The Era of the Shaft Graves, as it is sometimes called, marks the transition from the Middle Helladic period to the Late Helladic period. This was an incredibly important time of development in Greece, heralding the apex of Bronze Age Greek culture on the mainland, known as the Mycenaean era. The preceding period, from Early Helladic III through the end of Middle Helladic II, was a "downtime" in Greece. Although the arts and civilizations of Crete and the Cyclades were flourishing, there was very little by way of fine art or fine architecture on the mainland during this period (although this view may change with future excavations). All this was to change, however, at the dawn of the Late Helladic period.
The designation "Era of the Shaft Graves" derives from two extraordinary finds at the site of Mycenae in southern Greece. The first of these is called Grave Circle A, originally discovered by Schliemann in 1876. The second is Grave Circle B, which is actually older than Grave Circle A, but which was discovered later, in the early 1950s.
Grave Circle B was located just outside the later thirteenth-century walls of Mycenae. The circle consists of twenty-four graves: Fourteen were true shaft graves (more than 1 meter deep, rectangular in shape, with beams supporting a wooden roof overlaid with earth); the rest were simple inhumations on bare earth or in cist graves (a much smaller version of the shaft grave, with no supports) (Vermeule 1972, 84). Above several, but not all, of the graves were simple engraved stelai. The pottery and other finds within the burials show that Grave Circle B was in use from 1650 to 1550 b. c.e. (Warren 1990, 120).
Grave Circle A contained only six elaborate shaft graves and a small group of simple inhumations. These burials contained nineteen people, including men, women, and children. In contrast to Grave Circle B, Circle A was already a significant landmark in the Mycenaean period, so that when the citadel of Mycenae was refurbished in the thirteenth century, care was taken to keep Grave Circle A within the city walls. This involved bracing the mound with a stone circuit wall and raising the level of earth above the graves several feet. As with Circle B, many of the burials on Circle A were marked with engraved stelai, which had to be moved and restored during the renovations. The pottery and accompanying artifacts in the burials of Grave Circle A show that it was in use from 1600 to 1500, with a final burial as late as 1450 b. c.e. (Warren 1990, 120).
The items found within these two grave circles attest to a stratified society extremely interested in warfare and hunting and in close contact with the rest of the eastern Mediterranean. Stratification is evident in the energy and resources poured into the burials of only a few members of the society. Unlike the tholoi of southern Crete, where clans worked together to provide burials for all the clan members, it is clear from the sophisticated shaft structures and artifacts in these grave circles that in Mycenae, considerable amounts of specialized labor went into the burials of only a tiny percentage of the entire population—one might say the ruling dynasty.
The fondness for warfare and hunting is abundantly clear when surveying the goods with which these rulers of Mycenae were sent off to the afterlife. Weapons, notably swords and daggers, accompanied many burials. Several weapons were decorated with hunting scenes, allowing simultaneous associations with violence against both humans and animals. Even items not necessarily associated with warfare were decorated with scenes of combat. One example is a silver cup known as the Siege Rhyton (rhyton = funnel). This treasure, found badly damaged, was decorated with impressed images of a city wall being attacked by a small invading army, one of our earliest depictions of large-scale warfare in the Aegean. Jewelry, of which there was quite a bit, was often decorated with scenes of human and animal combat. Even the stelai that served as grave markers in Circle A showed scenes of combat (see Image 4.2 Mycenaean Stele). Some of these show lion hunts, and others clearly depict fallen enemies trampled beneath the wheels of the triumphant charioteer. The overall impression of a society, or at least a class, obsessed with conflict and violence led Emily Vermeule to write, "Mycenae's early wealth came more by violence than merchant profiteering" (Vermeule 1972, 104).
And the Mycenae of the Shaft Grave period certainly did possess great wealth. The bodies in the richest of the shaft graves of Circle A were literally covered head to toe with gold, not to mention the elaborate grave goods mentioned above. The wealth evident in the shaft graves also attests to the broad connections that these early Mycenaeans had with the rest of Europe, the Aegean, and the Near East. Buried with the rulers of Mycenae were amber from the Baltic, weapons from the Balkans, obsidian from Melos, pottery from the Cyclades and Crete, faience (a type of proto-glass) from Crete, ostrich eggs from Nubia (south of Egypt) or the Levant, gold from Egypt, lapis lazuli (a blue stone) from Afghanistan, as well as other artifacts from Turkey and Syria (Vermeule 1972, 89).
So, what of the people who were not dead and buried during the Shaft Grave era? This is a more difficult issue, as there is virtually no architecture remaining from this period. Evidence from pottery distribution shows that many sites inhabited during the previous Middle Helladic I-II periods were abandoned at this stage, with former villages being converted into cemeteries. However, no accompanying destruction layer is apparent, suggesting that the village residents may instead have simply relocated to more practical or cosmopolitan living quarters. Some of these new Middle Helladic III sites, such as Kiapha in Attica, Panakton in Boiotia, and possibly Petra in Thessaly, were located in easily defensible areas, such as on hilltops, with the site of Kiapha ac-
4.2 Stele from Shaft Grave V of Mycenae (Courtesy of Paul Butler)
Tually having a full-scale fortification system. This may have been due to a new spirit of warfare in Middle Helladic III-Late Helladic I society, as suggested by the shaft grave art, but it may also have been related to a new trend toward far-flung trade. The hilltop sites are generally in a good position to control the various trade routes through Greece (Maran 1995, 67-72).
A spirit of internationalism is the hallmark of the Late Helladic I period. Emily Vermeule noted that the pottery and other arts of this period are marked by a strong influx of Minoan styles and imports—a "Minoanization" of the mainland. To the east, though, Miletos, formerly associated with Crete, appears to have become a Mycenaean colony at this time, and the islands of Lemnos and Knidos and the Turkish site of Halicarnassus served as Mycenaean trading ports. To the west, as early as Late Helladic I, Mycenaean pottery began to appear in the Lipari Islands and on the island of Ischia west of Italy (Taylour 1990, 132-141). The Mycenaeans may have been looking for new sources of metals, especially tin, at this time. To the south, Late Helladic I wares appeared in abundance in Egypt.
A new power had clearly emerged on the Aegean horizon, rich in gold and wielding considerable military might. Over the course of the next 400 years, this new Greek power would come to dominate the Aegean, following in the footsteps of the Minoans before finally conquering them and seizing control of Knossos. The vacuum left by the fall of the Minoans would be replaced by Mycenae, leading Greece into its first great age of international contacts and conquests.
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