wares were found together with sherds of Mycenaean LH I and LH II styles (Davis 1979: 256-57).
Mycenaean LH I style is also rare at Kolonna and at the circum-Saronic settlements that imported pottery primarily from Aigina throughout the MBA and early Mycenaean period (Lindblom 2001: 43, table 9; Siennicka 2002: 181-84).
Relatively few sites with good early Mycenaean deposits have been published, and these have produced few examples of Mycenaean LH I. In Attica, it is exceedingly rare; Kiapha Thiti has few sherds if any at all (Maran 1993: 205; Mountjoy 1999: 491—92). Megali Magoula (Galatas) has produced some sherds of Mycenaean painted LH I style from the mounds of earth covering two early tholos tombs; this material seems earlier than the tombs themselves, reflecting settlement pottery rather than grave goods (Konsolaki-Yiannopoulou 2010: 73). If Megali Magoula flourished in MH because of access to the Aiginetan economy, the tholos tombs appear to indicate a later prosperity tied to relations with the Argolid and beyond.
Commenting on exchange systems in LH I, Mountjoy (1999: 20, 492) finds it surprising that lustrous decorated and other early Mycenaean styles should be so rare in the Saronic and the Corinthia, despite the easy voyage from the Gulf of Argos, where they are found in abundance. She notes that the shapes in which Aiginetan workshops specialized, including hydrias, amphoras, and kraters, do not duplicate the fine tableware of LH I style, so redundancy is not an explanation. She speculates that Aiginetan activity might account for the lack of pottery decorated in the LH I style, and that Lerna and Kolonna may have had separate interaction spheres. This seems correct, but I would go further to suggest exclusionary practices — a deliberate strategy of protectionism reflecting not only economic hegemony but also a final phase of Aiginetan political muscle.
LH II marks a transition when Mycenaean pottery of palatial and pseudo-Minoan type found its place at Aigina, Kiapha Thiti, and Athens by LH IIA. Both of these classes were produced locally at Kolonna and Athens (Mountjoy 1999: 492). Among the pseudo-Minoan types, the marine style is found at Kolonna, Athens, Thorikos, and Eleusis. But in that same period Aiginetan imports still made up 7—10% of the corpus at Tsoungiza and 20% at Kiapha Thiti (Maran 1992: 204—211). Mycenaean LH IIB pottery is still relatively little known in Attica, except for some graves at the Athenian Agora, until masses of later LH IIB pottery were dumped into wells on the south slope of the Athenian acropolis (Mountjoy 1999: 492—93). Also included in these deposits is late matt-painted ware, possibly an Aiginetan product.
The appearance of Mycenaean pottery for the first time in substantial quantities marks the initiation of a shift, played out over a period of maybe 50 to 100 years and essentially accomplished in LH IIIA — the early Mycenaean palatial period in the fourteenth century — by which Mycenae swallowed the Saronic Gulf into its economic and political orbit. It is no coincidence that Kolonna's export industry seems to have gone into decline sometime during LH IIIA1, around the time of the establishment of the first verifiable palace at Mycenae (Lindblom 2001: 129—30). The chronological period represented by LH IIIA1 is barely detectable at Kolonna, and few LH IIIA2 deposits in the Aegean have produced Aiginetan imports (Lindblom 2001: 129). By that time, Mycenaean fineware and utilitarian vessels had superseded most Aiginetan shapes throughout Kolonna's former sphere of influence. (Nevertheless, exports of Aiginetan storage and cooking vessels continued in LH IIIB and IIIC, owing to their superior working qualities as well as the momentum of long-term relationships by which they were exchanged [Lindblom 2001: 41; Zerner 1993: 55].) It is reasonable to assume that this shift in production and consumption patterns reflects the appropriation of the export market by Mycenaeans from the Argolid, but there are also clear signs of political expansion of Mycenae during the palatial period into the southwestern Corinthia and the Saronic Gulf, though probably not the northern Corinthia.
At Tsoungiza in the southwestern Corinthia, a ceremonial feasting deposit of LH IIIA2 (trench EU 9) consisting of cattle bones; drinking, serving, and cooking vessels; and a fragmentary ceramic female figure has been interpreted as the remains of a regional feast intended to cement alliances between elites at Mycenae and Tsoungiza (Dabney et al. 2004). The analysis of a pit with contents dating to LH IIIB1 shows that residents of tiny Tsoungiza had access to the same range and quality of pottery as Mycenae, indicating a close link but not necessarily strict control (Thomas 2005; this may already have been true in LH IIA: Rutter 1993: 90). Patrick Thomas also reinterpreted the so-called potters' shop in House B at Zygouries as a workshop for the manufacture of perfumed olive oil, implying a close link with Mycenae's interests in LH IIIB (Thomas 1992). In the broader sweep of the Mycenaean era, the southwestern Corinthia was only gradually incorporated into the political economy of the Argolid. Wright (2004: 127) has associated the Nemea Valley with a “periphery model," in which such regions exhibit considerable autonomy, participating in alternative social and economic networks before being incorporated into palatial economies to varying degrees in LH III.
A different pattern prevails in the northern Corinthia. There, the numbers of Aiginetan as well as other imported vessels declined in LH IIIA2. During the palatial period, Corinthian fineware shows strong stylistic connections with the Argolid in both forms and decorative motifs, but virtually all pottery vessels and terracotta figurines are believed to have been made locally (Morgan 1999: 353). The absence of true imports from the Argolid makes it highly unlikely that Mycenae dominated the northern Corinthia politically or established a permanent presence there (Pullen and Tartaron 2007; Tartaron 2010).
In the Saronic Gulf, the process of Mycenaean expansion into the region is not easily appreciated because few contexts spanning early to later Mycenaean are available, and in general the early Mycenaean remains are inferior in quantity and quality to those of the later Mycenaean phases (Siennicka 2002). Ongoing investigations at the MH—LH settlement of Megali Magoula offer a window onto the process by which Mycenaean influences insinuated themselves into the Saronic Gulf region (Konsolaki-Yiannopoulou 2003a, 2010). Located in the southwestern corner of the Gulf, with manageable overland and maritime access to the Argive Plain and the Argolic Gulf, Megali Magoula was well positioned to be an intermediate link between the two bodies of water. As we have seen, a prosperous community of the MBA had strong ties to Aigina, and MH III—LH I sherds found in the fill of the somewhat later tholos tombs show continuity into the LBA. Of the three tholoi, Tomb 3 seems to be earliest, dating perhaps to LH I based on pottery and weapons tenuously associated with the burial(s). The form of the tomb, built entirely above ground with a circular chamber and no dromos, recalls the EM—MM tholoi of southern Crete; Eleni Konsolaki-Yiannopoulou (2010: 72—73) proposes that it may represent, along with the Vagenas tomb in Messenia, a link between Cretan tombs and Helladic tholoi — though of course there is nothing approaching a consensus about the origin of the Helladic tholos (Rutter 2001: 139; Voutsaki 1998: 42—43). If such a connection existed, it might have been part of the cultural expansion of Minoan Crete that affected Ayia Irini at the dawn of the LBA.
Tombs 1 and 2 are more recognizably Mycenaean tholoi, the architectural features and pottery of which indicate a date in LH IIB for their construction and earliest burials. They are quite different in form. Tomb 1 is a very large tholos (D = 11.8 meters) of Pelon's Class C built mainly above ground with an artificial tumulus heaped over it (Konsolaki-Yiannopoulou 2003a: 165—75). Elements of the tomb's construction find parallels in early tholos tombs in Attica, Messenia, and the northeastern Peloponnese. The Mycenaean pottery, while not found in undisturbed burial contexts, indicates that the tholos was in use from LH IIB to LH IIIB. Tomb 2 is a very small example (D = 3.8 meters) of Pelon's Class A, rare in the northeastern Peloponnese but common in Messenia, where Minoan influences were strongly felt (Nelson 2001; Pelon 1998). A construction date in LH IIB is also favored, with continuing use in LH III and a concentration of Mycenaean pottery in LH IIIA2—IIIB1 (Konsolaki-Yiannopoulou 2003a: 177—78). Initial use of these tombs in LH II coincides with the first wave of Mycenaean pottery in the Saronic, and we might imagine elites at Megali Magoula now taking their cues from the families burying their dead in early tholoi in Messenia and the Argolid, keeping in mind that the fertilization of Mycenaean culture from Crete was still ongoing. As Kolonna lost its preeminent position in the Saronic in LH IIIA, the wider area of Mycenaean Troizen around Megali Magoula flourished, indicated for example by the rich chamber tomb cemetery at nearby Apatheia, where evidence for libations as part of elaborate funerary rituals parallels similar traces in the Megali Magoula tholoi (Konsolaki-Yiannopoulou 2001). Following Konsolaki-Yiannopoulou's (2010: 73) suggestion that “[t]he fall of Aegina and the rise of Mycenaean Troezen are two parallel phenomena, which may not be disconnected. . . ," it is reasonable to perceive in these changing fortunes the moment at which Mycenaean presence in the Saronic began to have political, not just economic or cultural, ramifications.
7.9 Map of early Mycenaean sites in the Saronic region. After Siennicka 2002: 180, fig. 1.
The archaeological record shows unambiguously what a momentous shift this was (Figs. 7.9, 7.10). The number of known sites around the Saronic increases almost twofold in late Mycenaean times when corrected for phase durations, and numerous new settlements indicate a dynamic expansion (Siennicka 2002: 184—89). Some sites that had long been occupied continued to flourish; for example, in Attica, Eleusis and Ayios Kosmas experienced prosperity and expansion, and the long-established settlements of the northern Corinthian plain carried on as before. But many more of the settlements were new foundations of the palatial period, as Figure 7.10 Clearly shows. With some variations, they adopted the typical repertoire of Mycenaean material culture, including pottery forms and styles, architectural techniques, burial customs, and cult practices; in short, they participated in the Mycenaean cultural koine that formed rapidly in LH IIIA and remained in place until it began to fragment in later LH IIIB. To give a sense of the range of palatial-period communities in the Saronic Gulf region, I will next describe briefly two settlements, Kanakia on Salamis Island and Ayios Konstantinos on the Methana peninsula, before taking up a third, Korphos-Kalamianos, at much greater length. (For a more inclusive survey of LH IIIA—IIIB Saronic settlements, see Siennicka 2002: 184—89.)
Kanakia was an acropolis-type settlement of LH IIIA—IIIC date in the southwestern corner of Salamis, built on a series of terraces with retaining walls on and around a pair of neighboring peaks (Lolos 2007). The site overlooks two harbors, with a broad viewshed encompassing much of the Saronic Gulf. The
7.10 Map of late Mycenaean sites in the Saronic region. After Siennicka 2002: 180, fig. 2.
Built area covers approximately 4.5 hectares, with structures varying in size and plan separated by roads and courtyards (Fig. 7.11). Free-standing structures with one, two, and three rooms have been identified, along with true megara, trapezoidal buildings, and corridor-type buildings such as are known in LH IIIB contexts at Mycenae, Tiryns, and elsewhere. There are also at least two complexes of multiple, attached buildings on the upper areas of the acropolis. The site is unfortified, but the approaches are steep and a system of watch towers seems to have been in place.
Excavations since 2000 have focused on structures within the building complexes of LH IIIB—IIIC date. The structures often rested on multiple levels conforming to the terraced topography; an example is building IA, a LH IIIB corridor house built on two levels with an upper level devoted to working areas where stone tools, pottery, and traces of mineral pigments were found, and a lower-level cellar where pottery vessels were stored. Building IA forms part of a larger industrial complex with buildings IB and IA; this compound comprises more than forty rooms and spaces for workshops, storerooms, auxiliary rooms, corridors, courtyards, and paths. The finds of querns, grinders, whetstones, spindle whorls, beads, a hoard of bronze tools in IA, and everyday pottery of LH IIIB2—LH IIIC Early are consistent with this interpretation. Some evidence of cult has been found in a couple of buildings, in the form of a number of clay anthropomorphic and animal figurines, the former mainly of phi and psi type, but these attest to ritual practice in household or workshop contexts only.
7.11 General plan of Mycenaean Kanakia, Salamis. After Lolos 2007: 238, fig. 4.
Overall, the settlement as revealed to date reflects a working community; as yet no building of truly palatial character has been uncovered. Yet the size of the settlement, the quality of the architecture, and the presence of imported goods suggest that this was an important settlement. Architectural details such as columned entrances {propylaia), a large “double megaron" (building T, considered by the excavator to be a ruler's residence: Lolos 2007: 235), and a unique, massive tower-like structure attached to a twin gate that controls access to a triangular space all point to a community of some wealth and power. Pottery was imported from the Argolid, Attica, and Aigina — in the last case the cooking pots, some with potters' marks, which were still circulating in palatial times. In the industrial area of IB, a large fragment of a Cypriot copper oxhide ingot was found, and also of Cypriot origin or inspiration, a piece of a ceramic wall bracket from building lA of a type known from Tiryns, and from the same context a coarseware stirrup jar marked in a Cypriot fashion.
Kanakia is best interpreted as the seat of a local ruler well connected to Mycenaean political and economic networks; with probably fine harbors, it must have been a destination for maritime traffic in the Saronic Gulf. Salamis was a busy place in LH IIIA—IIIB, with a large number of settlements and cemeteries that have not been adequately investigated (Anastasiou-Alexopoulou 2003). In the early twelfth century, Salamis was apparently a destination for refugees
Of the palatial collapse and Kanakia may have been one of several sites on the island to receive them until circa 1150, when it was finally abandoned.
Ayios Konstantinos is a small village of the Mycenaean palatial period, situated on a high ridge overlooking the southeastern coast of the Methana peninsula. Unlike Kanakia, the settlement had no easy access to the sea, and so probably supported an agropastoral community exploiting terrestrial resources and routes. Yet among its humble buildings it housed a remarkable sanctuary, important for numerous reasons: its inconspicuous position within a simple village; the in situ condition of the remains, which permits chronology and ritual performance to be reconstituted; and the distinctiveness of the cult objects, which show local variability that cannot be characterized as a chronological effect (Hamilakis 2003; Hamilakis and Konsolaki 2004; Konsolaki-Yiannopoulou 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003b). The cult centered on the small Room A (4.3 x 2.6 meters), whose furnishings consisted of a floor of mixed earth and pebbles, a stepped bench in the northwest corner opposite the entrance, a low platform along the south wall, a podium in the center of the room, and a hearth in the southeast corner (Fig. 7.12). The finds date the use of the room to LH IIIA—LH IIIB. On and around the bench, excavators found more than 150 terracotta figurines, tripod altar tables, pottery, and a triton shell similar to those found in Minoan shrines. The corpus of figurines is unusual in that it consists mainly of bovids (cattle and oxen) and horses, with several rare groups including horses with helmeted riders, horses with chariot groups, and ridden and yoked oxen. The standard Mycenaean female figurines that are so abundant elsewhere are virtually absent. Other aspects of the sanctuary are well attested elsewhere, however. Like most Mycenaean cult places outside the palaces, this sanctuary lacks monumental construction or decorative elaboration. The pottery includes kylikes, bowls, alabastra, and rhyta, all common ritual shapes. Certain structural features, a stepped bench on which figurines were displayed, and platforms on the wall opposite the bench and in the center of the room, probably served as attention-focusing devices in the rituals and connect this sanctuary with others such as the Temple in the Cult Centre at Mycenae. Of utmost significance is the hearth, which was filled with ash and animal bones as well as scattered sherds from tripod cooking pots. Analysis of the faunal remains revealed a predominance of burnt juvenile pig bones, with lesser representation of sheep and goat (Hamilakis 2003; Hamilakis and Konsolaki 2004). The presence of all body parts suggests that these animals were burnt offerings (holocausts) to the deity rather than meals roasted for human consumption. The destruction of the entire animal body is perhaps to be understood in terms of the symbolic consumption of the offering by the deity (Hamilakis and Konsolaki 2004: 145). This is the first evidence found in a primary use context for burnt animal offerings in Mycenaean Greece, although the practice of animal sacrifice followed by human consumption was certainly widespread (Hamilakis and Konsolaki 2004: 144).
7.12 Partial plan of excavated Mycenaean structures, Ayios Konstantinos, Methana, with Room A indicated. Konsolaki-Yiannopoulou 2002: 26, fig. 1. Courtesy of the Swedish Institute at Athens.
In such close quarters, the performance of ritual at Ayios Konstantinos may have created an embodied sensory experience of food, drink, music (the triton shell used as a horn), and symbolic communication with deities and ancestors through the sights and smells of burnt offerings (Hamilakis and Konsolaki 2004: 146-47).
The anomalous features at Ayios Konstantinos are difficult to assess, since we possess few Mycenaean sanctuaries and thus do not know the true range of variation. We do not know whether the sanctuary was autonomous, serving the needs of a small rural community, or tethered to a regional center, such as Megali Magoula (Konsolaki-Yiannopoulou 1999, 2003b). Ayios Konstantinos may have been like one of the outlying communities to which the palaces sent animals for sacrifices and feasting, as attested in the Linear B archives at Pylos and interpreted from a large deposit of animal bones and tableware at Tsoungiza (Bennet 2001: 33; Dabney et al. 2004).
Kolonna itself was occupied throughout the Mycenaean palatial period, as we know from pottery and burials, but there is little architecture that can be definitively attributed to LH IIIA—IIIB, and the surviving material is sufficiently meager that the continuing status of Kolonna as a center of major political and economic importance is in doubt. There are mitigating circumstances, however. The necropolis on nearby Windmill Hill indicates a sizable population, and extensive leveling in the Archaic and Hellenistic periods has obliterated at least some of the earlier architectural complexes. Remains of buildings and terraces underneath later structures, exposed in recent excavations in the West Complex and the south slope, may be part of the “missing" fourteenth to thirteenth century center (Felten 2007: 18—19; Felten et al. 2008). The ceramic material and the tombs demonstrate that Kolonna had been incorporated into the Mycenaean koine, while imports from Cyprus and the southeastern Aegean show that Kolonna remained connected to regional and interregional maritime trade.
Elsewhere on Aigina, there are ample signs that influences from the Argolid were pervasive in the palatial period. The later sanctuary of Aphaia in the northeastern corner of the island was possibly an open-air hill sanctuary already in the LBA (Pilafidis-Williams 1998). The presence of standard terracotta human and animal figurines implies the adoption of Mycenaean cult practices. Neutron activation analyses carried out on sherds and figurine fragments from the site identified an origin in the Argolid for a high percentage of both groups (Pilafidis-Williams 1998: 166—81). If we combine this evidence with the limited but growing material from Kolonna, a picture emerges of an island thoroughly invested by Mycenaean influences from the Argolid no later than LH IIIA2, and possibly earlier.
The critical juncture at which hegemony in the Saronic passed from Kolonna to Mycenae seems therefore to fall sometime early in LH IIIA, i. e., the first half of the fourteenth century. This has been seen as some form of conflict or competition (Pullen and Tartaron 2007), but the nature of the interaction and resulting transformation is unclear. Was it a violent takeover of territory and trade routes, or was it an evolutionary process in which Mycenae's superior resources and broader networks of relations around the Aegean and beyond gradually rendered Kolonna irrelevant? There is no obvious evidence of destruction at Kolonna in this period, or necessarily of retrenchment; indeed, recent excavations indicate that “. . . the whole enlarged settlement was in use at least until LH IIIB" (Felten 2007: 19). Nor is there much clarity about Mycenae's specific endeavors abroad since the early Mycenaean period there is known mainly from burials, and even LH IIIA settlement in and around the citadel is poorly known because of the extensive rebuilding programs in LH IIIB (French et al. 2003; Shelton 2010).
On balance, the second scenario seems more likely and has been offered as a partial explanation for the emergence of Mycenae to prominence in the Argolid (Voutsaki 1995, 1998, 1999, 2001). Sofia Voutsaki (1999: 113-14) makes a compelling case that Mycenae outmaneuvered Argive rivals such as Lerna and Asine to forge strong ties with partners on Aigina, the Cyclades, Kythera, and Crete. This network of alliances, giving access to exotic goods and raw material wealth — displayed or fashioned into high-status items deposited ultimately in monumental tombs - allowed elites at Mycenae to differentiate themselves from their counterparts in the Argolid and to position themselves, in social network terms, to accumulate ties preferentially and thus to suppress competition. As mentioned above, a similar scenario has been proposed with Kolonna as the dominant node in the Saronic Gulf, and Kolonna may even have played a role in suppressing the emergence of a palace state in the Corinthia (Pullen and Tartaron 2007: 157). Nevertheless, groups in the Argolid at Asine, Argos, Midea/Dendra, Tiryns, and elsewhere continued to bury exotic items and other forms of wealth with their dead at least through LH IIIA, before the concentration of wealth in burials was increasingly restricted to Mycenae in LH IIIB (Burns 2010: 168—90).
Thus, we can establish the likelihood, but not the certainty, that it was Mycenae that carved out maritime networks in the Saronic Gulf before LH IIIB. Given this ambiguity, it is the smaller settlements located in between Kolonna and Mycenae, such as Megali Magoula, with material spanning LH IIB—LH IIIA, and the later foundations at Kanakia and Ayios Konstantinos, through which we witness the gradual transfer of the Saronic region from the Aiginetan to the Mycenaean sphere of influence. The last location considered in this case study, the coastal site of Korphos-Kalamianos, presents another perspective on the Bronze Age Saronic maritime small world as a settlement that alternated over time between prominence and insignificance, between high and low connectedness. A consideration of this settlement from the dawn of the Bronze Age to the end of the Mycenaean palatial period will help to round out our diachronic narrative.
World History
