1

The Myth of Athenian Democracy

Stanley Wilkin: 2012: Greenwich Academy Books

A tilt at perceived wisdom on Classical Greece as the intellectual and

artistic foundation of Europe. This work asserts instead the overwhelming

importance of Mesopotamian civilization, Bronze Age and Iron Age

communities in Central Europe and the Urals, in constructing modern

European and Middle and Near Eastern cultures. Because of the lengthy

matters involved, this represents the first part of a longer piece.

 2

Within schools, colleges, and the older universities there is inexhaustible interest in and

glamorization of Athenian democracy. It is the first true democracy (not true), the originator

of modern thinking and modern life (absurd), home of philosophy (what of ancient

Mesopotamia and the speculations of Hebrews, Egyptians and Canaanites). The Book of Job

touches on many of the issues dealt with in Greek philosophy. Many ancient kingships may

not have been quite as powerful as they pretended, exhibiting dynastic propaganda, such as

colossal pyramids and palaces. The role of other state or locally based institutions may have

been more important than now understood.

Athens of the classical period provides evidence of participatory democracy, but so did many

ancient ‘barbarian’ societies, especially amongst the Germanic tribes. In Athens, such

participatory leanings were I suggest based upon ideas of ethnic and gender exclusion, and

were not examples of present day inclusive democratic institutions. Equally, they were based

on assumed masculine traits that produced controlling and tyrannical behaviour towards

excluded people and cultures. Athens was not the reverse of Sparta, but its complement.

It is still a risk to raise the above points, leaving a writer open to disapproval, even ridicule.

Ancient Greece, in particular ancient Athens, is supposed to be the spiritual and intellectual

home of European civilization. This is a consequence of Classic’s lecturers’ aversion to ideas

and innovative thought. The thinking of Classic’s professors stops at the renaissance when

the classical world was rediscovered, ancient statures being dug up and ancient cities

revealed. They have no apparent acquaintance with psychology, physics, sociology, or

modern philosophy. Our fixation with Greece prevents consideration of other cultures that

engaged in similar political experiments in the Near East, Africa and other parts of Europe.

We have selected Greece to be iconic. In fact, Greece's advantage was to be geographically

close to the Near East from where it obtained stimulation and instruction. Although Greece
 3

influenced many aspects of present European culture, influences came equally from the Near

East and Central Europe. Greece had one singular advantage in that early in its history it

recorded its activities and self-consciously reflected on its written record.

In this essay I will put forward the idea that Athenian democracy was in fact an elitist

exploitative state that used democracy to create stasis, allowing all the male population to

engage in the process of government in order that the wealthiest could exploit other states and

groups. Poorer citizens benefited from such exploitation. In effect, it was not the paragon of

endless Classical Civilization courses.

The Bronze Age was a time when a warrior elite was created through the growth and control

of trade routes driven by the need for tin and copper. Mycenae represented early evidence of

the homogenization of aristocratic warrior elites, evident, according to Kristiansen and

Larrson (2005) throughout Europe and the Urals. This essay will present the case that Athens

represented the communal restraining and utilization of the warrior elite that became

democratized during the Iron-age that followed.

This assignment will also consider the possibility that many elements of Bronze Age Greece

continued into the archaic period and thereby influenced Classical Greek cultures. In both

periods, the Greeks exhibited a martial fetish and military tactics based upon defence of the

person and shock offense. It will explore the nature of Mycenaean Greece and how it differed

from the societies that preceded it, and centuries after its collapse during which Greece

entered the Iron Age. This assignment will seek to prove that Mycenaean Greece provided an

interlude in the development of Greek culture determined by direct influence from external

factors. It will also attempt to demonstrate the connections between Mycenaean culture and

Hittite culture and their shared background in Eurasia.

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Mycenaean Greece

Bronze Age Greece is divided into three periods. Of course this is for convenience in many

ways. For example, although we categorize this time of cultural change and growth as the

Bronze Age, stone and wooden tools were widely used. Bronze nevertheless drove trade and

wealth creation and symbolized characteristics’ of the ruling elite. It also allowed for the

development of armies through the elite control of bronze, the main component of armour

and weaponry. Control of bronze, which because of the smelting process, the putting together

of copper and tin or copper and arsenic, was considered to have magical properties, and was

identified with aristocratic qualities. To the ancient mind, the smelting process resembled the

creation of a new life form. Those who controlled bronze distribution therefore controlled

powerful creative forces.

The Middle and Late Bronze Age witnessed crucial technological developments. During

these periods, the Trans-Urals, Anatolia, and later Europe, rulership and states were

transformed by the introduction of chariots drawn by horses. While this altered mobility and

power bases, it also created another group of technically proficient individuals who gained

rapid status within the above societies. The new technologies may have informed the ‘elite

brotherhood’1 that emerged during this period. Chariots and horses are associated with the

spread of Indo-European languages, although where Proto-Indo-European (PIE) originated is

still open to debate.

The three periods Bronze Age Greece is divided into are Early, Middle and Late Helladic, or,

for brevities sake, EH, MH, LH. The Mycenaean period is concentrated in Late Helladic and

is further distinguished into LH1, LH11 and LH111. The last period, as it is abundant in

1
Kristiansen, Larsson: The Rise Of Bronze Age Society:2005, page 95. Cambridge University Press.
 5

archaeological material is further broken into LH111A, LH111B. Each categorization

indicates different cultural events. Minoan culture has different designations as the Bronze

Age started there earlier.

Greek speaking hordes, according to commentators such as R. Drews (1988), arrived in the

peninsula c 2000 BCE but there is little convincing evidence for such an event. If Indo-

European languages arrived with Anatolian farmers, posited by Colin Renfrew, 2 then they

were there all along. The similarity of languages between central Anatolia and Greece

suggests this, but alternatively it might confirm the more traditional viewpoint that nomadic

groups from central Asia or the European steppes began moving into the area 6000 years ago.

The profusion of Indo-European languages within Anatolia from the Middle Bronze Age

indicates that it was here that Indo-European languages developed, but these languages,

although related, are long dead. They represent a defunct arm of Indo-European. They do not

appear to represent the source of further languages or the clear first offspring of PIE. Unlike

Greek, which seems closest to Armenian, it was an unsuccessful cul-de-sac. The Anatolian

languages also do not appear to bear the relationship to PIE that their Bronze Age form

suggests. Although separate from other Indo-European languages by approximately 1000

years, it is not sufficiently representative of PIE and appears to have few loan words from the

other Indo-European languages in the vicinity. It therefore shows the characteristics of an

isolate. The distribution of emerging Indo-European speaking peoples, in an arc from Eastern

Europe to Iran and India demonstrates a central emergence point in the Urals. Russian

archaeologists have produced evidence for the emergence of Indo-Aryan group from the

region, so perhaps it is safer to believe that Indo-European language groups came from there

also. Although commonly held, the belief that the first Indo-European speakers were white

(often blonde) European type is a fallacy, as there is no reason why PIE speakers were not of

2
Renfrew, A.C., 1987, Archaeology and Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins, London: Pimlico.
 6

a completely different ethnic group. Another theory is that Greek speakers emigrated from

Anatolia c 2000 BCE having arrived there as part of an early exodus from Central Asia. Such

a view accounts for the Hittite arrival during the same period and the other Indo-European

languages of Anatolia, such as Luwain. There are in fact a number of similarities between the

two peoples, although they may only be superficial or ones shared with other Bronze Age

cultures. Symbolic and cultural connections have been made with the developing warrior

elite, complex chiefdoms controlling new military technology, of Europe and the Urals

connected to but not dependent upon the Indo-European languages.

Mycenaean militaristic behaviour was very different from the sedentary farmers and traders

before that date. Aegina, south of Attika, c2400, had experienced a period of urbanization,

based upon grape and olive agriculture, encouraged or in concert with the emergence of

Minoan trade, but it's emergence does not appear to account for later more warlike

developments. The Cyclades appears to have been a bustling trading zone and may also

account for the appearance of such wealthy sites. Luxury goods have been discovered at the

Aegina sites indicating one route to the creation of dynastic elites, the control of wealth

goods, but it does not appear to have developed any obvious progeny. Buildings of the

period, particularly at Lerna, appear related to those of eastern Anatolia, indicating trade or

population flows from that region. The megaron, a structure employed for great halls and

temples, appears at this stage in Greek history several thousand years (the first evidence of it

is in Chalcolithic Beycesultan 5500-3000) after their appearance in Anatolia. Lerna was

destroyed c 2100 but whether by intrusive forces or natural causes remains uncertain. At

around the same time, many sites in western Anatolia were also destroyed.

The first evidence of Mycenaean activity is the shaft graves discovered at Mycenae by

Schliemann in 1876, noted for gold masks and fantastically rich grave goods, are dated
 7

c1700-1600 BCE, exhibiting a clear different cultural emphasis from both the population of

Lerna and Minoan Crete. The cultural artifacts discovered there suggest warrior chiefdoms.

There is little later to compare with it on the Greek mainland, suggesting a stage in elite

development. The artifacts indicate a powerful and wealthy family, as recent reconstruction

of their features confirm. They do not appear the usual Indo-European type, whatever that

might actually be, but are somewhat snub nosed and flat faced. An attractive bunch they were

certainly not. The dead were clothed in magnificent funerary garb, with a large amount of

jewelry, much of it pure gold. There was a considerable array of weapons, armour, and

vessels made from precious metals. The iconography, vase painting and images on metal

vessels show that Mycenaean culture had already developed, clearly influenced by Cretan

culture, from, it appears clustering villages around high points in the landscape.

The question remains, of how they became so rich in an area of few resources. Assuming the

role of containing outside resources and distribution, they would perhaps have operated as

many elites of the time and excluded others from wealth and luxury items. The trade routes of

the time went from the Middle East, through the Near East and southern Anatolia, along

Crete and the Peloponnese, and from Egypt across to Crete and the Peloponnese. They may

have acted as agents for Minoan and Near Eastern trade; the shaft graves contain goods from

both regions, using force to control both trade and wealth. The glut of different weaponry was

for something other than display, but what exactly at present we do not know. There is a

paucity of evidence for actual conflict, then and later, on the Greek mainland. For example,

there is no evidence for sieges.3 The control of wealth and suppression of the local population

seems one likely answer. Piracy is another likely reason for such weaponry, but Mycenae is a

long way from the sea. The populations were small compared to those of the Near East and of

course the present day, so early Mycenaean armies may have been little more than warrior
3
Price, Thonemann: The Birth of Classical Europe, The Penguin History of Europe: 2011.
 8

bands, similar in size to Anglo-Saxon armies two thousand years later. Armies would have

consisted of two hundred men and little more, insufficient to impact on the environment. The

later monumental fortifications, c 1400 BCE, were built around the shaft graves, a sign of

appropriation by later dynasties. 4

The above leads to the notion that the original Greeks were an intrusive group, on the limited

evidence we have, demonstrating many of the behavioural traits of other militaristic intrusive

groups, such as the Normans in England and the Hittites. 5 Most Mycenaean sites can be

found in the Peloponnese, where, unlike much of the rest of Greece, there are plains useful

for chariots. This goes along with Drew’s6 association of the Greeks with Indo-European

conquerors who utilized the new technology of chariots and the domestication of the horse.

More recent research has shown that domesticated horses, known as the mountain ass, were

available to the Mesopotamians from before 2000 BCE, but Indo-Europeans may have

intensified their use in war. 7

Hattusa, the Hittite capital, was located at a high mountainous point in central Anatolia, a

similar response to Bronze Age conditions as the Mycenae’s, protected from an attack but

serving also as an expression of power. Its separation from the state’s main areas of

population, to the south, indicates the paranoia common to the Bronze Age elite and their

apparent desire to separate themselves from the general population. 8 Both the Normans and

Hittites were engaged in power architecture, that is buildings which expressed dominance

with limited concern with aesthetic features. They built, like Mycenaean’s, imposing

structures. Mycenaean Greeks, early commentators believed,9 ruled over an indigenous

4
Trevor Bryce: The Trojans and Their Neighbours: 2006: Routledge London and New York:
5
Van De MIeroop (2004) suggests that, as they were early on known by the Assyrians as rulers in Kanesh, they
were indigenous. The generally held view is that they ruled over an indigenous people called the Hatti, a name
they later assumed for themselves, who spoke a different language.
6
R. Drews: The Coming of the Greeks: Indo-European Conquests in the Aegean and the Near-East. Princeton.
7
Hyland, Ann: The Horse in the Ancient World: 2003: Sutton Publishing Ltd.
8
Wilkin: Myth of Mind and Consciousness: 2008. Greenwich Academy Books.
9
Chadwick, John: 1976: The Mycenaean World: University Press.
 9

people who spoke a different language. The same observation has been made of the Hittites.

The time difference between the shaft graves, with its pictures of Mycenaean life, and the

construction of palaces is approximately two hundred years. As yet, we do not know how

Mycenaean society functioned throughout that period.

On the evidence we have, the temporary conquest of Crete was a necessary stimulus to

Mycenaean culture. During the same period, the Hittite’s established the New Kingdom,

transforming Hattusa into a fortress city. There was similarly an urban revival throughout the

Near East. While this period cannot rightly compare to the Axial Age a thousand years later,

it suggests nevertheless a time of ideological change centred upon military technology and

concepts of power and kingship. 10 The rise of territorial states11 and chariot usage from 1800

onwards may have contributed to, or, in the former, symptomatic of, ideological change.

Military success became instrumental in state formation.

This in addition is indicated by changes in worship although these were manifest in the

Middle East rather than the Aegean, Anatolia and Near East. The warrior god Marduk was

installed as the chief deity of Babylon, and elsewhere there seems to have been a

diminishment in the importance of goddesses. Gods and their consorts appear as major

objects of worship. The Hittites worshipped a storm god, Teshub and Hebat, his consort, the

sun goddess of Arinna. The first Hittite rulers principally worshipped the sun goddess of

Arinna without the need of a consort.

Female deities and priestesses had influential roles within Hittite society and queens wielded

power of their own. This is very different to Mycenae where as yet there is no evidence of

women holding power, certainly not queens. Although Potnia, a goddess worshiped in the

Aegean, appears to have been an important deity in Pylos, Poseidon, in his connection to
10
Wilkin: Myth of Mind and Consciousness: 2008: Greenwich Academy Books.
11
Van De Mieroop (2004)
 10

horses, seems to have been the main object of worship. Potnia appears to have been the chief

deity in Crete along with a number of other goddesses. Connections between Hittite

symbolism and that of northern Europe have been made 12 but perhaps this is simplistic and

such similarities, while having much to do with cultural, historical and trading links, are part

of the developing psychological make-up that has come down to us today related to advanced

trading routes and the symbolic effects of metal in the development of warrior elites13.

Although the Hittite’s pantheon was influenced by Mesopotamia the above chief deities were

depicted with a calf, representing their son, and this may have come from Egypt. It has of

course continued into Christian theology. A number of Greek myths appear to have

originated with the Hittites.14 Many clearly originated in Mesopotamia, the stories of Inanna

are often reflected in those of Greece, and the superhero demi-gods of earliest Mesopotamian

literature resurfaced as Achilles and Hercules. Greek culture was directly connected to the

Near East throughout this period and continued so until c500 BCE with the growing threat to

Greece of the Persian Empire.

Hittites

It would be wrong to view the Hittite state as territorial, in the sense of modern European

states occupying a given geographical area, or with a dominant language and dominant,

continuous ethnic group. The Hittite state was a successful brand. Although its originators

c1700 BCE seem to have been Indo-European speakers, a competitive kin group with the

techno local advantage of chariots.

12
Kristiansen, Larsson: The Rise Of Bronze Age Society:2005, page 95. Cambridge University Press.
13
Wilkin: The Myth of Mind and Consciousness: 2008. Greenwich Academy Books
14
Kristiansen, Larsson: The Rise Of Bronze Age Society:2005, page 95. Cambridge University Press.
 11

The first Hittite state was formed by Anitta and his father Pikhanas, kings of Kussara, who

conquered a number of cities in central Anatolia, including Nesa, Kanesh. The annals

describe Anitta receiving two important symbols of kingship from the king of Purushanda, a

throne and sceptre of iron indicating its importance and availability to the elite. 15 Iron during

this period was mainly gathered from meteorites, taking on a mystical supernatural quality.

Historians tend to associate Hittite power with a monopoly over iron, but there is little proof

for this. Their activities may have led to the end of the first Assyrian trading empire.

The kingdom collapsed with Anitta’s death. The Old Hittite kingdom followed c1700 BCE

created by a ruler called Hattusili. He too, according to the annals, emerged from Kussara.

Hattusili founded Hattusa, the famed Hittite fortress-capital in central Anatolia. After King

Mursili 1 invaded Mesopotamia and sacked Babylon (1595), the entire region became

unstable, leading to the collapse of the Old Kingdom. 16

The Hittite New Kingdom emerged two centuries later, called Hatti by its contemporaries. At

the time the Hurrian state of Mitanni was the strongest in the region. Mitanni, although not

Indo-Aryan, was notable for the Indo-Aryan names of many of its rulers, and its use of Indo-

Aryan words. This confusion may have been a direct result of the new military technology of

horse and chariot, which required experts. A number of these appear to have been Indo-Aryan

or had Indo-Aryan names. It is possible that Indo-Aryan speakers, proficient in horse

domestication and the use of chariots, had already moved into Iran and therefore were

neighbours of the Hurrians. It is more likely that, as elsewhere in the Bronze Age, Indo-

Aryan were engaged for their skills. After 1340 BCE the Syrio-Palestine area was contested

by Hatti and Egypt, with Mitanni superseded by Hatti. The New Kingdom Hittites took on

15
Bryce, T. The Kingdom of the Hittites: 1998: Oxford.
16
Van de Mieroop: A History of the Ancient Near East. Ca. 3000-323 BC: 2004: Blackwell Publishing.
 12

many Hurrian cultural traits, including their cosmology, and it is possible that a number of

their rulers were Hurrian.

The original Hittite rulers, Arinna and his father, it seems may not have been the same group

who ruled the Old Kingdom, as those of the New Kingdom may again not have been from the

same kin or even ethnic group. Nesili, the Hittite language, may have only been used for

official purposes. The language commonly used in the early periods may have been Hattic,

the language of the main part of the population. New Kingdom Hittites spoke Luwain,

another Indo-European language closely related to Nesili, so they may again have been an

entirely different group. Of greater consequence is that Hattusa was largely cut off from the

heart of the state, closer to Syria. 17

Mycenaean society

Our knowledge of Mycenaean society mainly stems from the written records they left behind.

Many tablets have been discovered, particularly at Pylos, inscribed with Linear B which

several decades ago was discovered to be a form of Greek. The script developed from Linear

A, which was written in the Minoan language. Although it is certain the Minoans did not

speak Greek, we do not know what language they spoke and its relationship with other

languages.

From this script we know for example that the Mycenae’s employed a number of later Greek

names, such as Alexander, and worshipped similar gods to the later population of Classical

Greece. In the Mycenaean pantheon Potnia and Poseidon appear to have been the chief cults,

whereas Zeus seems to have been further down the pecking order. We also know something

of how their society was organized, that, like other Bronze Age societies in the Near and

17
Van de Mieroop: A History of the Ancient Near East. Ca. 3000-323 BC: 2004: Blackwell Publishing.
 13

Middle East, it was divided into specialized work roles and trades. Many of these social

structures can be traced back to early Mesopotamian cities such as Uruk. Mycenae produced

brilliant goldsmiths. Bronze smiths were allotted special status. What stands out from the

records is how Mycenaean society was organized for military service as well as for

production. Women, as in Mesopotamia, were employed for weaving, spinning and carding,

and perhaps also for sex and marriage. These were Mesopotamian concerns that have come

down to the present day.

Agriculture seems to have been highly organized for taxation purposes. It was clearly one of

the main sources of wealth. The records note how much wheat, barley, oil and wood is

received by the state officials, how much is given to the divinity (to keep them healthy and

interested). Of special note is wool, normally used for clothing, which seems to have been a

considerable source of wealth. Often for export, metals were cast into ingots.

Rather than a society of warriors fighting at every opportunity, Mycenae was a

bureaucratized society with a pyramidal administrative structure. It appears to have been, like

many cultures in the Near East, an extraction economy and thereby, while acknowledging the

differences of the ancient world to the present, subject to failure. 18 At the top was the wanax,

or king, at the top, and beneath him the lawagetas, follower of the people. He appears to have

been head of the army. Everything seems to have been centred on the wanax who controlled

all parts of his state. Linear B also mentions te-re-ta, a council of land-holding nobles linked

to the wanax in some kind of feudal service. The wanax had companions/followers called e-

que-ta, who made up the military elite. In the villages was the king’s representative, the ko-

re-tai, who enforced the king’s law. In subordinate regions were the pas-si-reu, local nobles.
19
These seem to have evolved into the later basileus, kings. These positions involved
18
D. Acemoglu, J. Robinson: Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty: 2012: Profile
Books.
19
Price, Thonemann: The Birth of Classical Europe, The Penguin History of Europe: 2011.
 14

recruitment of warriors. The wanax had an advisory body of older nobles, which may have

developed into the genosia. Centred on a king, who symbolised the state, it employed military

force for political and economic reasons.

Hittite society was similar. Hittite elite groups were arranged around warrior kings, with

followers, resembling on the surface Mycenaean and much later Macedonian societies. There

appears to have been a similar system of obligations between kings and other nobles. At

approximately the same period, an echo can also be found in Persian society. This may

represent a stage in the development of military and theocratic kingship rather than shared

historical and cultural roots, although such a political system does not appear in Mesopotamia

or Egypt.

Mycenaean’s imitated the elite dominance of their powerful neighbours to the East. Their

monumental fortresses/palaces and lavish elite burials replicate the architecture and burial

habits of Hittites, and the Syrio-Palestine states. The palaces and fortresses were distinct from

the general areas of residential population. In early Mesopotamia the city was seen as an

organic form which housed human beings, each part related to the other. It was, in effect, a

monumental womb. By the late Bronze Age, elites exploited the majority of the population,

viewing other elites as belonging in an extended family or brotherhood. In Assur the palace

and temple area were walled off from the rest of the city. The palaces of the king’s of

Mycenae and Tiryns stood on hilltops reinforced by cyclopean walls. The citadel of Gla in
20
the west overlooked a servile population that worked the fields. While this behaviour

replicated Near Eastern societies this may have been due to symbolic transmission, the effects

of new technology, and not necessarily other factors such as conquest or high level diffusion.

Nevertheless, states, especially on the periphery of high points of cultural activity, engage

with wealthier states or territories by replicating their institutions in order to participate in the
20
Martin Bernal: Black Athena: Vol 11 1993: page 156: Rutgers University Press.
 15

same levels of wealth. There is evidence of military influence from Black Sea/Carpathian

cultures, linked also to the Hittites, associated with horse harnesses, chariots and chariot

regalia.21 The palace architecture shows, see above, clear signs of Hittite influence, the use of

large stone blocks, and the lion gate entrance. It is likely that the different states built roads,

necessary for chariot use. There was a road between Mycenae and Corinth. Toll booths would

have been erected at regular intervals.

Any evaluation of Mycenaean culture, its connections to other states and cultures, needs to be

put into perspective in terms of the limited nature of Mycenaean societies, and the few

centuries occupied by Mycenaean culture. We can only be sure that the period between

c1400-1100 was Greek speaking. We cannot be certain that the shaft grave people of c1700-

1600 were Greek speaking.

Minoan Society

The general view, supported by murals discovered in Mycenaean mainland sites, is that

Mycenae was greatly influenced by Minoan culture, and that it was in many ways an

offshoot. But is that so? Above, there are indications that this was not entirely the case and

that Mycenae was equally influenced by ideas growing in Europe and from the Near East and

Anatolia. The profusion of goddesses, of women assuming prominent places in the murals,

suggests a matriarchal society. In that, it was very different to Mycenae Greece.

Cretan palatial culture appeared c1900BCE, the labyrinth style hosting religious, production

and community activities, but does not appear in Mycenae until 500 years later. Palaces, a not

entirely apt description, on the mainland served many of the same purposes as Cretan palaces,

but in a controlled environment. Kristiansen and Larrson (2005) stress that Minoan polities,

21
Kristiansen, Larsson: The Rise of Bronze Age Society: 2005: Cambridge University Press.
 16

with their emphasis on power and economics, were centralized in a similar fashion to

Mycenaean cities but the persistent representative evocation of shared experience, outside

warfare, found in Cretan murals, immediately suggests a different mindset. The murals of

Cretan life suggest a far more convivial atmosphere. Villas, or country houses have been

excavated outside of cities, similar to palaces but on a much smaller scale.

Although many archaeologists stress the indigenous nature of Cretan society, the possibility

of outside influence, as a consequence of increasing trade in the Mediterranean driven by

luxury goods and bronze artifacts should not be ruled out. The double-axe symbol, usually

associated with worship of bulls, originally the massive auroch, originated in Anatolia and

the Near East. Ivory goods, probably from Africa, appear during the Old Palace Period in

Crete.22 The Cretan obsession with the natural world may have arrived from their long

association with Egypt, and their worship of mother goddesses may have arrived from

Anatolia. Physical connections as a consequence of simultaneous focus on forms of worship

or of native ideologies are not necessary as the above can result from similar advances in

social formation and technology. The evocation of life of life presented on the Pylos murals,

indicate that Mycenae had assumed Cretan fashions, but not perhaps the Cretan elevation of

women.

Mycenaean women dressed in Cretan fashion from the shaft graves, c1600, onwards. The

fashion did not change. The men wore their hair in Cretan fashion, but there seems less

emphasis, in that different from Crete, on youth. Many of the men are portrayed as older,

with beards and the upper lip area shaven. It is not clear whether any of the Mycenaean

women bared their breasts as seems to have been common in Crete. The men wore kilts,

different in style to Cretan kilts. War is consistently portrayed on Mycenaean vessels and

pottery but hardly at all on Minoan artifacts. Although beautiful murals of the natural world
22
Martin Bernal: Black Athena: Vol 11 1993: page 156: Rutgers University Press.
 17

can be found at Pylos in western Peloponnese, possibly painted by Minoan artists, it is

uncommon, while the Minoan murals are concerned almost primarily with such subjects. The

Pylos murals might have been painted by Minoan artists or perhaps the city, without the

defensive walls of the rest of mainland Greece cities, and preoccupied by the sea, may have

originally been a Minoan outpost.

Mainland Greece does not appear to have had a separate elite group of priests and priestesses

as appears the case in Crete, and from the available evidence their political systems were very

different. The rulers of Crete appear to have been integrated into the community, whereas the

Mycenaean rulers, like most Bronze Age rulers, were separate. The palaces of Minoa appear

to have been inclusive environments, not exclusive like the Mycenaean palaces. Early

commentators have portrayed palaces as redistributive centres, controlled by social elites, but

some modern commentators view them as ritual centres dominated by priest-kings in a

theocratic society.23 Although Minoan religion was dominated by female divinities there are

representations of male priest-kings, shown with Near Eastern and Egyptian insignia. Nano

Marinatos,24 a recognized authority, notes the association of the waz lily with male rulers and

the throne stool with their wives. Linear B stresses male rulers in Minoa, but this script comes

from a period of Mycenaean dominance and may not truly reflect the power of women in

earlier Minoan society. Sometimes we must use the senses and look with our eyes. Although

murals from Santorini and Crete demonstrate many aspects of Cretan life, the dominant size

of the female figures, in city scenes or watching bull-leaping, signifies their extreme

importance in the society. They may have been equals, reflecting the role of women in Hittite

society, but more so. This was a period when both male and female divinities and rulers had

prominence. Nevertheless, in Egyptian murals (tomb of Menkheperesenb and annals of

23
Kristiansen, Larsson: The Rise of Bronze Age Society: 2005: Cambridge University Press.

24
Minoan Religion: 1993: Colombia SC.
 18

Thutmose c1448 BCE) the ‘Prince of Keftiu’ (Crete) is portrayed alongside the ‘Prince of

Tanaja’, indicating at least the dominant diplomatic role of male rulers. Although Minoan

society is considered benign, in contrast to Mycenaean society, there is growing evidence of

child sacrifice. The story of Athens and the Minotaur might therefore be based on fact.

The two cultures worshipped similar deities, evidenced in linier B, although the Mycenae’s

may have bestowed different characteristics on Cretan deities. Potnia, which has a PIE

derivation, may have originated in Crete as one of the many goddesses worshiped there.

Female deities in the ancient world often represent female stereotypes, with the occasional

powerful figure that may confirm or challenge such stereotypes. While confirming the life

cycle of fertility, in both humans and foodstuff, they may equally represent war, asserting the

paradox of human existence, of birth and death, but also the cyclic nature of the sex act. Such

symbolism offers a deeper understanding of ancient societies. Although linear B, written by

Mycenaean’s, lists Zeus, Poseidon and Dionysus, they may have enjoyed different roles to

their classical Greece counterparts. Poseidon, a PIE deity associated with the horse, was the

prominent god in Pylos and Thebes and may have also been the chief god in other

Mycenaean cities. Although they may have worshipped similar deities, Potnia, the main

female deity appears to have originated in Crete. Many Mycenae deities may have arrived

from Anatolia. Although the Mycenae worshipped Zeus, he seems not to have been the

principal deity. This appears to have been Poseidon. Kristiansen, Larrson (2005) stress that

Linear B script is revealing more and more gods, this again reflects time and place. It is

possible that Minoan influence was at its height when Mycenae forces occupied the island for

a while c1400 BCE.25

PIE, the original Indo-European language, may have had a concept of the spiritual worlds

made up of Upper, Middle and Lower, although this is not as unusual as some commentators
25
Price, Thonemann: The Birth of Classical Europe, The Penguin History of Europe: 2011.
 19

believe it to be (Kristiansen, Larsson: 2005). This concept may be traced back to Paleolithic

times. The sky-father controlled the upper limits with club or thunderbolt, mating with an

earth-mother, and producing gods for the upper, middle and lower regions. This concept

insists that the world requires management. There is usually conflict in the Upper regions

between the sky-father and his male offspring. This arrangement is reflected in the pantheon

of Classic Greece and perhaps also in Mycenaean Greece. It can be seen in Hittite worship

and the majority of Near Eastern religions. Christianity and Islam are modern examples.

Minoan worship was often conducted in caves, often seen in the ancient world as a passage to

the underworld and the dead. This was reflected in many Greek myths concerning Hades.

Mycenaean religious observance appears not to have had this dimension.

Warfare

The Mycenae focused on warfare. Many of their murals and scenes painted onto pottery or

engraved into seals or vessels depict warrior conflict. At the beginning of the Mycenaean era

soldiers are depicted wearing boar’s tooth helmets, often with a bronze cuirass and shoulder

guards, with access to a number of weapons. Mycenaean soldiers employed spears and

javelins, swords, of the slashing type that originated in central Europe, daggers, slings, axes,

hammers, bow and arrow. Mycenaean soldiers used very large shields, suggesting limited

mobility, made of layers of cow hide. The most popular were the Tower shields and the

figure of eight shields, the latter used in Crete. These were probably used with defensive

tactics, to perhaps produce a wall of soldiers advancing towards an enemy. It therefore fits

in with all encompassing bronze armour found in Tomb 12 in Dendra. Again, this was made

to protect the wearer not for offensive activity. It is often shown used by warriors against

wild dangerous animals, where it must have been very effective. It is a suitable defence for a

phalanx.
 20

Round shields were routinely employed from LH111B, taking over from the Tower and

figure of eight shields. This suggests a different more open kind of fighting, perhaps even sea

battles. There are murals that appear to confirm this. Helmets changed considerably from the

beehive type similar to the boar’s tooth helmet, to the tiara helmet, similar to those on

Egyptian representations of the sea-peoples. Some exotic forms displayed horns and other

paraphernalia. This may have signified a growing desire to frighten and panic alien

populations. In the later Mycenaean period weapons of defence and offence are of Near

Eastern design.26

Whatever tactics were utilized at the end of the Mycenaean period, there is evidence of the

use of phalanx formation in a Santorini mural and also on a ‘warrior vase.’ It was probably

not a true phalanx, as this appears dependent on some form of formal citizenship processes,

as in classical Greece and far more ancient Sumeria. It was one where warriors protected

others in a multi-level tactical arrangement, archers and slingers behind the slowly moving

warrior with an all encompassing shield, using not the long spear, but stabbing spears and

swords. Whatever the case, at this point, as with the later Greek hoplites, Mycenaean warriors

were normally heavily armoured.

It is assumed, by their focus upon warfare, that Mycenaean culture was a conquest culture,

but apart from the evidence of the Mycenaean takeover of Minoan Crete and its settlements

in Anatolia there is little true evidence of warlike activity. Nevertheless, the warrior-package,

in which Mycenae participated, involved migration and colonization. It implies constant

aggression against neighbours.

26
Lord William Trevour, The Mycenaeans: revised and enlarged: 1999: chap. 7: Thames @ Hudson Ltd, London.
 21

Much of the martial display may have been for internal competition. It is assumed that the

Mycenaean cities fought amongst themselves, but there is little evidence of that apart from a

number of murals27 that may be concerned with past events. It is possible, as warfare in the

bronze age was connected to trade, not just an element of it, but often its main component,

that warriors were directly associated with enforcing trade and of policing trading partners.

They may also have been used to control the general population, as in the Near East, to

produce food and exchange goods. The warrior-package included intimidation, and was used

thereby in methods of production. When Bronze Age societies collapsed (c1100), although

there had been economic deterioration for several centuries in the Near East, the controlled

means of production collapsed too. Other means of production were then introduced, usually

small scale, until the rise of large-scale slavery.

In the Near East, the martial elite are usually connected to chariots. Kings are shown hunting

from chariots. These were expensive martial instruments, the province of wealthy kings or

other elite members. The cultural connections between Mycenaean Greeks and Hittites are

fully considered in ‘The Rise of Bronze Age Society’ (2005: Kristiansen, Larsson).

Evidence of chariot battles may indicate internal elite competition, especially in Greece

which has few suitable plains. Drews (1998) points to the chariot-package and the emergence

of warrior kings and a warrior elite that spread over the Middle and Near East, Europe and

the Urals.28Kingship certainly changed at this point from the strong man focused upon his

community, the shepherd tending his flock symbolism (later resurrected by Christians), to the

exploiter and bully as overlord. Mycenaean kings appear to have been part of this change. As

27
Lord William Trevour, The Mycenaeans: revised and enlarged: 1999: Thames @ Hudson Ltd, London.
28
R. Drews: The Coming of the Greeks: Indo-European Conquests in the Aegean and the Near-East. Princeton.
 22

a consequence of the warrior-package, the warrior elite became increasingly expensive to the

Bronze-Age states. Another probable reason for their economic collapse.

Evidence from Homer suggests a raiding society, whose economy was based upon attacking

wealthy cultures and ransacking populations. They traded with and perhaps gained hegemony

over many of the Aegean islands. They may even have sailed as far west as Britain. There is

ample evidence of Mycenaean activity in Italy and around the Black Sea. Kristiansen,

Larsson (2005) demonstrate that Europe and Urals were connected by trade from Greece and

the Levant. They may also have been connected culturally through the incidence of shaft

grave kings throughout Anatolia and Greece. Armies were probably very small compared to

those put in the field by Near Eastern cultures. Although many Mycenaean murals depict

warfare, some suggest mythical subjects. As slavery was a well known institution in

Mycenaean societies, evidence from their writing suggests that slaves came from as far afield

as Lydia; raids may have been for that immensely valuable commodity. A large number of

women are mentioned in their writing, but that may the consequence of the dominant use of

women in production of cloth and other factory facilities. There is also evidence that a

number of these were slaves.

Conflict in Anatolia

It is thought that the Ahhiyawa mentioned in Hittite records, are Mycenaean, probably from

Thebes. The word is similar to Achaeans, found in Homer. Recently published Hittite texts

have confirmed their position as in the west and over the seas. This group, according to

Hittite tablets, centred their operations on the city of Milawanda-Milawata (Miletus). A rebel

Hittite subject had fled to Milawanda, under Ahhiyawa control. Although there is some
 23

evidence that Milawanda was sacked by the Hittites on c1315 BCE and 1250 BCE, at this

point, c1200 BCE the Hittite king Tudhalyia 1V probably destroyed the city , installing a new

overlord. Before this event the Ahhiyawa kings were referred to as equals by the Hittites, or

brother, along with Egypt, Babylon and Assyria kings. After, the Ahhiyawa name was

excluded from such appellations. It is likely that Mycenaean forces would have floundered

when faced with the larger, more technically advanced armies of the Near East. Eric Cline

(Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea, 1994, pp. 68-74) hypothesizes a trading embargo against the

Mycenaean’s as a consequence of an alliance with the Egyptians. 29

The geography of Anatolia would have provided greater scope for chariots. Perhaps the

Mycenaean armies were much larger there, giving substance to the Iliad. There was around

the time conflict at Troy, or Wilusa, a Luwain speaking state, which may have been

connected to an ongoing war with local Hittite provinces.

The End

At around the time of the above events Mycenaean palace society came to an end. It had

lasted little more than 200 years. A series of earthquakes occurred on the mainland, causing

damage to Mycenae, Thebes and Tiryns. Neither this event nor further quakes caused the

collapse of palace administration. Although it has been long supposed that the Sea-Peoples

destroyed Mycenaean civilization, again we do not know if this band attacked Greek cities, to

what degree they posed a genuine threat outside of Egyptian imaginings, where the

Mycenae’s formed elements of the Sea Peoples, and why they leave the Aegean islands

untouched. The ancient Greeks put Mycenaean collapse down to a Dorian invasion from

northern Greece but although there was destruction at Mycenae sites it was not simultaneous.

Archaeological excavation at Pylos has revealed tablets concerning an imminent attack from

29
Price,
 24

the sea. Shortly afterwards the city was sacked and burned. Ugarit, a Bronze Age city in the

Near East, was also sacked by forces from the sea. This, and similar events, may have

affected Hattusa, as the city was dependent on sea ports for much of its necessary resources.

The sacking of Wilawanda and the possible expulsion of its Mycenaean elite occurred c1200

BCE, immediately prior to these events. Did this initiate the movement of warrior bands,

such as the Sea Peoples? Or did the collapse of Hittite power in Central Anatolia cause the

economic collapse in mainland Greece and the Levant? Although many urban centres in the

interior disappeared Byblos in present day Lebanon prospered as did the rump of the Hittite

state in Syria.

The collapse of Aegean and Near Eastern states, and social change elsewhere, was

symptomatic of ideological change and the instability caused by the declining need for tin

and copper. The military failure of Mycenaean kings in war may have been sufficient for the

collapse of hierarchies whose legitimacy was based upon war. The Hittite certainly were part

of a belief-system which demanded that each dynasty should confirm its legitimacy through

success in war and the Mycenaean kings may also have invested in such proactive forms of

legitimacy.

The economic effects of war, expensive in the age of chariots, may have tilted Aegean

economics over the edge. Everything was geared towards the elite, and when they failed in

war their credibility failed too. Wealth was controlled by the elite functioning within

extraction institutions. Once wealth acquisition faltered, in such an uncompromising

institution, the collapse of supported institutions, such as palatial society, would also collapse.

The sacking of Ugarit and subsequent failure of the Hittite state may have added the coup de

grace.
 25

A lack of community identity, evident in early Minoa, may also have contributed to the

failure of Mycenaean palace culture to withstand internal and external pressures. The mass of

the population could not identify with those who ruled them. By 1100 BCE Near Eastern

civilizations had become bankrupt, their social and economic systems no longer working.

Those urban areas that did survive may already have established other, more flexible state

institutions and so were, at that point, less fragile. We can be sure that economic systems fail.

Certainly, by 1100 BCE the social system prevailing in the west and north Mediterranean

appears redundant and new groups with new identities came to the fore. Bronze had been

associated with the elite, while iron, growing in use, was more available shifting emphasis

away from semi-divine kingship to more interconnected, layered societies.

Mycenae and Tiryns did not collapse immediately, but continued as inhabited sites for some

while. In Cyprus, urban sites correspondingly grew in size and number. Cultural regionalism

emerged from the larger palace states. The number of urban sites in Greece declined and

those that survived were less complex. The population fell drastically. Without trade coming

to Greece and away from it palatial society would not have survived. As iron could be found

locally the extensive trade based on the need for tin and copper temporarily collapsed. The

creation of bronze goods, especially weaponry, went hand in hand with much of the

cosmology of the time. The magic of creation, implicit within the creation of bronze, failed

with the more commonplace utilization of iron. Wealth was no longer distributed extensively

from India to Western Europe, occasioning cultural failure based on the link between rulers

and cosmology. While writing disappeared, along with the civilization that inspired it, the

sites of the abandoned towns were re-inhabited and small villages were created. In Eastern

Greece evidence of recovery can be seen as early as the 10th century BCE.
 26

Euboea is a large island off eastern mainland Greece and here recent archeological

investigation at the site of Lefkandi has revealed a community similar to that of Shaft grave B

but dated to a century after the breakdown of palatial society. Lefkandi had been a settlement

since c2400 BCE, coming under the rule of Thebes during the palatial period. Here a number

of warriors’ tombs have been discovered and within them iron swords and spearheads. A

large building c1200 has been discovered and town walls dated to two centuries later. The

tombs on this site tend to be lavish, different from much of the Bronze Age period that had

preceded it. In addition, horses were sacrificed and thrown into separate shafts. The society

revealed here suggests that of Homer’s Iliad. Horses in the poem are sacrificed, important

men cremated. Elsewhere in Greece inhumation continued.

Although the change to iron working was slow, as a consequence of its local availability local

communities ruled by elite groups or families naturally emerged. Technological assistance for

the smelting of iron may have come from the Near East and by 900 BCE appears to have

been widespread and not just limited, as bronze largely was, to the elite. At this time, central

Europe was probably more advanced in its use of iron than the southern Mediterranean

communities. There began a clear divergence between central European culture and Greece,

which perhaps had not been there before. The continued connections between Greece and the

Near East at Al Mina in Syria throughout the century after palatial collapse are now disputed,

but the re-emergence of complex communities in Greece probably was a consequence of

renewed, vigorous urban activity in the Levant.

A different economy:

Knowledge of Mycenaean civilization seems to have been forgotten by later Greek

civilization, although Thucydides references earlier states, mainly gleaned from the lilac,

along with the then current belief in a Dorian invasion. Certainly, the Mycenaean were
 27

connected to an earlier, simpler economic environment where small elites enjoyed most of

the wealth. Although the polis appears to have roots in 9th and 8th century Greece, military

armour and tactics may have derived from the earlier period. Even before the development of

the Greek phalanx, Greek troops were heavily armored with tactics based on protective

shields, see above. There are a number of paintings of marching troops, behaving, it seems,

differently from warriors in the Iliad who were principally concerned with one on one

contests. While the above observation is justified, Homer focuses on the military activity of

the elite with its concern with martial glory. This may have had its genesis in the Mycenaean

period. Classical Greece and Mycenaean Greece were both military societies which made a

fetish of war. Although classical Greece appeared to have indirect knowledge of the older

civilisation through myth and Homer’s Iliad, archaic Greece may have had more knowledge

of the Mycenaean period.

Greece, even up to the Classical period, was an oral society. Lengthy poems of the past were

remembered by bards. Poets created or developed the Greek pantheon. Much has been lost

therefore of previous, perhaps extensive knowledge, of the Mycenaean period. What survived

into the classical period was the martial fetish, kingship (predominant outside of Greece),

fighting tactics and armour, the cuirass, greaves, shield tactics. Once poetry is written down,

it provides a different kind of record and oral history often becomes lost.

The bard was an important institution in both Mycenae and archaic Greece. These rhapsodists

appear to have mainly sung the virtues of kings or ancestors, as in Anglo-Saxon warrior

societies. From their input we probably get the later Iliad, which originally was made up of

separate stories, and other now-lost epics. The Mycenaean rulers are said to be invisible, that

is, unlike the king’s of Mesopotamia and the Near East we know little about them. We do not

even know their names. We now know more about Hitttite kings than Mycenaean kings, even
 28

though that culture disappeared from common knowledge for three thousand years. That said,

if Mycenaean history was recorded in song, we know more about the ancient Mycenaean

kings than anywhere besides Israel.

With the demise of palatial culture in the Aegean, Phoenician culture seems to conversely

have expanded taking to the seas and beginning its colonization of the west. It appears this

was to fill the vacuum left by the collapsed Mycenaean trading empire. One reason

Phoenician city states became richer was the rise of Assyria and its use of Phoenician

merchants as middle-men between Assyria and Egypt. Phoenician sea-going was an

expression of that wealth. The old societies and economies based upon rigid control of wealth

had given way to more flexible societies and economies. Although these cities had kings,

evidence suggests that they also, in line with Mesopotamian culture, had important

assemblies that helped determine city policies.

Although kingship was a widely used political institution, and it has become even amongst

archaeologists as part of the natural order of things, it developed late in Mesopotamian

history as an efficient method of conducting war, of delivering trade goods, and of

expansionist adventures. It has a longer history in Egypt, where kingship was early identified

with the state. Often kings were constrained by councils of elders or peers. This was the case

amongst both Phoenicians and Hittites. The Hebrews did not have kings, until threatened by

outside forces.

By 800 the ancient Greeks had reached Italy and had established Cumae there. They traded

with the Etruscans. Although Greece is credited with forming its institutions within Greece it

is likely they were influenced by other cultures, as much as they influenced such cultures.

Many of the new colonies retained kingship. By this time, Greeks were trading again with the

Near East and Attica appears to have coalesced into a single political entity. Legend had it
 29

that Attika had early rejected its kings and kingship, but again there is little clear evidence.

The idea that kings ruled throughout ancient Greece is based on surviving legends and the

executive form in Spartan society. It is not clear that the institution was prevalent, but just an

assumption of archaeologists. There is a tendency to ignore the large number of early

societies that had no kings, or only for limited periods in their history. Most of the

communities may have had no need for central authority. As averred above, the Hebrews, see

above, also experimented with other forms of government.

According to Hesiod (c 700 BCE), Greece was ruled by the nobility, which acted

disrespectfully to commoners, like himself. Most of the land was in the hands of the rich,

with common folk increasingly impoverished and indebted. Unelected leaders of the nobility

seized power, ruling as tyrants. Greek legend has it that wise legislators appeared to deal with

social unrest as the result of aristocratic greed and arrogance, but the sayings and deeds of

these great men may have been made by later commentators. The development of the

representative institutions and hoplite warfare (c700 BCE) might equally account for later

social developments.