"Griffin" Bronze Age Warrior of southern Greece

Angela

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See:
http://www.archaeology.org/news/4886-161004-greece-griffin-warrior

"The New York Times reports that Jack L. Davis and Sharon R. Stocker of the University of Cincinnati think that the artifacts uncovered last year in the 3,500-year-old grave of the “Griffin Warrior” were symbols of his power as a ruler of the town of Pylos, located on the southwestern coast of Greece. It had been suggested that the more than 2,000 artifacts associated with the burial, including four solid gold engraved rings, silver cups, beads of precious stones, a bronze mirror, ivory combs, weapons, pottery, and an ivory plaque engraved with a griffin, were plundered from the Minoans, who lived on the island of Crete. Davis and Stocker now say that the objects in the grave reflect the Minoan-style images engraved on the gold rings, and imply that elites living on mainland Greece understood Minoan culture and used it to establish power. “Whoever they are, they are the people introducing Minoan ways to the mainland and forging Mycenaean culture,"

I don't see how this is different from the prior analysis, which we discussed in this dedicated thread. I sure hope someone already has those bones.


http://www.eupedia.com/forum/thread...enaen-Griffin-Warrior-Found?highlight=griffin

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Amazing art and metallurgy by these people:
Greece-Griffin-Warrior.jpg









Also in the grave was a long bronze sword:
pylos%2Bnytimes4.jpg



One of the gold rings, with a Cretan bull running scene:
151027123109-pylos-cretian-ring-exlarge-169.jpg
 
More on the Griffin warrior from the Smithsonian magazine:

See: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/histo...exposes-roots-western-civilization-180961441/

The obvious modern pro-immigration stance of the researchers makes me wonder if the conclusions are totally objective, but the fact that it fits a modern narrative doesn't mean it's incorrect, of course. Either way there's a lot of great detail on the tomb and the findings.

"[FONT=&quot]Together, the grave goods and the wall paintings present a remarkable case that the first wave of Mycenaean elite embraced Minoan culture, from its religious symbols to its domestic décor. “At the very beginning, the people who are going to become the Mycenaean kings, the Homeric kings, are sophisticated, powerful, rich and aware of something beyond the world that they are emerging from,” says Shelmerdine.[/FONT][FONT=&quot]This has led Davis and Stocker to favor the idea that the two cultures became entwined at a very early stage. It’s a conclusion that fits recent suggestions that regime change on Crete around the time the mainland palaces went up, which traditionally corresponds to the decline of Minoan civilization, may not have resulted from the aggressive invasion that historians have assumed. The later period on Knossos might represent something more like “an EU in the Aegean,” says Bennet, of the British School at Athens. Minoans and Mycenaean Greeks would surely have spoken each other’s languages, may have intermarried and likely adopted and refashioned one another’s customs. And they may not have seen themselves with the rigid identities we moderns have tended to impose on them.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]In other words, it isn’t the Mycenaeans or the Minoans to whom we can trace our cultural heritage since 1450 B.C., but rather a blending of the two."

"The fruits of that intermingling may have shaped the culture of classical Greece and beyond. In Greek mythology, for example, the legendary birthplace of Zeus is said to be a cave in the Dicte mountains on Crete, which may derive from a story about a local deity worshiped at Knossos. And several scholars have argued that the very notion of a Mycenaean king, known as a wanax, was inherited from Crete. Whereas the Near East featured autocratic kings—the Egyptian pharaoh, for example, whose supposed divine nature set him apart from earthly citizens—the wanax, says Davis, was the “highest-ranking member of a ranked society,” and different regions were served by different leaders. It’s possible, Davis proposes, that the transfer to Greek culture of this more diffuse, egalitarian model of authority was of fundamental importance for the development of representative government in Athens a thousand years later. “Way back in the Bronze Age,” he says, “maybe we’re already seeing the seeds of a system which ultimately allows for the emergence of democracies.”[/FONT]

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Well, the Mycenaeans or their Greek precursors (and successive waves - Dorians) had to learn navigation and boat building. Boat building and sail-craft are far easier to learn from live people than from aping decayed wooden boats and what passed for drawings/schematics. (Learning via visits by traders might have been possible, but only a minor help compared to resident teachers.)

Navigation even over short distances would have its own challenges. My guess would be early destructive waves followed by moderation and infiltration as the superiority of what came before struck the newcomers. The Minoan culture collapsed probably for many reasons including lack of nurture due to loss of dominance/intra-communal contacts.

As to a ranked society, are there not several examples of elected kings, merit based elevation, among IE peoples, including the Celts? The Greeks were among the first in history to have this type of society, but likely not in pre-history.
 

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