(p. 181a) The rise of Mycenae and its wider civilization These phenomena span final Middle Helladic and early Late Helladic (Late Helladic 1), ca. 1800-1500 BC
Not for the first time, the traditional phasing in Greek archaeology does not fit historical processes too well.
(p. 181b) Late Helladic begins with a new ceramic style, heavily influenced by Minoan Crete (for example in the introduction of a lustrous iron-rich paint)
The slip-paint (a solution of clay) made from iron-rich or ferrous clay fires to a glossy red or black depending on the greater or lesser degree of oxidation in the kiln, respectively (Wardle and Wardle 1997).
(p. 182a) There is widespread consensus that the Thera explosion destabilized but did not break Minoan power. The latter occurred subsequently, following most scholars, as the result of an invasion of Crete by Mainland Mycenaeans
This event, resulting in the wave of palace destructions, occurred perhaps in the context of civil war or factional disputes on the island, or maybe as a unilateral coup by these ambitious Mainland proteges of the Minoans.
We must note, however, that a modern Minoan resistance movement has sprung up to defend Crete from the thesis of Mycenaean domination, rerunning the early twentieth-century AD dispute between Arthur Evans (representing Knossos) and "Mainlanders" Alan Wace (Mycenae) and Carl Blegen (Pylos) (McDonald and Thomas 1990). In particular, Laura Preston and Jan Driessen suggest that the chaotic situation after the eruption of Thera during the Late Minoan 1A period led to a Knossos takeover of much of the island in Late Minoan 1B-Late Minoan 2, assisted perhaps by a small contingent of Mycenaeans. These events caused the Late Minoan 1B destruction of centers apart from Knossos itself. But the dominance of Knossos in Late Minoan 2-3A as shown in its Linear B archives was, according to these revisionist scholars, led by Minoan elites. They adopted Mainland culture to distinguish themselves from other Minoan groups: chamber and tholos tombs, the more rigid forms of Mycenaean ceramic style (the Late Minoan 2 or "Palace Style," cf. Betancourt 2007), warrior burial, and most surprisingly a new form of Minoan script designed to write Mainland Greek and not the Minoan language (Preston 2004, 2007; Driessen and Langohr in Galaty and Parkinson 2007). As we have seen in earlier chapters, there is a good case to be made for a shift within Minoan civilization during Second Palace times, especially over the Late Minoan 1 phase, toward more personal forms of leadership on Crete, while at the port of Knossos at Poros the discovery of contemporary (Late Minoan 1A-B) warrior graves already seems to mark the local adoption - or perhaps anticipation - of Mycenaean militaristic culture. Knossos may have suffered only minor damage and discontinuity in the island-wide destructions that marked the end of Late Minoan 1B and was clearly the controlling center for the Center and West of the island. During the subsequent Late Minoan 2-3A era of Knossian domination earlier Minoan forms of burial (mostly still invisible to archaeologists but based on shallow pits with pithoi or coffins inside) were replaced by Mainland chamber and tholos tombs, which diffuse outward from Knossos throughout the island. At the least one can agree with these authors that perhaps in late Second Palace times life at Knossos seemed to have converged toward a society more comparable to that of the Mycenaeans, and that the more complete adoption of the latter's culture in Late Minoan 2-3B was already being anticipated. But the next step, to see the Mainlanders in a minor support role, seems far less logical given the weight of evidence which suits exactly what we might expect to see from a Mycenaean takeover and establishment of a Mainland state at Knossos. The most telling evidence is of course the language change, which is entirely unnecessary if not remarkably awkward to introduce for a Minoan administration. Critiquing this revisionist indigenous position, Nakassis (2008) notes that Driessen himself in a study of one of the major Linear B archives from Knossos found that half of the personal names mentioned appear to be Mainland Greek, while Killen's remarkable work on key officials in various palatial archives has suggested that the same family names for top officials found at Pylos, Mycenae, Tiryns, Thebes, and Knossos indicate the professional mobility of elite Mainland Greek individuals and/or interpalatial marriages among this class (cf. Galaty and Parkinson in Galaty and Parkinson 2007). Chadwick (1976a) adds to the argument for Mycenaean takeover the information that cattle are given personal names in Greek in the Knossos Linear B archives. Finally the fact that the supposed Mycenaean ruler of Knossos did not build a Mainland megaron as his seat of power, and the only throne was the rather small and inaccessible one reconstructed for the Throne Room, although used as a further argument for Minoans staying in control (Driessen and Langohr in Galaty and Parkinson 2007), is far from conclusive. It is easy to imagine that retaining the Knossos palace for a new, Mainland ruler could have been a diplomatic decision where the incoming wanax (Mycenaean king) tried to portray this coup as a replacement for the previous dominant Second Palace elite. Using a traditional suite of rooms which, whatever their exact palatial function, seemed to have been the locale of major ceremony in Second Palace times, and keeping the overall plan of the earlier palace could be seen in this light. The throne placement is of disputed date, some seeing is as Late Minoan 2 and hence in the "Mycenaean" era, others as late Second Palace and hence part of the general rise of a more visible Minoan elite at Knossos.
(p. 182b) A minority of scholars maintain that a Minoan elite was still in charge at Knossos but ruled with Mycenaean support. This has recently been supported by Strontium analysis of bone (Nafplioti 2008) suggesting that "Mycenaean" tombs actually contain local Minoan populations, although this study is problematic
Strontium analysis of bone and teeth, and of tooth enamel, enables the analyst to characterize the geology where the dead person was respectively last living in the last 7-10 years before decease and when they were children. This is thus a very promising tool for showing whether a person grew up or last lived in a particular geographical environment, and hence was native or foreign to the place where they were interred. In this case Nafplioti analyzes 13 individuals from Late Minoan 2-3 at Knossos who were buried in tombs of Mycenaean rather than local style, and compared their Strontium values with those of Middle Minoan-Late Minoan 1, supposedly pre-Mycenaean takeover, burials in the same district. Not only were the values alike, but they also agree with a geology such as that of the Knossos area, Tertiary soft limestones. At this stage, however, a weakness in the analysis appears: Nafplioti interprets the idea of a Mycenaean takeover literally as meaning that all the people from this widespread Mainland civilization came from the site of Mycenae itself. The geology of that site is hard limestone and produces a contrasted Strontium signal to that of Knossos, hence it was easy, by disproving an invasion from Mycenae, to disprove one from the Mycenaeans. Unfortunately there is no reason to limit Mycenaeans to one small district of the Mainland, and in fact large parts of the Mycenaean settlement zone lie in similar Tertiary soft limestone deposits to those of Knossos: the palace of Pylos for example in Messenia, the Corinthia, and closer at hand the districts of the Argive Heraion and of Berbati adjacent to Mycenae itself (Bintliff 1977). Nafplioti is nonetheless correct to say that the Knossos tombs contain individuals of whom the sample analyzed are indistinguishable in their bone character from local Minoans, but it is now necessary to test individuals on the Mainland who lived in geologies comparable to that of Knossos to make the argument truly convincing to me. We can also add that it is not necessary to assume that any invading Mycenaeans massacred the entire local population, so that those buried at Knossos in Late Minoan 2-3 would be largely Minoan with a presumed small Mainland presence. We have previously adduced more nuanced theories in which a faction of Minoans encouraged a Mycenaean takeover so that rule from Knossos in Late Minoan 2-3 would be from elements of both populations. For me the ultimate stumbling block to all theories denying a Mycenaean invasion remains the language and content of the Knossos Linear B tablets: yes, one can see Minoans adopting Mycenaean tombs for prestigious reasons, but a new language? The prevalence of Mycenaean names including individuals or families also active in Mainland palaces, naming cattle in Mycenaean Greek, stretch credibility too far on present evidence. After all, would we not expect that cows given Mycenaean names by officials at Knossos would provide Strontium readings showing they grew up at Knossos? The unanswered question for invasion deniers is why they possess Mycenaean names at all.
This lively and significant debate has been carried further by Madeleine Miller (2011) in a new analysis of the Minoan LM1-2 "warrior graves."
(p. 182c) In Eastern Crete many believe a series of independent Minoan "statelets" arose from the ruins of the Late Minoan 1B destructions
There is general agreement that parts of East Crete remained in Minoan rather than Mycenaean control, but no longer run by its former palaces (here in later, historic times the Minoan language survived in pockets as Eteo-Cretan). In this respect it is interesting that at Mochlos in Eastern Crete (Smith 2010) most ceramics from the LM2-3B era show continuity with Neopalatial styles, and the majority of imports are also from this region, from Palaikastro. A small component of "Mycenaean"-style ware, notably fine tableware, is sourced to the Knossos region, generally agreed to be under likely Mycenaean domination, although the fabrics remain Cretan.
(p. 182d) Knossos suffered catastrophic destruction in Late Helladic 3, the scholarly majority favoring the end of the last palace in Late Helladic 3A1 during the fourteenth century BC
Here again, as we have noted in earlier chapters, there is unresolved dispute about the timing and explanation of this event - although the firing and abandonment of the palace provided the ideal context for the cooking and preservation of the Linear B archives. A minority of scholars, given the far from clear dating evidence from Knossos, believe that it was destroyed as part of the general wave of destructions of Mycenaean palaces throughout the Aegean, in Late Helladic 3B or the later thirteenth century BC, which then might have involved other forces, some perhaps from outside the Aegean. In favor of a later date is the identification by Killen of the same names for administrators in the Knossos archives as individuals found in Late Helladic 3B Mainland archives. Of course there might be a dynasty of elite administrators over generations, but it is also possible that the same people are involved, which would clinch the 3B date for the relevant Knossos archive destruction (Kelder 2008). Driessen has suggested that the Linear B archives at Knossos stem from several distinct destructions, each of which baked the tablets and also sealed them in debris (1992). There is evidence that the same scribal hand is found at Knossos and in tablets from Late Minoan 3B Khania, further confusing the debate on the definitive destruction and abandonment of Knossos Palace and its associated territorial state.
(p. 182e) The islands of the Cyclades see their ceramic imports from Crete replaced by Mainland items after the Thera eruption, then increasing Mycenaean influence, usually seen as leading to a political takeover, which some argue to have involved military conquest
Mountjoy and Ponting (2000) show the pottery import shift occurring already in Late Minoan 1B, but believe that the physical takeover of the islands by Mycenaeans occurs later, marked for example by a mini-palatial megaron complex of Late Helladic 3 date at Phylakopi town on Melos, built above an older mansion of a local ruler. Cosmopoulos (1998) argues for destructions at the major settlements of Aghia Irini on Kea, Grotta on Naxos, and Phylakopi in the post-Thera phase as marks of Mycenaean militarism, followed by enhanced Mycenaean features at their successor towns in Late Helladic 3A. The evidence for destruction at Phylakopi is, however, disputed though not the "Mycenization" (Whitelaw 2005).
(p. 183) Already by Late Helladic 3A (fourteenth century BC) massive defensive walls arise around key centers, extended or multiplied in the thirteenth century (Late Helladic 3B)
The main circuit walls of Mycenaean citadels and fortresses are typically composed of giant roughly shaped limestone blocks with a fill of small stones, the Cyclopaean style (the average weight of the Tiryns citadel blocks is 12 tons: Fitzsimons 2007). Gates are treated with more finish, regular cut-blocks (ashlar) in conglomerate rock if available (Mycenae) or limestone, partly for appearance's sake (Preziosi and Hitchcock 1999). Although parallels to other Eastern Mediterranean fortification walls are not very close (Loader 1998), some now suggest that the fortifications at the town of Miletos on the west coast of Anatolia, a pawn in the power games between the Mycenaeans, the Hittite Empire, and local statelets according to Hittite texts, might have formed a cultural intermediary in some elements of the design of defense walls. But fortifications were not essential to Mycenaean centers. They may perhaps indicate instead where hostilities occurred most or were most expected. Pylos has a possible early Mycenaean wall but this is out of use by the climax Late Helladic 3 phase at the palace-town; Orchomenos in Central Greece and the Menelaion in Laconia lack walls, as does the new palatial focus at Dhimini-Iolkos in Thessaly (Dickinson 2006). Also, while Thebes seems to have walling around palace and town, elsewhere citadels alone are protected. There are also innumerable fortified hilltops which appear to be military posts rather than domestic sites.
(p. 184a) At Mycenae, Tiryns, and Midea in the Argos Plain, at Athens, and at the Central Greek foci of Thebes and Gla, during the mid - to late phases of the climax Mycenaean era of Late Helladic 3B, we witness enlarged fortifications and at some centers secret water-supply tunnels, associated with multiple destruction events
At Mycenae itself serious trouble begins at a group of extramural houses (the Oil Merchant group and some others), which were built in Late Helladic 3B but already destroyed in its mid-phase. Since these contained caches of ivories and oil as well as Linear B tablets, they are considered as adjuncts to the palace administration based within the citadel walls. At Tiryns in the far South of the same Plain of Argos there was also fire destruction in mid-3B within the citadel. These Late Helladic 3B1 phase destructions were followed by extensions of the fortifications at both centers, while at the major site between them of Midea, the citadel walls appear to have begun construction in this period but were essentially completed in the latter half of the period - Late Helladic 3B2. At the very end of B2 an underground tunnel to a secret water supply was built in the Mycenae citadel and in the Lower Citadel of Tiryns. Mycenae and Tiryns saw massive destruction at the transition 3B-C as did Midea. Outside of the Peloponnese, the assumed palatial center on the Acropolis at Athens had its walls built in B1 and modified in B2; at the end of the latter an underground spring access tunnel was also built. In Central Greece the palatial center on the Kadmeia (the Acropolis of Thebes) suffered some destruction at the end of 3A2, during 3B, and at the transition 3B-C (Dakouri-Hild 2010). The giant lake fortress of Gla, probably an adjunct to a palace center at Orchomenos in Boeotia, suffered partial destruction in mid-3B and definitive fire-destruction at the end of this phase (Iakovidis 1998). The new palatial center at Dimini-Iolkos in Thessaly (Adrimi-Sismani in Galaty and Parkinson 2007) saw a catastrophic destruction at the end of Late Helladic 3B, after which survivors reoccupied and replanned parts of the site in a much less elaborate fashion, without reconstructing any administrative units. This again seems to reflect a targeted taking-out of the elite and palatial infrastructure.
What is increasingly emerging from these data is the likelihood of a staggered series of attacks of increasing violence, beginning with 3A perhaps at Thebes, and punctuating even the "florescence" peak of the 3B thirteenth century. Even after what seem the most effective destructions at the end of 3B, centers which continued in 3C, albeit shadows of their former grandeur, generally suffered further damage in that period. Thus we can observe that the parallel construction and/or expansion of defense works throughout even the 3B era appeared to match not merely perceived threats but actual attacks at numerous localities in the Mycenaean state system. It should be noted, though, that a minority of scholars attribute some or even most of these fire-destructions to earthquakes, although historical examples in Greece and the experience of Minoan Crete would not suggest that earthquakes by themselves could cause civilizational collapse.
(p. 184b) The Tiryns Lower Citadel continues in occupation through 3C into Submycenaean times, and its Lower Town expands not only significantly but as a well-planned urban extension (elevating the settlement to perhaps 45 ha). Some see a lone attempt here to revive a minor state during 3C
Tiryns has destructions variously attributed to earthquake and enemy action during 3B and 3C. Occupation was very dense in the Lower Citadel and in the Lower Town in the plain outside the walls, from 3B into 3C and somewhat beyond (Maran and Papadimitriou 2006). Among the excavated structures in the Lower Citadel and Lower Town are several large houses which may evidence an elite, who appear in varied "heroic" scenes on contemporary pottery from this site and elsewhere showing "Chariot scenes, seafaring, hunting, dancing, fighting and warfare" (Rutter et al. 2007). This remains a very large site, with its walls repaired, and claimed variously to be 20-40 ha in 3C. There are signs of a partial palatial reuse (an important building T was constructed above the
Great Megaron on the former palace). All this has led scholars to wonder if here, at least, a local leader attempted to revive a palace state for a limited period of time (Dickinson 2006).
(p. 184c) Many other sites are abandoned in late 3B or early 3C, with or without destruction
Such as the secondary center at Nichoria in Messenia and the village at Tzoungiza in the Corinth region.
(p. 184d) Legend suggests that the warfare was occasioned by internal strife and one particular group of Greek-speakers, the Dorians
The distribution of Greek dialects by Archaic-Classical times included a large block of Dorian dialect speakers, who might have originated outside the Southern Mainland and the core regions of Mycenaean civilization, since their dialect differed from that of the Linear B tablets. It has been claimed that Dorian originated from West Greece, but other specialists have questioned whether Dorian was not already spoken within Southern Greece in the Bronze Age by the subordinate peasantry (Chadwick 1976b). The basis for the latter viewpoint is that the original homes for later Greek dialects falls into uncertainty if one were to suggest that the Linear B archives could represent an administrative language, shedding no reliable light on the dialects of everyday Greek spoken by regional populations in that period. However, as we shall see in Chapter 8, there is archaeological evidence to support the scenario indicated by earlier studies of ancient Greek dialects, implying considerable displacements of people, site abandonments, and the foundation of new settlements, in the centuries following the collapse of palatial civilization.
(p. 184e) The attacks on Egypt and the Levant by a coalition called the "Sea Peoples" who may have arisen from opportunistic raiders or displaced groups gathered from a surprisingly wide region including the Central Mediterranean, the Aegean, and Cyprus
The Sea Peoples have given rise to wide speculation but little firm identification (sources reviewed by Dickinson 2006). The names cited in Egyptian sources have led some to spread their origins from Sardinia, Sicily, Etruria, the Mycenaean Aegean, Cyprus, and several other areas of the Mediterranean. Rather firmer evidence comes from the images of these peoples as they are portrayed in the great temple of Rameses III at Medinet Habu, one of two Pharaohs who defeated invasions of Egypt by this coalition in the late thirteenth and again in the early twelfth century BC. One part of the Sea Peoples probably subsequently settled on the southern coastland of Palestine and became the Philistines of Old Testament tradition (Uziel and Maeir 2005). Their culture on excavation reveals strong Mycenaean elements as well as local Bronze Age features, but the roots of the former (in Late Helladic 3C tradition) are perhaps from Cyprus rather than the Aegean, an island heavily "Mycenaeanized" in this last phase of the Bronze Age.
(p. 184f) Environmental factors have been linked with the end of the Mycenaean powers and related crises in the East Mediterranean. There is still a lack of convincing evidence for climatic change for this era. Earthquakes do seem to be proven for some Mycenaean centers during 3B, but are a regular phenomenon in the Aegean
The possibility of adverse climatic change has been popular for some decades (literature most recently reviewed by Moody 2005 and Dickinson 2006). Although there is some support for global climatic disturbances around this time, nothing very tangible has been revealed for environmental effects in the Mediterranean. In contrast, and perhaps rather unexpectedly, another environmental factor has recently been given considerable support from archaeology, and that is earthquake catastrophe. Of course the Aegean, owing to its critical location in the plate tectonic map, is prone to regular quakes and irregular volcanic outbreaks, but strong claims have been made that the mid-3B destructions at several centers in the Argos Plain, and those at the end of 3B2 too, were caused by severe earthquakes. Since rebuilding occurred between these two phases, the first explanation is possible for mid-3B, but the reason for large-scale destruction without recovery of palatial power at the second time-point stretches our belief. After all, on Crete the total destruction of the First Palaces, usually attributed to a massive earthquake, was followed by most of them being rebuilt on an even grander scale as the Second Palaces.
(p. 184g) Other theories include changes in warfare, which has not convinced most specialists, and the detection of alien invaders in Greece through a characteristic handmade burnished ware
Drews (1993) argued that the Hittites and Mycenaeans and almost the Egyptians too, succumbed to the spread of a new form of warfare, where their traditional reliance on a combination of chariots and archers, and the elite heavily armed warriors, were made redundant by footsoldiers armed with novel long slashing swords and large spears (of Central European origin). Although the typology of weapons did change in this direction in final Mycenaean times, Late Mycenaean weapons have a similar form, and chariot warfare is highly unlikely to have been a major aspect of Aegean battles, considering the terrain (although their use as "taxis" in and out of combat was long recognized from descriptions of "Homeric" warfare). A wider interpretation capable of bringing the civilization down has not been derived from this for most scholars (reviewed by Snodgrass 1993 and Dickinson 2006).
The handmade burnished ware dubbed "barbarian ware" has been promoted by some scholars as potential evidence of the arrival of a primitive, non-Mycenaean population element in Southern Greece. Actually there is just a very small amount of this ceramic type at several Mycenaean sites, already from 3B, and its production base is disputed. According to Rutter et al. (2007), it was mostly locally made in the Aegean and derives from Mycenaean ceramic traditions. But there is certainly also a small amount of Italian-style handmade coarseware (impasto) in the Aegean and further east in putative "Sea People" contexts. But rather than support a mass attack by barbarian armies in the South Aegean, this evidence is much more compatible with a minor shift within Southern Greece to supplement a still dominant wheelmade ceramic production with a small component of handmade cookware, perhaps indicating some disruption to workshops in increasingly troubled times, alongside participation of Mycenaean and other peoples from Italy in the Sea People attacks on the Levant and Egypt. D'Agata (2008) also finds no reason to support an ethnic marker for this pottery, least of all identifying the presence of Dorian immigrants, and agrees that some is of Italian origin and this probably relates to exchange systems, while other finds seem to be of West-Central Greek and Macedonian manufacture but found in the Southern Mainland.
(p. 184h) Ingenious attempts to find signs of crisis in the Linear B archives (Chadwick 1976a) lack conviction, but admittedly the political archives have never been located at any palatial site, in contrast to the economic records
The fact that the Linear B archives from the palaces are nearly all fired as an unintentional result of the palace being burned down, ought to help us identify in the records anything unusual in the final year before destruction, when these records were being stored. But recent discussion has found nothing very remarkable in the archives.
(p. 185a) It is still too soon to choose a best-fit scenario for the Mycenaean collapse, but some key elements can be suggested
Some further discussion follows. The Mycenaean states appeared to be anticipating large-scale military threat. Although later legends suggest there were conflicts between these states, the final era of conflict in the later thirteenth to twelfth centuries was so destructive to every palace center that it was more likely that the threats perceived and which were realized, emanated from forces other than those of the Mycenaean elite. Was there a widespread revolt of the lower and middle classes against palatial rule? The continuity of culture and the lack of a major alien presence in the assemblage would fit civil war, but then the wide evidence of depopulation and resettlement hardly confirms the victory of the local peasantry and artisan class in the heartlands. These latter signs might be more consistent with a more exotic enemy, yet still not one which profited from the palatial sackings to take over as a new elite power. It is hard not to link the Mycenaean fall with the other East Mediterranean disturbances, and yet the spread of Dorian-speakers into regions where another form of Greek had been in use (at least for official archives) could point also to potential aggressive invasions within Greece itself. Maybe a temporary coalition of Aegean and wider barbarian groups (or groups on the Mycenaean peripheries), none from the core civilizations, joined forces to attack the Mycenaeans, Hittites, and Egyptians. At least for the last named, the sources do tell us that the Sea Peoples allied themselves with traditional enemies of Egypt, the Libyans to their west. On Cyprus a wave of destructions hit the island at the end of the thirteenth century which was followed by a major Mycenaean acculturation of the island's material lifestyle, and perhaps the rise to dominance of Greek as the island's language. A combination of Sea Peoples and displaced or marauding Mycenaeans may also have been behind the violence here (Voskos and Knapp 2008).
Finally, it is always good to spread one's discussion wider for a better perspective. Large areas of continental Europe also saw a vigorous wealthy society linked with chiefdoms, fortified centers, and strong commerce during the first two-thirds of the second millennium BC, in parallel with the climax of Minoan and the rise and climax of Mycenaean civilization. However, in the final centuries of the millennium there were also great and very widespread disruption, site destructions, and abandonments, ushering in a new age of Urnfield cultures (Shennan 1993). The idea that such elaborate socio-economic systems may have suffered cyclical breakdown offers an additional concept for the Mycenaean collapse.
(p. 185b) It has yet to be demonstrated that the palaces were primarily maintained by prestige craftwork ("wealth finance") as opposed to the much more plausible support for their personnel through a tax on food, textile production ("staple finance") and the right to labor services
The "Wealth Finance" model has been clearly presented by its chief exponents, Galaty and Parkinson, together with Cline (in Galaty and Parkinson 2007).
(p. 185c) From the 1960s, extensive survey and inferences from the palace archives demonstrated that Mycenaean civilization was organized around a settlement hierarchy
A special tribute should be paid to a pioneer landscape archaeologist, Richard Hope Simpson, who virtually single-handedly mapped and revisited large swathes of Mycenaean landscapes on the Mainland and Aegean islands, allowing us to see the scale of settlement at all levels. The results were brought together accessibly for other archaeologists first in a gazetteer (Hope Simpson 1965), then updated in a joint publication with the great Mycenaean ceramics expert Oliver Dickinson (1979). Hope Simpson was the key figure in the extensive regional survey of Messenia which provided us with the first great project of this kind in Greece (McDonald and Rapp 1972).
(p. 185d) The archival evidence within the Kingdom of Pylos of some 12 regions, split between two halves of the state, plausibly reflects earlier independent districts, progressively absorbed by the expanding state
Voutsaki (1998) postulates for Messenia a series of petty chiefdoms or small kingdoms emerging in the Middle Helladic 3-Late Helladic 2 period, centered on large, sometimes fortified, settlements, which included Malthi and the later palace site of Pylos, and had traces of what might be elite mansions (cf. Spencer 1995 for an earlier version of this model). Small (in Galaty and Parkinson 2007) underestimates the number and size of regional towns in the mature Pylos state in arguing for a "primate" settlement system in which the size of the palace-town outclasses all other local foci. He also uses out-of-date figures from the original Minnesota extensive survey of Messenia. In fact, while Pylos town is now calculated as in excess of 14-15 ha (Bennet in Galaty and Parkinson 2007), a nearby center at Iklaina has been intensively surveyed and estimated as 12 ha in extent (Cosmopoulos 2006). Ongoing excavations at Iklaina by Michael Cosmopoulos of Missouri University are producing spectacular new discoveries (Than 2011): a palace, frescoes, Cyclopaean walls, and a Linear B archive tablet now the oldest discovered (dated ca. 1350-1450 BC so supposedly LH3A?). The site offers excellent opportunities to understand the lower-level settlement system under the major state-center palaces, enrichening evidence already obtained from the putative secondary center at Nichoria, also in Messenia.
(p. 186a) Mycenae could have become the paramount center in a four-tier settlement hierarchy, or alternatively, remained the "first among equals" with possible rivals at Tiryns and Midea
Indeed, if Mycenae and Tiryns were not overlord and important vassal foci respectively, the remote place of Mycenae at the extreme North of the fertile Argos Plain appears illogical. Certainly in almost all other periods of settled life in the region, power and population tended to gravitate to its natural center at the modern town of Argos (Pierart and Touchais 1996), and this site, as we have seen, was in Middle Helladic times probably the most important settlement. An alternative to returning to the easy solution of demoting Tiryns to a port-city acting for inland Mycenae was discussed in Chapter 6, and this is to see the marginal placing of Mycenae as central to a much wider state, in which the Northern Argos Plain formed the southern sector, but the Corinth lowland formed an even more fertile northern sector (with numerous other plains amid the intervening mountainous watershed zone) (Bintliff 1977a, 1977b, recently supported by Cherry and Davis 2001). Pullen and Tartaron (in Galaty and Parkinson 2007) note a clear divergence in the settlement history of the Corinth region compared to those of Berbati and Nemea, with a long-term stability of village settlements in the former. On this basis they doubt a Mycenae takeover of the Corinthia, and following the "heterarchy" rather then hierarchy model often in favor for Minoan studies now, suggest an independent region with a lack of a hierarchical state focality. There are quite a number of problems with this analysis. First, the EKAS Survey of the Eastern Corinthia is extremely patchy, so that one cannot rule out a later Mycenaean spread of minor settlements as elsewhere. Second, if Mycenae expanded into a district already well settled by regular villages since the Middle Helladic era, it could well have "milked" the existing network for tax and labor while leaving its infrastructure in place, especially as this settlement system was already more developed than the other areas adjacent to Mycenae. Third, the recent discovery of a tholos tomb at Corinth, in a region little known from intensive field survey, surely marks the emergence of a local elite, whose settlement base remains to be discovered. One only needs to consider the case of the coast of Thessaly, where discoveries in the last 20 years of its dense and complex Mycenaean centers have radically altered our understanding of that region, to be cautious in inferring limited development from limited landscape evidence. The discovery by the Eastern Corinthia Survey of an important 3 ha fortified harbor town, partly submerged, on the east coast of the region, at Trelli, reminds us of how much unknown terrain awaits intensive survey (Tartaron et al. 2003).
(p. 186b) Our use of rather general models of the rise of civilization as resulting from population growth and the rise of a settlement hierarchy
A more complex development surely needs to be allowed for in mapping the rise and development of each district and region of the Mycenaean world than is often portrayed in highly generalized models. Thus, although the rise of Mycenae itself may well have impacted in a major way on its near-neighbor settlements such as Prosymna to its south and Berbati to its east, in our present understanding the existence of impressive early Mycenaean tholos tombs associated with these two minor centers (Bintliff 1977a, French and Shelton 2005) should indicate the existence of emergent small polities before absorption into the Mycenaean state. The later spread of dense settlement in such areas in Late Helladic 3A-B might have been linked to Mycenae palatial stimulus, or equally could have resulted from a gradual expansion of population and land use across the Mycenaean era. The same question might be raised for Messenia, where it is often suggested that increases or decreases in the size of settlement sites were simply the result of the varying intervention of the Pylos palace (Bennet 2007), which clearly was a major factor, but unlikely to be the only one for each district's long-term settlement trajectory.
(p. 186c) On Crete, accepting the mainstream theory of a Mycenaean domination based in Knossos for the Late Helladic 2-3 era, despite the razing of the other palaces at the start of this period, the new state seems to have used traditional regional centers (but usually not their former palaces) as secondary bases for its administration
Archaeological evidence and Linear B suggest that Malia continued as a regional center but its palace was not functioning; at Gournia two megaron-like (administrative?) compounds of Mycenaean style were built next to the ruined Second Palace period mini-palace; for Phaistos perhaps the administrative focus was a Mycenaean megaron-complex at nearby Aghia Triadha; the South Crete port at Kommos was also a significant maritime outlet; Archanes, an important center close to Knossos in Minoan and Mycenaean times, remained significant, and its elite tholos burials in Late Minoan 3 might belong as much to the Knossos rulers as to a purely local aristocracy; Khania in remote West Crete was probably a Minoan palace and remained an important regional center in the Late Minoan 3A and B period - if Knossos was destroyed in Late Minoan 3A some argue that Khania replaced it as the administrative center for the West and Center of the island (Bennet 1987, 1990, La
Rosa 1985, Preston 2004, Preziosi and Hitchcock 1999, Shaw 2006). As for Eastern Crete, current thinking follows its omission from Linear B archives, and the later survival of Minoan language there (Eteo-Cretan) as evidencing its independence from Mycenaean rule, continuing in Late Minoan 2-3 as a mosaic of separate statelets (Nodarou 2007).
(p. 186d) For the first scenario, the Plain of Argos has little to help us reconstruct its politics from the Linear B archives, but at least a high status for Tiryns compared with Mycenae seems necessary from the archaeology
One can imagine two states here, or Tiryns as a junior base in a unitary state centering on Mycenae. Or perhaps we are thinking too simply. If palatial elites intermarried, cadet branches of a great aristocracy could have resided in various traditional centers. In Crusader Greece, just such a situation was found with the Duchy of Athens and Thebes, leading to separate palaces on the Acropolis and the upper town of Thebes, and related families in residence (Lock 1995). Killen's argument that the same top administrators recurred in different palatial archives points to the same possibility of cross-regional mobility.
(p. 186e) As for a super-king
The case for the Mycenaean state as unitary is well argued by Kelder (2008).
(p. 187a) There is growing evidence for an out-of-phase rise of human settlement by region, responding to varied local and external stimuli and this does challenge any idea of a general ecological collapse or economic revolt against palatial extortion leading to the fall of the civilization
Kroll (1984) offers interesting data on the crops of the Mycenaean Peloponnese, based on plant remains, although the results are ambivalent. He notes a decline over time in the size of cereals, which could mark over-cropping, but sees a compensatory rise in tree crops and garden culture. Comparing the evidence from Late Helladic 3B and Late Helladic 3C he sees no differences, which leads him to conclude that crop decline cannot have been the cause of the Mycenaean fall. In agreement with this conclusion, recent studies of vessel contents and human skeletal remains, although the field is still in its infancy in Greece, appear to suggest that Minoan and Mycenaean populations did not generally suffer from a bad diet and high frequency of disease. Both rich and poor seem to have eaten lots of protein, especially meat and pulses (Smith 1999).
It was Oliver Dickinson (1981-82, 1982), who deconstructed the homogeneous general picture till then typical for Mycenaean settlement systems, by suggesting that a "one size fits all" approach failed to take account of the growing evidence for regional diversity in the density and organization of Mycenaean landscapes. Since then the evidence has merely served to confirm his insight. On the other hand, although one could see this as proof that each province had its own way of filling and managing the countryside, I would prefer to suggest that, as in other eras of Greek settlement history (Bintliff 1997), general stimuli to growth or decline were shared throughout the Aegean, but their effects could be modified by local conditions and historical factors (Bintliff 2005). In this case, political and economic interactions between Mycenaean regions, with Crete and the Cyclades, and further afield, reacted with a growing internal stability and urbanization across the Southern Mainland, to spread a complex society at different rates of growth across the region.
In Thessaly (Adrimi-Sismani in Galaty and Parkinson 2007), a useful contrast in development can be seen between the coastal region, and several (three?) hinterland districts. On the coast an early Mycenaean era group of separate settlement centers (some with tholos tombs) was fused by Late Helladic 3 into a unitary state focused on the palatial town of Dimini-Iolkos, with its port at Pevkakia and a secondary center at Volos. Notably these sites were not fortified. Inland there were probably independent districts with a number of central-place sites, some with tholos tombs. Here there are major centers but their control may have been more local than spanning all their surrounding regions. Ceramic study (Feuer and Schneider 2003) neatly illustrates the differential spread of Mycenaean culture from the precocious coast into the more peripheral hinterland of Thessaly; only in Late Helladic 3 were Mycenaean styles dominant inland, and even then most ceramics were of Mycenaean style but were still locally made. The suggestion of multiple pottery-manufacturing centers in inner Thessaly would suit the model of many chiefdoms rather than larger states, indicating that political evolution also progressed faster at the coast.
(p. 187b) Tsoungiza in the Nemea district provides a precious insight into neglected lower levels of the settlement system
For a general introduction to Tsoungiza see Pullen 2006.
(p. 187c) The apparent lack of villas, a form of local administration on Second Palace era Crete could indicate a more embedded economy focused on existing nucleated settlements
Nonetheless, given the present very limited knowledge of Mycenaean non-palatial sites, it seems premature to argue that rural centers of such a kind were totally absent from Mycenaean landscapes. The prominence of a rural sanctuary-center in the Pylos state archives, Pakijana, forms a site type absent so far from the archaeological survey or excavation record of its region of control within modern Messenia (although a small sanctuary has been found on Methana: Mee and Forbes 1997).
(p. 187d) During the later Bronze Age there is evidence for population rise and wider use of many landscapes in Aetolia, Epirus, Macedonia, and Thrace, during which networks of larger villages or even small urban sites emerged as likely "central places" with economic, social, and arguably political zones of influence on limited zones of satellite settlements
For Aetolia, Bommelje (2005) has located some 200 prehistoric sites in this largely mountainous province of Northwest Greece (Bommelje and Doorn 1987). Late Bronze Age settlements are the commonest, but mostly use local handmade coarsewares with only limited access to Mycenaean imports. However, settlements of different sizes and suspected local importance have been recognized.
(p. 187e) But even within the Southern Mainland there are regions whose Mycenaean settlement patterns are very unclear
A good case in point is the Northwest Peloponnesian province of Achaia. For long this has been well known for its many post-palatial settlements of Late Helladic 3C date, leading to the theory that a poorly populated area outside of palatial control formed a refuge zone for people fleeing from the Late Helladic 3B-C destructions. However, no large-scale intensive surveys have been carried out here, so that the actual nature and density of Mycenaean settlement is not yet known. In fact, a vast site called Teichos Dymaion (Dickinson 2006), with massive Cyclopaean walls, lacks systematic investigation, while scholars have neglected the slowly rising number of early Mycenaean settlements and elite tholos tombs in the region (Papadopoulos in Laffineur 1999). Near Delphi in Phocis, across the Gulf of Corinth, another poorly known major fortified Mycenaean site lies at Krisa.
(p. 187f) There are several sites where elite residences are evidenced or claimed from Late Helladic 2, such as the Menelaion, near Sparta
Although the Menelaion grew into a site of some 20 ha in later Late Helladic times, it remains unclear how built up this multi-level ridge-site was, and a palace is not indicated (Bintliff 1977a, Cavanagh et al. 2002). If we are to believe Homeric legend, or more simply follow the logic of expecting a major palatial center in Laconia with its numerous rich Mycenaean sites, we still need to find an alternative archaeological site to house the legendary King Menelaos and his errant wife Helen, but this has eluded firm detection. Traditional alternatives in the heart of the Plain of Sparta (discussed in Bintliff 1977a) are Vaphio-Amyclai (some 20 ha in size, with a rich tholos tomb) and the even larger, not far distant fortified hilltop of Aghios Vassilios. North of Sparta the Mycenaean settlement at Pellana has also been argued to be the regional center in Mycenaean times by Spyropoulos, but with less archaeological support. In 2009 it was announced at the Athens Archaeological Society that rescue excavations at Aghios Vassilios had revealed fresco fragments and Linear B tablets, which may elevate this site to the likeliest location for the palace center in the Sparta-Laconia region. Indeed in excavations up to 2012 substantial buildings of a palatial character have been uncovered (press releases).
At Mycenae, the erosion and demolition of almost all the upper Citadel where the central palatial complex was focused has made reconstruction of its form and development extremely difficult. However, French and Shelton (2005) believe that the fragmentary evidence could stem from a Late Helladic 2 early mansion, on a different alignment to the later palace.
(p. 187g) The internal planning and range of house types in Lower/Outer Towns remains largely unknown
Darcque (2006) has been pioneering the study of Mycenaean buildings. Ordinary houses were modest and multiple-roomed, but a mere 60-120 sq m, much smaller than typical Classical Greek houses (200-300 sq m). Normally they were single-story and their three to four rooms seem, on finds, to have been used for multiple purposes rather than being dedicated to one function, as has also been typical for Early Modern Greek rural houses.
(p. 187h) Clusters of tombs in the Mycenae Lower Town might represent dispersed house-zones rather than a monolithic block of residences
Similar hints come from the burial and settlement foci at the next center to Mycenae's south, at Midea-Dendra. On the other hand, the interpenetration of houses and tombs may well be an adaptation of an expanding settlement which spread through empty spaces between earlier-founded tomb clusters, as suggested for Mycenae by Mee and Cavanagh (1990).
(p. 188a) At Pylos the Southwest Building has its own court, some scholars suggest this open area was for social feasting
In the light of the growing importance assigned to group feasting at Pylos, it has been suggested that this large open court west of the Great Megaron could have been used for public feasts in the open air. This court featured in the new interpretation of an early Minoan-influenced Late Helladic 3A plan, although it became more secluded in the mature, Late Helladic 3B palace. Nonetheless, if this view is sustained, the contrasts between Minoan and Mycenaean use of space would be far less clear than normally claimed.
(p. 188b) Only the first Pylos palace is a court-centered plan, succeeded by a more characteristic Mainland layout, although the later Minoan palaces also made access to the center of the complex tortuous
Thaler (2006), innovatively deploying the digital architectural analysis package of Space Syntax, shows that the Pylos palace plan became more controlled in terms of access paths over time, but denies that this made movement around the complex more difficult. Instead, in his view, people were becoming more channelled as to where they went and how they got there. His plans (Figure 7.2), however, seem to bear out Nelson's contrary argument on a shift from a more Minoan concept of wide access to a far more directional and narrowed movement for visitors to the complex. Nonetheless the argument that Cretan palaces became less accessible in their later stages may form a bridge linking trends in both palatial civilizations.
(p. 189a) Apart from the focal Great Megaron, agreed to be the audience hall of the state ruler (throne emplacements are reconstructed at Pylos and Tiryns)
See Shelmerdine (1997) for further discussion.
(p. 189b) Several palace-plans have additional megaron-form complexes, seen as possible residences or reception halls for other members of the elite
Younger (2005) suggests that there are even three possible megaron-style halls at each of the sites of Pylos, Tiryns, and Mycenae. Apart from the king, or wanax, in the central megaron, the more peripheral examples are variously assigned to the lawagetas (warleader, or crown prince) and a queen or chief priestess (of Potnia, the mother goddess). At the new palatial center at Dimini-Iolkos (Adrimi-Sismani in Galaty and Parkinson 2007), the central buildings, two megara with a courtyard between, may suit this analysis as well. It may be that there was more diversity in the plans of major palatial centers than the best-known examples suggest. Dimini-Sesklo is admittedly a smaller center than the state capitals further south on the Mainland, with a total site size of perhaps only around 10 ha (Adrimi-Sismani in Galaty and Parkinson 2007), and the palatial central complex, lacking frescoes, is much simpler than at larger sites. Thebes, lying underneath the modern town, is known only from innumerable excavated sample areas, but seems to show a more dispersed plan of many buildings and workshops spread over a vast area of the town plateau, some 33 ha (Darcque 2006, Dakouri-Hild 2010). On the other hand, if the extramural complexes at Mycenae were an integral part of the palatial complex, it may be that the highly focused model for Mycenaean palaces is incorrect anyway. At Nichoria, seen as a secondary provincial center within the state of Pylos, there has been excavated a large Late Helladic 3 building with a form and scale between a house and a palace, perhaps indicating to us how the lower levels of the elite dwelt (Rutter 2005).
There are other likely major Mycenaean regional centers about which we have almost no information. Athens, for example, has seen such massive rebuilding on the Acropolis that only speculation can people its Mycenaean interior. We can reconstruct a Cyclopaean circuit wall round this great rock, a hidden stairway to underground water sources, and a tower beneath the Classical temple of Athena Nike which appears to have protected an entrance ramp in the area of the later main entrance (Shear 1999).
(p. 189c) Fortifications
A major feature apparent in a recent review of Mycenaean defended sites (Hope Simpson and Hagel 2006) is the high degree of regional variability in their frequency. The Northeastern Peloponnese seems very dense with fortifications but other regions, such as Laconia, have very few. Moreover an early popularity of fortified settlements in MH and early LH times on the Southern Mainland led to far fewer defended sites in mature Mycenaean times. This adds to other evidence for a considerable degree of divergence in settlement patterns and perhaps political organization between the different provinces of Greece, which calls for serious attention.
(p. 189d) Many scholars attribute to the Mycenaeans, in contrast to the Minoans, a bellicose mentality
On a European perspective, the cultivation of the "warrior" persona in Mycenaean burials and iconography, as prehistorians outside of the Aegean have long observed, was part of the continentwide emphasis during the Bronze Age on a military elite lifestyle and appearance (Kristiansen 2001). The popularity of the boar's tusk helmet went beyond its defensive value, as hunting boar was a dangerous sport, and enough tusks for a helmet required many (10 or so?) boars, a dangerous encounter. The wearing of such a display piece also emphasized heroic valor (Wardle and Wardle 1997).
(p. 191a) Zangger (1994) found evidence in the Lower Town of Tiryns for vast flashflood sediments, dated around the end of the Late Helladic 3B or the peak Mycenaean period, which had stimulated this large-scale engineering work
Recent excavations in the Lower Town outside the Tiryns Citadel (Maran and Papadimitriou 2006) have shown that there was not in fact one great flood but several during the Late Helladic 3B or thirteenth century BC. The decision to dam the offending stream was not merely to protect the northern edges of the town (the rest was not actually at risk) but also perhaps to reclaim the area for an extension of the town, although the latter was delayed till Late Helladic 3C.
(p. 191b) The drainage of Lake Copais. Large blocks of lake-floor were also dyked to create farmland permanently free from water (polders)
There is a significant difference, however, between lakovidis' (2001) and Knauss' (1987) reconstructions of the Copais drainage. For Knauss and his hydrotechnic team, the Mycenaeans captured much of the main autumn-winter flow (half of 600 million cu m) for through-drainage, but still allowed a shallower lake to remain within the core of its former area on a seasonal basis. In spring and summer, however, the dyked canals could transport the total inflow of water (now reduced to 150 cubic million cu m) and hence the entire basin became open for grazing and irrigated cultivation in these seasons. The role of the permanently enclosed polders was, in contrast, to keep them dry through the entire year for land use, which Knauss sees as some 90 sq km of prime arable land and the source of the wheat stores on the island of Gla. Iakovidis, in contrast, first adds a southern major drainage system to the northern one reconstructed by the Knauss team, but also believes that the entire lake was drained permanently. The German team do, however, note that in the lowest part of the unprotected lake, which they suggest remained seasonally flooded, older investigators had found undated archaeological remains, although this is so little known that it cannot yet confirm either model of the Mycenaean drainage scheme. In favor of Knauss' more limited drainage view is that it allows for seasonal variations in water inflow, making the management of the lake much easier. It is also unclear in the Iakovidis model why the polders were constructed, if the whole lake was drained by the through-drainage dyke system. Inside the polders are many traces of settlement and roads, which may be the source of later Greek legends concerning several drowned settlements in Copais when the lake was reflooded by Orchomenos' rival Thebes and its champion Heracles.
(p. 192a) Mycenaean roads
For an update see Hope Simpson and Hagel (2006).
(p. 192b) The widespread use of chariots is clear from the considerable numbers listed in the archives
At Pylos palace the northeast building, among other service roles, was a center for the storage and manufacture of chariots (Schon in Galaty and Parkinson 2007).
(p. 192c) Voutsaki suggests that the greater numbers from Messenia reflect a wider social use there in final Middle Helladic-early Late Helladic, whereas following the diffusion of the form to the key region of the Argolid and elsewhere in Late Helladic 1-2, it was designated as more exclusive to an upper class
The lesser average size of tholoi in Messenia compared to the Argolid region might also indicate that a wider class of local chiefs made use of them, in contrast to the larger, more "princely" versions erected generally later in the Plain of Argos.
(p. 193a) Was there then a period in Early Mycenaean times when Mycenae was the first among equals, until the Late Mycenaean era sees a cessation of tholos construction outside of that center, when it seems Mycenae's preeminence appropriated the tholos as an almost exclusive attribute? Or do we read too much into burial symbolism, as achieved power, when it might have been competitive display between several dynasties in the Argos region? Only in the last centuries of palatial power, Late Helladic 3, could we say that the virtual restriction of tholos construction to Mycenae in the Plain of Argos should indicate the supremacy of the Mycenae dynasty. Perhaps conclusive is the parallel evidence from Messenia, where a similar wide use of tholoi leads by Late Helladic 3B to their restriction to the palace of Pylos
On the wider patterning of tholoi in general see Mee and Cavanagh (1990). For the complex development of tholoi at and around Pylos see Bennet in Galaty and Parkinson 2007. The picture so far outlined may be more complicated, however. In the Argos Plain the exact date of the two Tiryns tholoi, seen as broadly Late Helladic 3, is certain, and this site is often seen as a possible rival state to Mycenae even in Late Helladic 3B; thus if either or both were built in 3B this would be a strong argument for Tirynthian independence or shared power. Nonetheless the nine Mycenaean tholoi leave all other centers in the region in the shade (Fitzsimons 2007), even if we argued that elites from other centers in the Argos Plain may have been encouraged or obliged to bury at the palatial center. If instead we took the traditional view that the Mycenae tholoi represent generations of royalty then this is clearly a power statement versus the one or at most two tholoi seen at other regional foci. Equally a potential challenge to the model of tholos centalization is the fact that within the Pylos state a tholos built at a supposed provincial center at Nichoria in Late Helladic 3A2 is curiously seen as marking the absorption of that district into the expanding Pylian state. In Thessaly several tholoi at the palace of Dimini-Iolkos and associated nearby centers may likewise represent related or competing elites (Adrimi-Sismani in Galaty and Parkinson 2007).
It is likely that the major Mycenaean tombs were the site of public rituals of commemoration separate from the funeral itself, in which the various parts of the tholos were used for offerings or consumption of food and drink and gifts (Gallou 2005). The placing of one of the late Pylos tholos at some distance from the palace along the town-ridge may suggest processions to the monument, and the Late Helladic 3B reconstruction of the A Shaft Graves at Mycenae into a theatrical area also has been seen since Schliemann as a deliberate venue for public ceremony related to dynastic memory. The Aghia Triadha terracotta coffin from Mycenaean Crete seems to show a visit to a tomb associated with parallel sacrifice and the bringing of gifts or symbols to the grave.
(p. 193b) In Attica the plausible case for a fortified palatial center on the Athenian Acropolis remains unaccompanied by a royal tomb, while the tholoi in other districts of Attica might argue for competing assertive elites
Alternatively, the exclusiveness of the tholos was not as restricted here to the highest echelons as in the Argos Plain.
(p. 193c) In Boeotia, the palatial center at Thebes ignores the tholos form, but its legendary rival Orchomenos, with the only regional tholos (the Treasury of Minyas) seems to be marking its distinctiveness through imitating the prestige tombs at distant Mycenae
The Treasury of Minyas is not much smaller than the climax construction of the Mycenae tholoi, the Treasury of Atreus. The Theban elite in contrast were buried in giant rock-cut, painted chamber tombs east of the Citadel. In the Dodecanese islands of the Southeast Aegean, Mycenaean tomb types were plentiful, but in contrast, in the Cyclades closer to the heartlands of Mycenaean civilization in the Peloponnese, they appear to have been rare. This seems to represent divergent regional responses to "Mycenaeanization" as Mainland state societies expanded their cultural and political sway into the Aegean (Cavanagh and Mee 1998).
(p. 193d) The commonest Mycenaean burial tradition is, however, in chamber-tomb cemeteries
The chamber tomb may well have originated in Messenia along with its model, the tholos tomb (Bennet and Galanakis 2005). Some 20 percent of chamber tombs lack gifts, although allowance must be made for later disruption of graves, and the tombs with objects show a range from poor to rich (Dickinson 2006). However, women and children seem to be underrepresented. Lewartowski (2000) has provided a systematic study of the simpler individual pit and cist graves of the Mycenaean era. There is in fact little evidence that they were used for slaves and the poor, and indeed some have more gifts than nearby chamber tombs. Their survival alongside communal graves remains of unclear significance.