Study Questions: WEDNESDAY, January 20, 2021.
William Biers THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF GREECE
Chapter 3: “The Mycenaeans” and Chapter 4: “The Dark Ages”
Illustration; “Cup of Nestor” from Mycenae Grave Circle A. See Iliad 11.656ff (Lombardo) (from: Mycenae. by H. Schliemann, 1880. p. 237)
Study Questions: for WEDNESDAY, January 20, 2021. Prepare the questions that match the last digit of your U of A ID number.
Mycenaean (ca 1450 BCE)”Griffin Warrior Tomb” (Shaft Grave) at Pylos, discovered in 2015, with stunning agate seal stone. [“The Pylos Combat Agate, in our view a Cretan work of Late Minoan I, may be the finest example of glyptic art yet discovered in a Minoan or Mycenaean context. It was found in 2015 in the grave of the so-called Griffin Warrior at Pylos. The face of the sealstone bears a representation of combat that draws on an iconography of battle scenes known from the Shaft-Grave period mainland and Neopalatial Crete. The level of detail in the representation of weapons and clothing, like the attention given to the physiognomy of the human bodies, is without parallel. We argue that the scene had special significance for the warrior and those who arranged his interment.” -Shari Stocker and Jack Davis, abstract in Hesperia 86 (2017) 583-605.]
Some Greek Myths That Might Reflect Some Bronze Age and Subsequent Realities (D. B. Levine)
Images From Mycenae (William McDonald PROGRESS INTO THE PAST)
What do the Linear B tablets say about Mycenaean religion, and the names of the Greek gods?
OPTIONAL EXTRA CREDIT OPPORTUNITY #1: “RETHINKING THE MYCENAEAN WORLD” lecture by Dimitri Nakassis (56 minutes). Watch the video and write 2-page double-spaced 12-point summary and thoughtful reaction (hand in by Monday, February 1, 2021).
OPTIONAL EXTRA CREDIT OPPORTUNITY #2: “1177: THE YEAR CIVILIZATION COLLAPSED” lecture by Eric Cline (55 minutes). Watch the video and write a 2-page double spaced 12-point summary and thoughtful reaction (hand in by Monday, February 1, 2021).
1. If the Middle Helladic peoples were Greeks, as Biers states, when did Greeks first come to Greece?
2. How were Mycenaean palaces different from Minoan palaces?
3. Why do most scholars doubt that a “Dorian Invasion” was the cause of the destruction of the Mycenaean palace culture? What other theories have been proposed? What does Biers conclude?
4. What is a “megaron”? Where would we find one, and what are its characteristics?
5. What is “Cyclopean” construction? How did it get its name? Which Mycenaean citadels exhibit it?
6. What is “corbel vaulting“? Where is it found?
7. What is a “relieving triangle“? Why was it invented, and where is it found?
8. Why might the residents of Mycenae, Athens, and Tiryns have constructed “secret springs” (cisterns) in the Late Helladic III period?
9. What has been found in Mycenaean “cult areas” or “shrines”?
10. What is a “tholos”? What is its use, and where would we find one? “Treasury of Atreus” photo.
11. What is a “shaft grave”? How is it different from a “simple inhumation”?
12. What is a “chamber tomb”? How is it different from a tholos tomb?
13. What interpretations of the Lion Relief at Mycenae’s Lion Gate does Biers mention?
14. What kinds of scenes were featured on Mycenaean tombstones?
15. How did Mycenaeans decorate their pottery? Why is the “Warrior Vase” typically Mycenaean?
16. Where were small Mycenaean terracotta figurines found, and what did they represent?
17. What do boars’ tusks have to do with Mycenaean armor?
18. Describe the “repoussé” technique that was used to make the gold cups found in a tholos tomb at Vapheio.
19. How did the city of Mycenae get its name?
20. What are “fibulae”? How were they used, and where did they originate?
21. Who was Heinrich Schliemann, and what did he have to do with Mycenaean archaeology? (62, 64, 75, 94)
22. What three written sources are important for information about the Mycenaeans, and which do you think would be the most reliable for giving us the ‘truth’ about them?
Study Questions: Biers, Chapter 4: “The Dark Ages”
23. Why are there no Linear B tablets found in Dark Age strata?
24. What are four (4) general characteristics of the Greek Dark Ages?
25. Why is this period also called the “Iron Age”? What examples of iron work do you find in this chapter?
26. How did people in the Dark Ages dispose of their deceased, and how was this different from Mycenaean custom?
27. Where is Ionia, and how did its population change during the Dark Ages?
28. What is the problem of the “continuity of Iron Age Greece with Bronze Age Greece”? Where do we find continuity?
29. What was “the political and social structure of Greece” in this period, and how was this different fom Mycenaean culture?
30. Why did the people in the Dark Ages not use megalithic architecture? What was their architecture like, and how did it differ from Mycenaean architecture?
31. On what basis did excavators identify the cult area in Karphi?
32. Why is Karphi called a “refugee settlement”?
33. Why do you suppose a loutrophoros was used both “to hold water for a ritual bath before marriage and often as a funeral monument for unmarried women”?
34. What is “Sub-Mycenaean” pottery, and how was it decorated? What shapes did it have?
35. Compare the Sub-Mycenaean pots shown in figure 4.7 with the Protogeometric shapes in figure 4.8. What can you conclude about continuity of Iron Age Greece with Bronze Age Greece? How do we account for the similarities?
36. How do archaeologists account for the “taller and more slender” shapes of some amphoras in the Protogeometric period?
37. How did Protogeometric artists use the compass and multiple brush? Article with good illustrations: Click HERE. (Drawing Circles: Experimental Archaeology and the Pivoted Multiple BrushAuthor(s): John K. Papadopoulos, James F. Vedder and Toby SchreiberSource: American Journal of Archaeology, Jul., 1998, Vol. 102, No. 3 (Jul., 1998), pp. 507-529)
38. How do the terra cotta idols from Karphi show continuity from the Bronze Age?
39. How do we know that people in the Dark Ages wore a garment called the peplos?
40. What is so unusual about the Centaur from Lefkandi, and why does Biers say that “facile explanations are likely to be contradicted by the spade”?
Recent Comments