Physical Analysis and Purpose of Material Remains

Connecting physical evidence with purpose

Mycenaean buildings and objects were created for particular jobs: defending a settlement, burying the dead, mixing drinks, decorating rooms or recording goods. Their physical form often helps explain those jobs. A narrow gate and a wide mixing bowl look different because they had different functions.

Separate appearance, style and content. Appearance includes material, shape, size and decoration. Style describes how something is made or represented. Content is what an image or inscription shows. A clay vessel’s shape is part of its appearance; the painter’s repeated figures are part of its style; the soldiers depicted are its content.

Location adds another layer. A structure’s position within a citadel can explain its design. For a portable object, distinguish its findspot from its original use: a dagger found in a grave may have been a valued possession before it became a burial gift. Its present museum location is different again.

The Lion Gate: an entrance that also displayed power

The Lion Gate, built around 1250 BC, was the main entrance in the north-west wall of Mycenae’s citadel. Its opening is approximately 3 m wide and 3.1 m high. Four large conglomerate blocks form the threshold, two upright posts and the lintel—the horizontal stone above the doorway. Double wooden doors controlled access.

Above the lintel is a relieving triangle, covered by a limestone block carrying the lion relief. This connects engineering with decoration: the triangular opening reduces the load directly above the lintel, while the carved block makes the gateway visually impressive.

The relief shows two confronting lions or lionesses, arranged symmetrically on either side of a Minoan-style column. Their raised forepaws rest on altar-like bases beneath the column. The animals project from the stone in high relief rather than being drawn as flat outlines. Their heads, made separately from their bodies, are now missing. This balanced, heraldic arrangement places the column at the centre and makes the animals appear to guard it.

The combination of lions and this architectural or religious symbol gives the entrance a significance beyond its practical function. Possible meanings include royal power, divine protection and the wealth of the city. The lions could intimidate approaching enemies or suggest guardians watching over Mycenae. These are interpretations, rather than a securely known explanation of the sculptor’s intention.

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The approach rose uphill through a confined passage. Its narrowness limited the number of attackers who could approach together, while the substantial walls gave defenders positions above them. The gateway therefore combined controlled entry, defence and monumental display. Explaining all three is more useful than describing it simply as large.

When analysing a gateway photograph, distinguish construction from decoration. Identify the posts and lintel, then consider the approach’s slope and width and the positions available to defenders. A close view of sculpture answers different questions from a wider view of the entrance: decorative content can suggest symbolic purposes, while the approach helps explain access and defence.

Defensive structures: position shapes design

Mycenae’s Cyclopean walls average about 6 m in thickness. Their enormous limestone blocks are roughly shaped, with smaller stones and clay filling gaps. Around the Lion Gate, more regularly dressed conglomerate blocks create a different finish. Material and masonry style should therefore be described precisely rather than treating every part of the citadel as identical.

The north-eastern extension enclosed access to an underground water reservoir and a sally port. A sally port is a small opening through which defenders could leave the fortification to counter-attack. A cistern stores water. Protected access to water mattered during a siege, when leaving the walls could be dangerous. At Mycenae, a descending passage and rock-cut staircase led towards the underground supply.

At Tiryns, an uphill ramp, narrow gateways and successive guarded entrances controlled movement towards the palace. The narrow areas called killing boxes lay between gates: attackers could be trapped there while defenders above threw missiles or fired arrows.

The galleries on the southern and eastern sides of Tiryns were corridors with rooms leading off them. Their walls were corbelled inwards to form roofs: successive courses projected further into the opening until the sides met overhead. Storage is an important explanation of their purpose: food and possibly weapons could be kept within the protected fortification. Weapons near the walls would be close to where defenders needed them. Tiryns also had underground cisterns and a sally port; these were not features unique to Mycenae.

Palace rooms and paintings: practical space and impressive decoration

The palace at Mycenae occupied the summit on artificially levelled terraces. Its central megaron, a rectangular hall complex, had three successive sections: a portico, a vestibule and the main hall. The main hall contained a circular hearth with four column positions around it. Its plastered walls carried frescoes, and coloured patterns decorated the floors. In the vestibule, square floor panels contained zigzag patterns in blue, red and yellow. The room’s arrangement created a substantial central space, while decoration made it suitable for an impressive royal setting.

Tiryns’ palace likewise stood at the highest part of its citadel. Fragments of its wall paintings show a boar hunt, women riding in chariots and a procession of women. Their original setting was the palace, not the museum where the fragments are now displayed.

A fresco was created by putting plaster on a wall and painting while it was wet. Mineral pigments supplied colours: haematite could provide red, ochre yellow, malachite green and copper compounds blue; carbon supplied black. Because these images decorated architecture, their scale and placement were connected to the rooms containing them. Palace wall paintings made the interior impressive, while their subjects represented activities associated with its occupants.

The Mycenaean Lady: a painting in a religious setting

The fresco known as the Mycenaean Lady (National Archaeological Museum, Athens, inv. 11670) was part of a wall painting in the so-called House of the Chief Priest, in the Cult Centre of Mycenae’s citadel. It dates to the 13th century BC. The Cult Centre lay inside the citadel after the walls were extended around 1250 BC.

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Only fragments survive, set into modern plaster. They show the head and upper body of a woman with long tresses and a headband, painted in profile. She wears a short-sleeved bodice over a sheer blouse, with necklaces and bracelets, and holds up a necklace in her right hand. Her intricate hairstyle and rich jewellery present her as a figure of high status.

Her setting shapes how she is interpreted. Because the painting comes from a religious building, the necklace is usually read as an offering. She may be a goddess accepting the gift, or a worshipper presenting it; either way, this is not a private portrait. Its serious, formal presentation suits the solemn moment of an offering, and its purpose was to decorate a place of worship.

Burial architecture: enclosing graves and building monuments

Grave Circle A at Mycenae contained six shaft graves from the sixteenth century BC. These were deep burial pits, marked above ground by stone stelai. Rich gold objects and jewels accompanied the dead. Originally outside the fortifications, the burial area was brought inside the enlarged citadel around 1250 BC. Its later double circular enclosure of upright stone slabs made the old burial ground a prominent feature near the entrance.

Grave Circle B, outside the citadel, contained earlier shaft graves of the seventeenth and sixteenth centuries BC. Its low circular rubble wall enclosed the burial area. In both cases, the circular boundary marked out a distinct space for the dead; the shafts themselves were the places of burial. The enclosure and the graves are therefore different physical features with related purposes.

The later tholos tombs used a different design. A passage, or dromos, led to a circular chamber with a corbelled roof. Each ring of masonry projected slightly inwards until the chamber was covered. This produced the characteristic beehive form.

The Tomb of Aegisthus, built around 1500 BC outside Mycenae’s walls, initially used untrimmed stone; a more decorative façade was added later. Its chamber is about 13 m across, although the upper part of its roof has collapsed. The Tomb of Clytemnestra, west of the Tomb of Aegisthus and built around 1220 BC, had a 37 m dromos with carefully dressed conglomerate masonry and a decorated entrance. Its entrance used a triple lintel and a relieving triangle.

The Treasury of Atreus, outside the walls and built around 1250 BC, had a chamber approximately 14.6 m across, constructed from progressively smaller horizontal rings of stone. A dromos led into the circular chamber, with a smaller rock-cut chamber adjoining it. Despite its name, it was a tomb, not originally a treasury. Monumental scale and carefully finished entrances made burial architecture a display of resources as well as a place for the dead.

Tiryns had tholos tombs too. One stands outside the citadel, on the west slope of Profitis Ilias hill about 1 km away. Its dromos is 13 m long and almost 3 m wide, lined with roughly cut limestone slabs, and its entrance was painted with spirals. A single huge stone slab forms the lintel, and the circular chamber is about 8.5 m across. Like the tombs at Mycenae, it was set apart from the fortified settlement of the living.

The Warrior Krater: a mixing bowl with a painted narrative

The Warrior Vase, or Warrior Krater, dates to the twelfth century BC and was found in a house immediately south of Grave Circle A at Mycenae. It is about 42 cm high, with a rim diameter of 50 cm. As a krater, its original practical function was mixing wine and water: its broad bowl provided space for mixing rather than the narrow opening suitable for pouring.

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Its painted content is distinct from that function. One side shows armed soldiers marching away, with a woman raising her hands beside a handle; the other shows soldiers raising their spears in coordinated action. Repeated figures give the scenes an organised appearance. The woman wears a dress reaching her feet and a head covering. Her raised hands have been interpreted as farewell, prayer or blessing. Her position connects the military scene with the home from which the warriors depart.

The National Archaeological Museum identifies possible use in a household banqueting set, but also considers later reuse as a grave marker. These possibilities should not be collapsed into one certain history. The vessel’s shape explains its mixing function; its findspot and painted narrative raise separate questions about use and meaning.

Precious burial objects: craftsmanship and display

The Lion Hunt Dagger, a bronze blade with elaborate inlaid decoration, came from Grave IV in Grave Circle A and belongs to the sixteenth century BC. Its hunting scene is inlaid into the bronze blade, so the figures stand out against the dark metal. Hunters carry spears and bows and protect themselves with large tower-shaped and figure-of-eight shields. A man lies on the ground, while lions confront or flee the hunters. On the reverse, a lion hunts deer.

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Inlay involves setting contrasting materials into a surface to make a design. Here, small-scale metal decoration required a different kind of craftsmanship from painting a wall. The precious materials and elaborate imagery suggest elite display; its burial context also made it a valuable gift accompanying the dead. Its form is that of a weapon, but this does not by itself prove that it was used in combat.

The gold Mask of Agamemnon came from Shaft Grave V in Grave Circle A, excavated by Heinrich Schliemann under Panayotis Stamatakis’s supervision in 1876. It belongs to the sixteenth century BC. It represents a stern, imposing male face with a pointed beard and an upturned moustache. Separate arched brows, modelled ears and a clearly defined mouth give the face a distinctive appearance. The eyelids have a central line suggesting closed eyes, even though the eyes themselves are modelled in relief.

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The mask was made from a sheet of gold, with its features raised in repoussé, hammered out from behind. Two holes near the ears show that it was tied in place over the dead man’s face with twine. Its raised, three-dimensional features show how metalworking created a face rather than merely drawing one on a flat surface. Its facial form connects its appearance with its funerary role: a gold covering for the deceased, rather than protective armour for a living warrior. Using valuable gold to represent the dead also made the covering a display of wealth and honour.

The traditional name does not establish that it belonged to Homer’s Agamemnon. Schliemann identified it with the king who led the Greeks to Troy, but these burials predate the period usually associated with the Trojan War by several centuries.

The gold pyxis from Shaft Grave V (1600–1500 BC) is a six-sided wooden box covered with gold plates. The plates are decorated in repoussé, with designs hammered out from behind, showing lions chasing deer. A box covered in gold was a luxury object. Placed in the grave with the dead, it belonged to a group of grave gifts whose wealth shows the high rank of the people buried there.

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The gold rhyton, made of hammered gold sheet in the shape of a lion’s head, came from Shaft Grave IV and also dates to the 16th century BC (inv. 273). A rhyton was a vessel for pouring liquid, especially in rituals such as libations, offerings poured out to the gods. Making a ritual pouring vessel in gold, and in the form of a powerful animal, joined its religious use with a display of wealth.

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Linear B tablets: physical form suited to record-keeping

Linear B tablets were working records rather than narrative artworks. The major Mycenaean palaces used Linear B to record disbursements of goods, such as wool, sheep and grain, and some tablets deal with military matters. The script combined syllabic signs, which stood for sounds, with ideograms, picture-signs standing for items. On the tripod tablet (Ta 641) from the palace at Pylos, the tripod ideogram stands beside the Greek word ti-ri-po, ‘tripod’, spelled out in syllabic signs.

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Lists, signs and quantities suited the practical job of keeping track of goods. Unlike a decorated dagger or monumental gateway, a tablet did not need precious materials or an imposing scale to perform its function. Many tablets survive only because the buildings that housed them were destroyed by fire, which baked the clay. The Pylos tablets were fired when the palace burned about 1200 BC.

Across these examples, the strongest explanation follows the same connection: identify a specific physical feature, establish the original setting or function, then explain why that feature suited the job.