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Corinthian pottery


"the development of a Corinthian chronology based on ceramic shapes and decoration has proved challenging, and is far from settled."

Decipherment of Linear B
Linear B was first identified as a writing system by Arthur Evans, who was shown in 1895 a burnt clay fragment excavated at Kephala Hill, the site of Knossos, with inscribed signs that he correctly recognised as writing. Evans had been investigating Cretan writing since he received a Cretan sealstone in 1886 from Greville John Chester, inscribed with symbols which Evans referred to as "pictographic" or "hieroglyphic". From 1894 onwards, Evans had begun to publish articles in The Journal of Hellenic Studies arguing that these symbols, and other examples on sealstones worn by Cretan women as amulets called galopetres (γαλόπετρες), represented various forms of writing, which he divided into a "pictographic" script and "linear or quasi-alphabetic signs".

Evans began excavations at Knossos on 23 March 1900. On 30 March, he discovered the first Linear B tablet found at the site, followed by more examples on 4 April and, on 5 April, the first large cache ever large cache of such tablets, among the remains of a wooden box inside a terracotta larnax. During the same 1899–90 season, further caches were uncovered, including over 350 pieces from four boxes in the "Room of the Chariot Tablets". Many of the tablets found throughout Evans' excavations were subsequently damaged or destroyed by water leaks in his storerooms, by poor handling and through disposal by workers who failed to identify them.

By 1900, Evans had categorised the writing of the Knossos tablets as a "linear script", as opposed to what he called the "hieroglyphic or conventionalized pictographic script" now known as Cretan hieroglyphs, and correctly realised that it was written from left to right. He categorised its signs as "for the most part syllabic", though asserted that "a certain number are unquestionably ideographic or determinative."

In 1909, Evans published the first volume of Scripta Minoa, which included the then-unpublished Phaistos Disc, which had been discovered in July 1908, and similarly-unpublished tablets excavated by Federico Halbherr from Hagia Triada. Evans named the script of these tablets "Class A" and that of the Knossos tablets "Class B".

Harvard School
https://www.jstor.org/stable/e48502944

Henry Biard
Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 172

Mycenae: Notes on Gere 2006

 * I think Smith 1916 is this book?
 * I think Smith 1916 is this book?
 * I think Smith 1916 is this book?
 * I think Smith 1916 is this book?

Atreus
6m high doorway, lintel slab weighs 100 tonnes, 13m dome.

Name traces to Pausanias (?) - contra Tsountas.

Location of where Pausanias went for the 'Tomb of Agamemnon' not clear.

Mycenae
Lusieri: 'Vely Pasha of the Morea has had digging done at Argos and Mycenae. He has found various fragments of sculpture which he has sold to Messrs. Knight and Fazakerly and some columns which he has given to Lord Sligo.' It will be remembered that the columns in question from the Treasury of Atreus (briefly referred to in Laurent's Classical Tour, page 145) passed out of general view and remained nearly a hundred years at Westport, in Ireland. They were again identified in 1904 by the then Lord Altamont, and were presented by Lord Sligo to the British Museum.

RM Cook, Thucydides as Archaeologist, BSA 50 - what Thuc. would have seen at MY.

Seventeen corpses in GCA.

1884-1902: Tsountas excavates over 100 CTs, clears most of the Acropolis, including the palace and the cistern.}

1897's The Mycenaean Age: 'the first work of synthesis that delineated a vision of the Bronze Age Aegean as a whole.'}

Tsountas found the first Linear B. }

Tsountas stops in 1902, the last excavation before WWI and Wace.}

Cyclopaean tomb overlaps with final Shaft Graves, or follows closely. (citing Wace?)}

Wace returns in 1939 to Mycenae.}

Later Excavations

 * JM Cook: 'The Agamemnoneion', BSA 48
 * Nancy Klein: 'Excavation of the Greek Temples at Mycenae', BSA 92.
 * CA Boethius: 'Mycenae: The Hellenistic Period', BSA 25
 * Iakovidis 2005: MYCENAE: PAST ACHIEVEMENTS, PRESENT TASKS, AND FUTURE PROSPECTS (JSTOR?)
 * Bennett: The Mycenae Tablets (1953), also B. and Chadwick 1958 The Mycenae Tablets II, and lots 1963 The Mycenae Tablets III
 * Wace: Mycenae, 1953
 * Wace: MYCENAE 1939-1953
 * Wace, Hood, Cook 1953: Mycenae, 1939-1952: Part IV. The Epano Phournos Tholos Tomb
 * Wace and Stubbings 1954: Mycenae 1939-1953: Part II. The Grave Circle
 * Wace 1954: British Excavations--Mycenae, 1954
 * Elizabeth Wace 1954: Mycenae 1939-1953: Part VI. The Cyclopean Terrace Building and the Deposit of Pottery beneath It
 * Wace 1955: Mycenae, 1955
 * Wace 1956: Mycenae 1939-1955: Part I. Preliminary Report on the Excavations of 1955
 * Wace 1957: Mycenae 1939-1956, 1957: Part I. Neolithic Mycenae
 * Mylonas and Papadimitriou: THE NEW GRAVE CIRCLE OF MYCENAE (1955), also THE NEW SHAFT GRAVES OF MYCENAE 1952
 * Tournavitou 1995: THE ‘IVORY HOUSES’ AT MYCENAE
 * Mylonas 1966: The East Wing of the Palace of Mycenae
 * Diamant 1974: A Prehistoric Figurine from Mycenae
 * Rehak 1996: The "Ivory Houses" at Mycenae by Iphiyenia Tournavitou (review)
 * Kim Shelton: CITADEL AND SETTLEMENT: A DEVELOPING ECONOMY AT MYCENAE, THE CASE OF PETSAS HOUSE (not JSTOR?)
 * Tournavitou 2006: A Mycenaean Building Reconsidered: The Case of the West House at Mycenae

1950-1957: Greek Archaeological Service undertakes anastylosis - blocks that had fallen from the wall were replaced, including two of the big stones immediately to the right of the Lion Gate. Also rebuilt a corner of the megaron and restored the Postern Gate with a new wooden gate.}

1951: Repairs made to Clytemnestra, bringing to light GCB.}

1960s: Taylour, Mylonas and Ioannis Papadimitriou (ephor of Argolid) dig out 'a little stretch just south of the Grave Circle between a large villa first dug by Schliemann [Ramp House?] and a smaller house exposed by Tsountas [Tsountas House?]' Took seven seasons to dig and three decades of study. }

1968-1969: Taylor et al dig out the Cult Centre., 'a free standing building of cult purpose' (quoting them?)}

'A small, square room entered through a vestibule, contained a low rectangular dias at its centre - possible for receiving ritual libations - and a series of irregularly spaced narrow platforms of different heights against the far wall - presumably an altar. Large female figurine found on altar.}

'Next to the altar ... a flight of steps climbed to a tiny room, no mroe than a couple of metres square, in which dozens more [figurines] were found, all broken ... at some point the room had been walled off, indicating that the cache of idols was no longer in use.'}

West of the C-C, the 'Room of the Fresco'.}

1990s: Archaeological Society of Athens and the BSA collaborate on a survey, particularly outside the citadel walls.. Find an 80-acre settlement of c.6000 people.}

Found the 'commercial sector' on the Pezoulia Ridge.}

ONe of the commercial buildings contained a series of storerooms for 500 new cases, and a stone loading ramp at its main entrance.}

Another is the 'House of the Oil Merchant' - 30 jars of oil.}

Four of these houses (around HotOM?) contained LB tablets; identified as 'government offices'. Another building a storeroom for pottery, another a workshop for inlaid furniture.}

'House of the Columns' is on the Acropolis, behind the palace.}


 * My field work as Director of the British School at Athens was a project to record all the known surface evidence (published, recorded only in notebooks, and unrecorded) from the area surrounding the Citadel at Mycenae. For three full seasons from 1991 to 1993 we surveyed and recorded, checking in particular everything that had been noted on the surface by Steffen (1884, prepared in 1881–2) to see if it survived. This was a joint project under the auspices of the Archaeological Society of Athens (who added to the publication a coordinated plan of the surface remains and excavation plans...

Mycenaean Religion
Chapin 2016: The Performative Body and Social Identity in the Room of the Fresco at Mycenae (not JSTOR)}

}

At the end of 19th century, Mycenaean religion generally believed to have been matriarchal. This view originated with Tsountas, shared by Wace.}

Wace thought that the ivory triad with two women and a child was 'the great mother and her younger associate, and their young male companion'. - now thought to be a girl.}

1924: Evans claims that the butterflies (occasionally) seen in the Shaft Graves symbolise the soul's immortality.}

See also on JSTOR: Morgan 2005: The Cult Centre at Mycenae and the duality of life and death}

Likely quotes from Tsountas 1897
Tsountas challenged what he called Schliemann's putting of 'Homeric labels on Mycenaean works' in favour of allowing the artefacts to speak 'a language of their own'.}

Tsountas emphasises the 'oft-recurring figure of a female clasping a child, often with the vulva strongly marked', whom he saw as a 'goddess of generation'.}

Pylos Regional Archaeological Project
Blegen puzzled by lack of fortifications at Pylos - was this 'a land of peace and quiet'? - [presumably quoting Blegen.]}

PRAP explore 40km2, using electromagnetic equipment, detecting 'the anomaly': 2m wide and 60m long, following the contours of the hill - they assume 'the remains of a massive fortification around the citadel' (quoting PRAP)}

1998: Shelmerdine 'Pylian Polemics: The Latest Evidence on Military Matters' (talk at Martial Mycenaeans, Aegeum? conference) - 'historical sequence of destruction and construction at palatial centres' - argues that walls not destroyed by earthquakes, but by force.}

Penelli Sarcophagus
Etruscan sarcophagus, forged:

British Museum page, with bibliography

Saf05 (lion)

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