Fascinating how Homer's world doesn't quite match Mycenaean archaeology. The epics describe Iron Age cremation burials, but Mycenaeans actually inhumed their dead. Kings look like modest Iron Age aristocrats rather than powerful wanax rulers, and the heroic world is illiterate despite Linear B being in active use. Scholars see only scattered Bronze Age relics in an otherwise post-Bronze Age tapestry.
Mycenaean Archaeology Contradicts Homeric Depictions of Iron Age Practices
Key facts
- In Homer, chariots are used as taxis to ferry warriors to battle, an Iron Age practice
- Homer depicts heroes being cremated with ashes collected in urns, a standard Iron Age burial practice
- Mycenaean Greeks primarily buried their dead in tombs or shaft graves, not cremation
- Homer depicts modest kings resembling Iron Age aristocratic society, unlike the wanax rulers of the highly centralized Mycenaean palace economy
- The Homeric epics portray an illiterate heroic world, while Mycenaean Greeks used Linear B writing
- Religious practices in Homer align more with later Greek norms than with the Linear B tablets of the Mycenaean world
- Scholars generally see the epics as post-Bronze Age in their depictions, with only isolated relics from earlier times
Sources
Rethinking Death and Society through Mycenaean Tombs with Sophie ...artshumanities.berkeley.edu
Her research focuses on Aegean prehistory, with particular interest in Mycenaean mortuary practices, non-palatial communities, and material ...
Burial Rituals and Artifacts in the Mycenaean Culturesjcnygreece2018amarficollado.wordpress.com
The funeral began with a basic preparation of the body. It was washed, rubbed with oil, and the mouth and eyes were closed. Lamentation over the ...
Mycenaean Burial Practices | Tombs & Beliefs about Deathstudy.com
The Mycenaeans used three main types of tombs: shaft tombs, chamber tombs, and tholos tombs. Elite tombs included gilded weapons, masks, jewelry, tools, and ...
Mycenaeans up to dateaegeussociety.org
by AL Schallin · Cited by 17 — Abstract. This paper considers the entire sequence of funerary evidence from the site of Mycenae, from the Prehistoric Cemetery and early shaft graves to.
Mycenaean chamber tomben.wikipedia.org
Mycenaean chamber tombs originated in Messenia at the end of the Middle Helladic period ( c. 1600 BCE), and were built and used throughout the Late Bronze Age ...
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