Mycenaean Sentence Examples

Among the foundations were discovered fragments of " Mycenaean " pottery.

Paphos was believed to have been founded either by the Arcadian Agapenor, returning from the Trojan War (c. 1180 B.C.), or by his reputed contemporary Cinyras, whose clan retained royal privileges down to the Ptolemaic conquest of Cyprus in 295 B.C., and held the Paphian priesthood till the Roman occupation in 58 B.C. The town certainly dates back to the close of the Mycenaean Bronze age, and had a king Eteandros among the allies of Assur-bani-pal of Assyria in 668 B.C.'

Egyptian objects of the age of the XVIIIth Dynasty are found in the Greek islands and on the mainland among remains of the Mycenaean epoch, and on the other hand the products of the workshops of Crete and other centres of that culture are found in Egypt and are figured as tribute of the Keftiu in the tomb-paintings, though we have no information of any war with or conquest of that people.

Traditionally, Salamis was founded after the Trojan War (c. 1180 B.C.) by Teucer from Salamis, the island off Attica, but there was an important Mycenaean colony somewhat earlier.

The results show that Thessaly was free from Cretan or other southern influence until the late Mycenaean period developed in isolation an advanced neolithic culture until the rest of Greece and the Aegean Is.

Western Greece appears to have been more barbarous than Thessaly, and its outward connexions, if any, before the Mycenaean period, were with Italy rather than with Greece.

Mycenaean pottery is found to contain elements which do not belong to Crete, but which must be attributed to the influence of the fabrics established in Greece before it.

Other " Mycenaean " landmarks have been laid bare at Eleusis, Thoricus, Halae and Aphidna.

In view of the ancient law which forbade burial within the city, the tombs within the circuit of the city walls must either be earlier than the time of Themistocles or several centuries later; in the similar rocktombs on the neighbouring slopes of the Acropolis and Areopagus both Mycenaean and Dipylon pottery have been found.

It also possesses the famous collection of prehistoric antiquities found by Schliemann at Tiryns and Mycenae, other " Mycenaean " objects discovered at Nauplia and in Attica, as well as the still earlier remains excavated by Tsountas in the Cyclades and by the British School at Phylakopi in Melos; terra-cottas from Tanagra and Asia immense building, however, which was restored in 1896 and the following years, was that constructed in Pentelic marble about A.D.

Here the excavations of the British school cleared many houses, including a palace of "Mycenaean" type; there is also a town wall.

But even here it seems impossible to deny some influence coming from the Aegean area, and Scythic beasts are very like certain products of Mycenaean and early Ionic art.

The excavations brought to light vases and fragments of vases, of nearly every period except the Mycenaean.

And now, thanks to the efforts of a large company of workers, notably Dr Arthur Evans and his associates in Cretan exploration, we are coming to speak with some confidence not merely of a Mycenaean but of a pre-Mycenaean Age.

Here, then, is direct evidence that the Aegean peoples of the Mycenaean Age knew how to write, and it is no longer necessary to assume that the verses of the Iliad were dependent on mere verbal transmission for any such period 'as has been supposed.

But the excavations that have given us a knowledge of the Mycenaean Age have proved conclusively, not alone that civilization existed in Greece in an early day, but that this civilization was closely linked with the civilization of Egypt.

Not only have antiquities been found in Crete that point to Egyptian inspiration, but quite recently Professor Petrie has found at Tel el-Amarna Mycenaean pottery.

It is demonstrated, then, that as early as the beginning of the r4th century B.C. the Mycenaean civilization was in touch with the ancient civilization of Egypt.

For the character of Mycenaean art and of the antiquities found at Mycenae see Aegean Civilization.

The device is a translation into stone of a type not uncommon in gem-cutter's and goldsmith's work of the " Mycenaean " age.

Outside the circle, especially to the south of it, numerous remains of houses of the Mycenaean age have been found, and others, terraced up at various levels, occupy almost the whole of the Acropolis.

On the summit, approached by a well-preserved flight of steps, are the remains of a palace of the Mycenaean age, similar to that found at Tiryns, though not so complicated or extensive.

Above them are the foundations of a Doric temple, probably dating from the last days of Mycenaean independence in the 5th century.

Excavations made in1884-1885by Schliemann and DOrpfeld over part of the rock on which Tiryns stood have exposed a most interesting building, which offers the most complete example of a palace of the Mycenaean age in Greece.

In the local museum are four Mycenaean vases, one found in the island and another on the adjacent island of Mazzorbo, proving direct intercourse with the Aegean Sea in prehistoric times.

The second period (150o-l000 B.C.) shows a great increase in the use of bronze, and the introduction of gold and silver, and of imported Mycenaean vases.

The same development is looked for in Mycenaean architecture.

Prehistoric buildings of the semielliptical plan, which previously appeared beneath classical remains at Olympia and at Orchomenos in Boeotia, have now been discovered under the Mycenaean palace of Tiryns, under an Hellenic temple at Thermon in Aetolia and in Levkas.

A fresco bearing the figure of a woman holding lilies and a vase was also found in the " Palace of Cadmus " at Thebes (1916), where many Early Mycenaean graves were also excavated.

Other discoveries at Tiryns were a beehive tomb, perfectly preserved and used throughout the classical period, some pottery vases which bear painted inscriptions in characters said to be derived from the Cretan script, and an accidental find of Mycenaean treasure in 1915 by a labourer employed in the agricultural school.

Mycenaean pottery and a carved steatite vase were found in caves in the island of Cythera in 1915.

The Italian occupation of Rhodes in 1911 was followed by a general exploration of the island, in the course of which some graves were opened in the Mycenaean cemetery of Ialysos, which had been dug in 1868-72, and important material is said to have been obtained.

Some Late Mycenaean remains have been found in association with products of the local culture in the Ionian Islands.

A temple built of sun-dried brick and timber has been found at Thebes underlying an archaic temple of Ismenian Apollo and standing on Mycenaean tombs (Keramopoullos, 1916), and a more extensive settlement was found at Thermon in Aetolia (Romaios, 1911-3).

Below again are Mycenaean and pre-Mycenaean settlements, with houses built of sticks and mud.

A curious, ruder building to the north of this and to the west of the second terrace is probably of much earlier date, perhaps of the Mycenaean period, and may have served as propylaea.

We are aided in forming some estimate of the chronological sequence preceding the Mycenaean age, as suggested by the finds of the Heraeum, in the new distribution which Ddrpfeld has been led to make of the chronological stratification of Hissarlik.

For the layer, which he now assigns to the Mycenaean period, is the sixth stratum from below.

The " megalithic " monuments of Agia Phaneromeni 1 and Hala Sultan Teke near Larnaca may perhaps be early, like the Palestinian cromlechs; but the vaulted chamber of Agia Katrina near Enkomi seems to be Mycenaean or later; and the perforated monoliths at Ktima seem to belong to oil presses of uncertain but probably not prehistoric date.

In the second stage, implements of true bronze (9 to io% tin) become common; painted pottery of buff clay with dull black geometrical patterns appears alongside the red-ware; and foreign imports occur, such as Egyptian blue-glazed beads (XIIth-XIIIth Dynasty, 2500-2000 B.C.),1 and cylindrical Asiatic seals (one of Sargon I., 2000 B.C.).2 In the third stage, Aegean colonists introduced the Mycenaean (late Minoan) culture and industries; with new types of weapons, wheel-made pottery, and a naturalistic art which rapidly becomes conventional; gold and ivory are abundant, and glass and enamels are known.

Iron, which occurs rarely, and almost exclusively for ornaments, in a few tombs at Enkomi, suddenly superseded bronze for tools and weapons, and its introduction was accompanied, as in the Aegean, by economic, and probably by political changes, which broke up the high civilization of the Mycenaean colonies, and reduced them to poverty, 1 Myres, Journ.

Lingering thus in Cyprus (as also in some islands of the Aegean) Mycenaean traditions came into contact with new oriental influences from the Syrian coast; and these were felt in Cyprus somewhat earlier than in the West.

Gem-engraving and jewelry follow similar lines; pottery-painting for the most part remains geometrical throughout, with crude survivals of Mycenaean curvilinear forms. Those Aegean influences, however, which had been predominant in the later Bronze Age, and had never wholly ceased, revived, as Hellenism matured and spread, and slowly repelled the mixed Phoenician orientalism.

Of the Mycenaean period numerous seal-impressions in clay have been found.

At a very early time, however, it seems to have been of greater note, being the seaport of the plain in which Argos and Mycenae are situated, and several tombs of the Mycenaean age have been found.

In 1880 and 1881 Schliemann cleared out the ruined dometomb of Orchomenus, finding little except remains of its beautiful ceiling; and in 1885, with DOrpfeld, he laid bare the upper stratum on the rock of Tiryns, presenting scholars with a complete ground plan of a Mycenaean palace.

His great wealth was left mainly to the two families that he had in Russia and Greece; but a sum was reserved for Hissarlik, where Dorpfeld in 1891 and 1892, by clearing away the debris of the former excavations, exposed the great walls of the sixth stratum which Schliemann had called Lydian, and proved their synchronism with Mycenae, and identity with Mycenaean remains; that is to say, with Homer's Troy, if Troy ever was.

It is curious that, though the sphinx (as also the gryphon) were thus common in the Mycenaean period, the words σφίγξ and γρύψ do not occur in Homer.

It has been thought that the Ionian migration from Greece carried with it some part of a population which retained the artistic traditions of the "Mycenaean" civilization, and so caused the birth of the Ionic school; but whether this was so or not, it is certain that from the 8th century onwards we find the true spirit of Hellenic art, stimulated by commercial intercourse with eastern civilizations, working out its development chiefly in Ionia and its neighbouring isles.

The art of these countries is mainly geometrical, and allows only of monograms crowned with laurels, of peacocks, of animals gambolling amid foliage, of fruit and flowers, of crosses which are either svastikas of Hindu and Mycenaean type, or so lost in enveloping arabesques as to be merely decorative.

The few observations hitherto made on the sites of Ionian cities indicate continuity of settlement and culture as far back as the latest phases of the Mycenaean (Late Minoan III.) Age and not farther, supporting thus far the traditional foundation dates.

Mycenaean tombs and other antiquities have been found (see Cyprus).

It is probable that the island was not dorized before the 9th century B.C. One of the earliest facts known to us in its history is its membership in the League of Calauria, which included, besides Aegina, Athens, the Minyan (Boeotian) Orchomenos, Troezen, Hermione, Nauplia and Prasiae, and was probably an organization of states which were still Mycenaean, for the suppression of the piracy which had sprung up in the Aegean as a result of the decay of the naval supremacy of the Mycenaean princes.

Turning to the mainland of Greece we see that the astonishing remains of a highly developed prehistoric civilization, which Schliemann first brought to light in 1876 at Mycenae, Minoan and which from those discoveries received the general influence on main= name of " Mycenaean," in the main represent a trans land of marine offshoot from the Minoan stock.

The third Late Minoan age corresponds generally with the Late Mycenaean stage in the Aegean world (see Aegean Civilization).

The curtain-wall and towers of the Mycenaean citadel, its gate with heraldic lions, and the great "Treasury of Atreus" had borne silent witness for ages before Schliemann's time; but they were supposed only to speak to the Homeric, or at farthest a rude Heroic beginning of purely Hellenic, civilization.

It was not till Schliemann exposed the contents of the graves which lay just inside the gate (see Mycenae), that scholars recognized the advanced stage of art to which prehistoric dwellers in the Mycenaean citadel had attained.

It is not until the latest Mycenaean period that we find brooches, such as were used in historical Greece, to fasten woollen garments, and their presence in the tombs of the lower city of Mycenae indicates the coming of a northern race.

Archaeological evidence points clearly now to the conclusion that the splendid but overgrown civilization of the Mycenaean or " late Minoan " period of the Aegean Bronze Age collapsed rather suddenly before a rapid succession of assaults by comparatively barbarous invaders from the European mainland north of the Aegean; that these invaders passed partly by way of Thrace and the Hellespont into Asia Minor, partly by Macedon and Thessaly into peninsular Greece and the Aegean islands; that in east Peloponnese and Crete, at all events, a first shock (somewhat later than i soo B.C.) led to the establishment of a cultural, social and political situation which in many respects resembles what is depicted in Homer as the " Achaean " age, with principal centres in Rhodes, Crete, Laconia, Argolis, Attica, Orchomenus and south-east Thessaly; and that this regime was itself shattered by a second shock or series of shocks somewhat earlier than boo B.C. These latter events correspond in character and date with the traditional irruption of the Dorians and their associates.

Thanks to the enthusiasm of Schliemann and his successors, we can now substitute for the mythical "Age of Heroes" a historical "Mycenaean Age" of Greece, and give tangible proof of its relatively high state of civilization.

Tsountas, Mvrcivac Kai Mvcfvauces iroacrcvuos (1893); Tsountas and Manatt, The Mycenaean Age (1897); Perrot and Chipiez, Histoire de l'art dans l'antiquite, vol.

In view of the splendour and wide influence of Minoan Crete, the age generally known as "Mycenaean" has been given the name of "Minoan" by Dr Arthur Evans as more properly descriptive (see Crete).

The evidence of Mycenaean remains, as compared with the literary evidence of Homer, is both inadequate and inconclusive (see Aegean Civilization; Greek Art; Arms And Armour, Ancient; Plate; &c.).

Now, as some of the remains at the Heraeum correspond to the two lowest layers of Hissarlik, the evidence of the Argive temple leads us far beyond the date assigned to the Mycenaean age, and at least into the second millennium B.C. (see also Aegean Civilization).

It is curious that, though the sphinx (as also the gryphon) were thus common in the Mycenaean period, the words σφίγξ and ÃŽ³ÃÃÃË† do not occur in Homer.

It has been found in Mycenaean tombs; it is known from lake-dwellings in Switzerland, and it occurs with neolithic remains in Denmark, whilst in England it is found with interments of the bronze age.

The later phase, which follows on the destruction of the Cnossian palace, and corresponds with the diffused Mycenaean style of mainland Greece and elsewhere, is already partly decadent.

Biliotti many fine painted vases of styles which were called later the third and fourth "Mycenaean"; but these, bought by John Ruskin, and presented to the British Museum, excited less attention than they deserved, being supposed to be of some local Asiatic fabric of uncertain date.

It was recognized that the character of both the fabric and the decoration of the Mycenaean objects was not that of any well-known art.

A relation between objects of art described by Homer and the Mycenaean treasure was generally allowed, and a correct opinion prevailed that, while certainly posterior, the civilization of the Iliad was reminiscent of the Mycenaean.

From 1886 dates the finding of Mycenaean sepulchres outside the Argolid, from which, and from the continuation of Tsountas's exploration of the buildings and lesser graves at Mycenae, a large treasure, independent of Schliemann's princely gift, has been gathered into the National Museum at Athens.

During the excavations on the Acropolis at Athens, terminated in 1888, many potsherds of the Mycenaean style were found; but Olympia had yielded either none, or such as had not been recognized before being thrown away, and the temple site at Delphi produced nothing distinctively Aegean.

In the later period a peculiar "bee-hive" tomb became common, sometimes wholly or partly excavated, sometimes (as in the magnificent Mycenaean "Treasuries") constructed domewise.

The richness of the Aegean capitals and columns may be judged by those from the "Treasury of Atreus" now set up in the British Museum; and of the friezes we have examples in Mycenaean and Cnossian fragments, and Cnossian paintings.

She was worshipped, under the form of a conical stone, in an open-air sanctuary of the usual Cypriote type (not unlike those of Mycenaean Greece), the general form of which is known from representations on late gems, and on Roman imperial coins;' its ground plan was discovered by excavations in 1888.2 It suffered repeatedly from earthquakes, and was rebuilt more than once; in Roman times it consisted of an open court, irregularly quadrangular, with porticos and chambers on three sides, and a gateway through them on the east.