RE-AIR: Conversations: The Things They Found in Tombs, Bronze Age Mycenae w/ Dr Kim Shelton

This episode originally aired in april 2024. Liv is joined by Dr Kim Shelton to dive deeper into the real world of Bronze Age Mycenae and all we've learned from what they left behind. Learn more about Dr Shelton's work here. https://nemeacenter.berkeley.edu/ Help keep LTAMB going by subscribing to Liv's Patreon for bonus content! http://www.patreon.com/mythsbaby CW/TW: far too many Greek myths involve assault. Given it's fiction, and typically involves gods and/or monsters, I'm not as deferential as I would be were I referencing the real thing. Attributions and licensing information for music used in the podcast can be found here: mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions http://mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions. Learn more about Liv's next group trips https://travelbugxlivalbert.my.canva.site/ to GREECE! Application deadline is November 30 (Subject to change due to demand). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Liv Albert?

  Hey nerds, really quick note from me. I want to tell you that we now have the applications open for the next set of listener group trips. This is us going back to the original, the trips that we have held in the past that have been so much fun, so successful, and pretty affordable in terms of wandering around Greece with a bunch of nerds. So, check out the details and get your applications in at mythsbaby.com/groups.

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• 2:07Liv Albert?

  Hi, hello and welcome. This is Let's Talk About Myths, baby. And I am your host, Liv, here with the first conversation episode of our Bronze Age and its Collapse series, and I am so excited. So I spoke with Dr. Kim Shelton, who is a professor at UC Berkeley, but also, but also the Director of the Nymia Center for Classical Archaeology, which is, it's all just so great. Oh, my God, Kim has worked on so many incredible sites in ancient Greece, but the main one being Mycenae. We had such an incredible conversation about Bronze Age

• 2:50Liv Albert?

  Mycenae and just everything in between. So many of the pieces that are going to be expanded upon from the, the episode that I released on Tuesday. So many questions answered, so many additional details and like just littlest things that you just, you do not get without just straight up speaking to somebody who has actively worked. I'm pretty sure she said at one point that, that she'd lived there, working at Mycenae for 12 years. Like, that is what we are at here, the level of Mycenae. I'm just so thrilled to have had her on the show. And also, it was just such a joyfully fun conversation. And I got to ask all of my little nerdy questions about the goddesses.

• 3:31Liv Albert?

  Oh, oh, we had fun. Just one more note, though, before we dive right in. Unfortunately, we did lose about like, five minutes of the beginning of our conversation due to some technical difficulties. We cover for it very well. I don't really think anyone misses out on anything. But, you know, you'll just notice at the very beginning, I kind of recap what exactly was going on at the conversation and then ask Dr. Shelton to dive right back in. Also, just because I noticed, when I was listening back, I had to record this conversation before I had been able to write the episode that came out on Tuesday. So I asked questions that I should have known the answer to and now do know the answers to. And I'm going to just explain that right now.

• 4:14Liv Albert?

  I promise. Other than sometimes having to record before I'm able to do a thing, I do know what I'm talking about.

• 4:22Liv Albert?

  Oh, you're gonna love this one so much. Bronze Age Mycenae. Not only Bronze Age, but Bronze Age where we can read the writing. And one thing that I was not expecting is just how much we do know about the religious aspects through that writing, through palace records. We know so much. I can't wait for y'all to hear it.

• 4:59Liv Albert?

  Conversations: Things They Found in the Tombs. Bronze Age Mycenae with Dr. Kim Shelton.

• 5:22Liv Albert?

  Okay, so I don't want to make you, you know, repeat the little bits that we lost, but you know, just to sort of a general kind of catch up for, for the listeners, because we unfortunately lost just a couple of minutes, thankfully. We're just talking about the pre-Palatial period and how it was just sort of a collection of elites kind of all vying for, for this, you know, kind of elite status and rulership before there was a Wanax. And I'm, I'm really interested in what you were talking about, about the burial sites.

• 5:51Speaker 04

  Right.

• 5:51Liv Albert?

  Because, yeah, you maybe, maybe a little, just reiterate some of that unfortunately, but I'm really curious in how they might connect to the wider Mediterranean, because it sounds a lot like, like what the Egyptians did, kind of thing.

• 6:02Speaker 04

  Yes, yes. So it seems as if the, um, in the whole mortuary sphere was an area of sort of peer competition and maybe even room for mobility, upward and downward mobility within the social classes. And many of the elites spent a tremendous amount of time on their burials. So well before they died. There were, there were large tombs that were being constructed that would take, you know, many, many years to construct. Um, and then there was this strong, um, tradition of multiple burials.

• 6:46Speaker 04

  That is a way to transfer power from one generation to the next. So you are, on the one hand, maybe you're vying for power, but you want to make sure that power lasts into the next generation. And one way you do that is by creating like a power structure among your family or your clan that by being buried with someone that was powerful before, that shows a kind of endorsement. And then also the display, the funeral, the gifts, the honors that are given to the dead by the living gives sort of is a transfer of power to those living individuals.

• 7:29Speaker 04

  So we think that's one reason that there's, you know, unlike the Egyptians, who luckily tell us in texts what they believed, um, that they had this, you know, what you take in your tomb, you need because you're going to need it in the afterlife.

• 7:45Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 7:46Speaker 04

  And there, we, you know, sometimes we assume that's the case with the Mycenaeans, but we, knowing from later Greek mythology and, and religion, we know that they had a very different sense of what the afterlife was like, and that may have already been the case. Um, in this, this early period, which suggests to us that the elaborate display of goods at the time of the funeral and that were then put into the burial with the dead, um, had more to do with the living than it had to do with the dead. That it showed their, their status, their ability to, to, you know, have more of this. We always call it conspicuous consumption. When you take all this valuable material and you bury it in the ground and you don't give it to the next generation.

• 8:30Speaker 04

  So they're they're transferring status, but the message is, I have this wealth. I don't, I don't need to keep it for myself. I can, I can emphasize the power and wealth of my father, ancestor, whatever. Um, by actually giving all these things as part of a, a display that all of you folks see. Um, that I'm doing this and that means all of that is transferred on to me. At the same time that I have enough, I don't need that. I have enough to keep going and, and be even better. So it's this really weird thing. It's hard for us, I think, to conceive of that the arena of death and burial

• 9:12Speaker 04

  can be so important to social hierarchy and the succession of power and status. But it really seems to be hugely important. And that's one reason they expended so much energy and labor and resources on their tombs, first of all, but then also on their funerals and their burials. And for generations, they came back to these tombs. They would move around the dead. They would do all kinds of different interesting traditions with the, those that are already dead. And then new burials would go into that same location. So this emphasis on multi-generational tombs translates into that, that, um,

• 9:57Speaker 04

  sort of, uh, handing down, handing on power and status through the dead to back to the living.

• 10:05Liv Albert?

  That is, that is so interesting. Now are these, are these like the beehive tombs that we know of from the region? Or do those come later?

• 10:12Speaker 04

  No, that, those are exactly the beehive tombs. Now, when you were there, you probably saw a couple of them, but you may not have seen the earliest because at Micini, we have nine of them. And six of them belong to the pre-Palatial period.

• 10:27Liv Albert?

  Oh, wow.

• 10:29Speaker 04

  And, and honestly, I would say the, the last group of three, the first two of those three were probably built. One right before the repalaces maybe was started to be built, the other one was right at the start. So even the the last, the the ones that were built eh later are still quite early in the whole sequence of things. Because then they keep being used. And so we think we have as many as six or seven um families, very high elite families that have the resources to build these beehive tombs out of these giant stones. And you know, an architectural and engineering miracle that they are, that they could, you know.

• 11:09Liv Albert?

  Incredible, yeah.

• 11:11Speaker 04

  With the beehive shape and the corbel vaulting and the fact that that several of them survived till today, you know, that that kind of thing. But beyond that, we also have what we often refer to as the middle class tombs, but it's it's actually a wider range than that. What we call chamber tombs. And the main difference is they are carved out of the bedrock and not lined with masonry, the way the beehive tombs are. And they can be in all different shapes. They can be circular, oval, square, rectangular. Um, there are a number of them from around the time that beehive tombs are what we call the foloi, the folos tombs, when they were built, that are circular. So they're they're imitating in some ways the shape of these ones, these very, very high elite ones.

• 11:56Speaker 04

  And many of them, not only at Mycenae, but in other sites around in the area that we think was under Mycenae's control, have some spectacular chamber tombs. They are huge. You could drive a bus into them. They're just really, really big. And and many of them unfortunately, of course, have been looted, like the folos tombs. Um, but we have some that were excavated um early in the in the late nineteenth century that have material we think equal to what may well have been in some of the folos tombs.

• 12:28Liv Albert?

  Wow.

• 12:29Speaker 04

  So it's like maybe the next tier, or maybe it's a choice um to do one type rather than than another. And we see that.

• 12:40Speaker 04

  You know, over time, more and more tombs are built. And by the time you get to the palatial period, you'll have in one group of tombs, because they they exist in in all of these different cemeteries. You'll have ones that are big, giant, early ones, and then you'll have sort of regular sized later ones. And you'll have some that are used over five hundred years, and some that are newly used after the palatial period starts. So it's a whole mishmash of what we think probably a whole clan would have been like over all of these many generations. And they keep returning back to the same tombs. And if not the same cemetery, they build new tombs in the same cemetery.

• 13:19Liv Albert?

  Wow. They're just so big. Like, I'm just so, I mean, when I stepped in one of those Tholos tombs, like, I nearly lost my mind. Like, I have not been that excited in many other places, like, and the sound in them.

• 13:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:31Liv Albert?

  The acoustics, oh, my God, I dream about it. But I'm just so, I'm impressed that they are early. Um, and like, what kind of time period, like?

• 13:40Speaker 04

  Like, what, what, like, in round, like, in round numbers, round, round, number, so what are we talking about? Um, for the early Mycenaean period, it probably starts as early as seventeen hundred, sixteen hundred BCE.

• 13:54Liv Albert?

  Okay.

• 13:55Speaker 04

  And then the palaces start sometime after fourteen hundred BCE. So we have two hundred and fifty, three hundred years.

• 14:03Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 14:03Speaker 04

  That which they're going from already, they're in the country, they're what we call the Middle Hellenic period or the Middle Bronze Age. And then they begin to develop this more social structure, more hierarchy, and that goes over these generations. The the Beehive Tombs themselves, the first six, we think, date to between fifteen hundred and fourteen hundred BCE. And then the last three date somewhere between.

• 14:32Speaker 04

  Probably fourteen hundred and maybe twelve fifty.

• 14:35Liv Albert?

  Right.

• 14:36Speaker 04

  Somewhere in that, in that range.

• 14:37Liv Albert?

  Pretty soon before the, like.

• 14:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, they start right at the, the start of the palace period and then there's one that seems to be kind of the last one that's constructed was probably very much in the height of the palace. Like during that, during that period. Yeah.

• 14:51Liv Albert?

  Oh, it's so interesting, especially now that I have, you know, spoken with people about the collapse itself. Just time period wise and like imagining, you know, the, the last one being, you know, like, less than a century, I gather, like, kind of or before the sort of end in whatever way that they did end.

• 15:08Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 15:08Liv Albert?

  You know, during the Bronze Age collapse. So it's, it's interesting to, I just started imagining the idea that like, you know, things went so badly that they weren't able to continue using the tombs even for those who died, you know, around, right around the collapse. It was like they weren't going to be able to prioritize, you know, doing the big show when, with what was happening.

• 15:26Speaker 04

  And we think that, we think that potentially the reason why we have fewer later of the, of the, the ones, the Tholos ones with the masonry is that people didn't have the access to the labor or to the resources to expend on that. They were, their focus was elsewhere.

• 15:45Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 15:46Speaker 04

  And it was, there were a lot of things going on in that, in that thirteenth century that suggests to us that all through that century, there were, things were starting, you know, the collapse doesn't happen for another hundred and hundred fifty years, depending where you are, but the palace itself is struggling. And then it's not gonna, it's not gonna make it into the next century as a, as a political structure that things are gonna change so radically after that. But it's clear that the mortuary sphere, once, once power is really consolidated into one group, they don't need that same kind of competitive display.

• 16:21Liv Albert?

  Right.

• 16:22Speaker 04

  That was so important for hundreds of years before then.

• 16:26Liv Albert?

  Oh, it's just, I love this so much. Um, so I'm really interested in how, because I, you know, I'm, I'm really familiar with the, the statuary and stuff that comes out of like the Minoan period or like, you know, the Minoans are earlier than this and the Socratic people and everything. And, you know, basically I want to talk about all the goddess figurines that they have, which I don't know if we, so like, did, did the Mycenaeans have a kind of equivalent? Do we know much about like the sort of more religious aspects like we do of the Socratic and Minoans?

• 16:58Speaker 04

  We do. It develops in the early palatial period. It seems to be developing as a combination of long-established belief systems. And apparently, the pantheon of gods that we know later came with them to Greece. But they must not have done much iconographically. They didn't think, whether they didn't think of their gods as humans, or they didn't, or in a human form, or they didn't feel like they needed to show them that way. So when they come into contact, and very strong and sustained contact, with the Minoans, they begin to adopt their iconography that they use.

• 17:43Speaker 04

  And a lot of it is even through small finds, gold rings, ivory statuaries, some small-scale stuff primarily, seal stones, that for the most part were likely produced by Minoan artists anyway. They may, many of them were probably produced for Mycenaean consumers, but by, initially by Minoan artists. So they produced the same kind of iconography that they did before. What we see happen during the palatial period is a, let's say, a mobilization of religious rituals

• 18:25Speaker 04

  to once again, kind of keep power and to distribute their status, the love light of their status to the more general population. It was a, it was a way, and of course, this is true throughout time in history, that religion can be used as a tool to control the masses, right? So, I know, shocking, shocking. Today on Easter? I know, I know, it's terrible. Good Friday and all that.

• 18:58Speaker 04

  It's interesting that... You know, we know from later on, later on being 1200, right? The, the documents in Linear B that we have surviving from, from Pilos in 1200. We know that there was a Zeus and there was a Poseidon and we know all these ma- male gods, right? We still don't really have any images of anyone on the mainland that we can point to say, ah, there's a god. We don't, we, it's still predominantly the female deities. But, but there are huge plethora of them in the documents as well. So it's not like they brought them in from somewhere else. No, they have plenty. They just kind of said, oh, look, these people put them in pictures. We can do that, we can show, show some of these pictures.

• 19:40Speaker 04

  But it's right very at the start of the palatial period when it looks like the idea of a palace was actually transported to the mainland from Crete.

• 19:51Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 19:52Speaker 04

  And they're like, you know, we could have one of these large centralized architectural features. Um, doesn't look like it does on Crete, but that's okay, because we have our own preferences in architecture. Um, that they develop, um, one object that is for consumption and libation. So they develop a, a standard drinking vessel that's very simple, very easy to make. Actually, they don't, they make thousands, tens of thousands of them, not very well, but it's fine. And we see them suddenly start to be used in all kinds of ritual activities. In life and death and the houses and, you know, all over. Um, and then at the same time, we have the development of terracotta figurines. And you may have seen some of these before.

• 20:37Speaker 04

  There are, there are a, a whole bunch of types, but there are two general categories. One of them is a female, predominantly female figurines. And the other predominantly bovine figurines. So maybe bulls, they have horns, but they don't have genitalia. So, you know, we have to say, well, we don't know, because cows can have horns. But I, I suspect they're probably meant to be viewed as the male animal. So the female human, the male animal, very likely representing fertility among humans and animals. Um.

• 21:10Liv Albert?

  Sounds like Crete, too.

• 21:12Speaker 04

  Strength, yeah, absolutely.

• 21:14Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 21:14Speaker 04

  But these are things that the Minoans who had terracotta figurines.

• 21:18Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 21:18Speaker 04

  Who exclusively, really, in sanctuary sites. These are very different in the way they're made, the way they're decorated, and the fact that we find them everywhere. I would say the modern equivalent, although my students don't seem to know what this is, so they must not be doing it anymore. But my modern equivalent was always a rabbit's foot.

• 21:35Liv Albert?

  Oh, yeah.

• 21:36Speaker 04

  The kind of thing that people would have on their keychain and you'd carry it around with you.

• 21:39Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 21:39Speaker 04

  And it meant luck. It meant that it was some kind of talisman.

• 21:43Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 21:44Speaker 04

  And it may be that these figurines are good luck. Good luck in your family, good luck for your children, good luck for your fertility, good luck for your, for your crops and your animals and everything that you needed to survive. And we do find them in some religious contexts. But again, and they very likely mean there's something symbolic there. But we find them all over houses and all over trash pits. When they got broken, they weren't kept or repaired, they were thrown away. So they just become ubiquitous. They're kind of everywhere. And again, between these two objects, they seem to have a kind of standardized ritual practice that everyone can participate in.

• 22:25Speaker 04

  But they're probably being made in large scale at places like the palaces for distribution. To enfranchise people in the religion, to sort of bring them in and have them participate in at least a symbolic way with the stuff that the, the upper echelon are doing.

• 22:43Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 22:44Speaker 04

  And that's a way to curry favor. And we know also from the Linear B tablets that the palace would help supply important religious festivals. That they would provide beef, you know, large, on, on the hoof beef for sacrifice. And then for the feast itself, they would, um, they would give wine and oil and, and metal vessels and, you know, these sort of splashy, showy things that they could send to the site of a festival. Even if the, you know, we don't know people-wise who was there. But they're showing a village full of their subjects, as it were, the people they rely on to pay their taxes and

• 23:24Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 23:24Speaker 04

  provide food and all those kinds of things, providing them a sort of symbolic status. By here's the, here's the, the palace making this happen. Our food's better, our wine's better, we have enough for all these people. And here they're gonna give us this really crappy cup. No, no offense Starbucks for your not crappy cup. But that, um, you know, this, if, if some of them are even kind of have holes in them, like they probably didn't even work right. But the fact that you were given one and you probably made a toast and you probably drank and you probably poured out the liquid for, some of the liquid for the gods. And you probably took it home with you.

• 24:00Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 24:01Speaker 04

  That was just this really powerful, successful way that for more than about two hundred years. The palace kept people engaged in what was going on. And I think they felt beho- beholden then to turn around and say, oh yeah, I will pay my taxes. I will send, you know, fifteen percent of my wool that I produce on my farm to the palace.

• 24:26Speaker 04

  And what do I get back for it? Well, I get protection if needed. I get to participate in this fun religious stuff. I get some good meat, some good wine. You know, so it was a, it was obviously a barter economy anyway. Um, but it was a, it was an interesting way to use, a- again, standard across time and space. To use religion in a way to create, to keep a kind of standard culture.

• 24:50Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 24:51Speaker 04

  And keep people, um, in line at the same time to make them feel like they're worthwhile. And, you know, whether they were or not, that's another question. But it, it fostered that feeling that you belonged to this kingdom and to this culture. And, and so therefore, I mean theoretically, if then the Wannox turn around and said, okay, I need all of you to be in an army and go, you know, possibly die.

• 25:18Speaker 04

  You were prepared, more prepared to do that because of this, you know, all your life generational, um, relationship. That was fostered with the central place and the central authority.

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• 27:38Liv Albert?

  Oh, so many questions based on all of that. Also, you're like guiding me through the questions I already had, like all on your own. So that's ideal.

• 27:45Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 27:46Liv Albert?

  I can, you're going through my list. It's perfect. But I'm so curious a little bit more about the religion, unsurprisingly, because, you know, I think a lot about the mythology. I think a lot generally about, I mean, lately, because it's March, and I've been doing a lot of episodes on, on ancient women. I think a lot about, you know, the, the kind of evidence we have that might suggest that women used to be more worshipped than they were, you know, in the later period, more important than, than they were later. Do we have a lot of, of that from Mycenae? Do we have any evidence that, that the, that they did have any kind of like, you know, just higher worship of like a mother goddess than say the people of archaic and classical?

• 28:26Speaker 04

  Um, well, they have, you know, this interesting group of goddesses that go under this general term Potnia. And Potnia seems to be, like, if we took, if we took what we think was the, the pre-Greek mother goddess, right, who becomes Gaia, but she's basically the pre, she's pre-Greek, she's already in the Aegean when they get there.

• 28:50Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 28:51Speaker 04

  Um, and the Minoans seem to be, that seems to be, versions of her, anyway, seem to be their primary interest. It seems as if they fragmented her up in a way, so that she, all of her different things that she did, and ends up in different people, which is how we end up with Demeter, and Hera, and Artemis, and Aphrodite, and Athena, right? That's how we end up with these goddesses, who in fact, almost all exist already in the Bronze Age, is that they represent all of these different aspects of life and fertility and animal life and the earth and nature, all of these things. But instead of being in one goddess, who might be over-powerful, right? You divide them up into individual

• 29:32Speaker 04

  ones. And then, so the Mycenaeans seem to have, they had all of these goddesses that we know from later.

• 29:41Speaker 04

  Um, but they also have this group of potniyas. And the best way to translate that is how you might think of it is as our lady of. So our lady of the animals, our lady of the freshwater, our lady of the special grains. Our la- and they have, and we see them as potnia and then they usually get a qualifier, an adjective that tells you what they are the lady of. And so there were those either get merged with our Olympian goddesses or they just sort of die out altogether. They feel like they're redundant, maybe. Um, I feel like probably merging is more likely the case. Um, since we know that later from the Iron Age, we have a lot of merging of local gods and

• 30:23Speaker 04

  sort of Panhellenic gods. Anyway, so it feels like this is where the potniyas went. But it's amazing that we have so many in the tablets that point to, I, you know, like, like the, the potnia of the wheat, like the wheat potnia or the grain potnia. That's great. I mean, later on she's Demeter, but there's al- already a Demeter too. So they must come together. They must merge together. And some of them may be local and went back way, way far. Um, and they just kept, you know, being worshipped over time. At Mycenae, what's, it's specifically what's super interesting is that we have a cult center. We have a, an area of the fortified citadel. Later it becomes in the walls. It exists before the walls though.

• 31:05Speaker 04

  And it's a group of five buildings that each one have some kind of cult function.

• 31:12Speaker 04

  And in all of them, where we do have some iconography to indicate who might be the deity, or rather deities that existed in this, for lack of a better term, a sanctuary with multiple deities. They are all female. And the bulk of them, not all of them, but the bulk of them are connected with weaponry and other kinds of military paraphernalia.

• 31:43Liv Albert?

  Huh.

• 31:44Speaker 04

  So, we have a goddess wearing a helmet, a Borstusk helmet. We have a goddess with a long sword, which is also a late, a late painting, but an early kind of sword. So, again, probably sort of heirloom-y in the way that iconography is used. Um, we have another one with, possibly with a spear, you know, so it's all of this female, oh, oh, and one that has the body of a shield, who might be Athena. I mean, a lot of these, we think, might be sort of early versions of Athena.

• 32:14Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 32:15Speaker 04

  And the shield, it's like, is it, is it her body, or is she standing behind the shield? Like, it's hard to tell. You have a figure of a shield.

• 32:23Liv Albert?

  Right, yeah. I was like, it's the...

• 32:25Speaker 04

  And there's like, and there's like, white arms and a, and a white head. And this was on a, was on a little plaque, a, a plaster, painted plaque, that's about Yo Big, so it's kind of like an icon, it's something that's movable and could be probably taken out in certain rituals, then brought back into the inside of the more holy of holies of the, of the sanctuary building.

• 32:47Liv Albert?

  Yeah. I mean, I have so many, like, theories that live in my mind about the, you know, the way that a big mother goddess eventually did become, like, slowly more and more subjugated into, to the Olympians that I know.

• 33:02Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 33:03Liv Albert?

  And I just, that's so interesting to hear.

• 33:04Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 33:05Liv Albert?

  Yeah, the, the way that they were so broadly worshipped, and...

• 33:09Speaker 04

  And I don't, and I don't know why they never really came around to the idea that they could picture their male gods when they clearly had them.

• 33:18Liv Albert?

  Mm-hmm.

• 33:19Speaker 04

  But why would that not have been important to illustrate in your wall paintings, on your decorated weapons, on your, you know, whatever? So, we do think there may be, in some of the iconography, some of the scenes in wall painting, and in seal stones and some other things, where we think we see men fighting.

• 33:44Speaker 04

  That may be a story, that may be a myth of Bronze Age era heroes or demigods or, you know, even gods, and we just don't, we don't know the story. So to us, we just say, well, here's a bunch of guys fighting with each other. I, is not the way that they usually do it. But, you know, I, I suspect, whereas the, the women are less likely to be shown in a narrative, because, I mean, that's true in the Iron Age as well, that's true all the way through Homer, right? The women are, are these like, you know, important characters that help move the story along, but they're usually not in the main action, the way the stories are about, about the men.

• 34:26Speaker 04

  So for whatever reason, I, I think we may have more than we realize we have, but there's no way to prove it.

• 34:33Liv Albert?

  Yeah, yeah, of course. I mean, that's the interesting and infuriating part of working with stuff, you know, this old. Uh, but it, it makes me think of how I like to conceptualize Hestia, which is that like, cause she just is in no stories, like, you know, compared to the others, it's like, like she might as well not be there. And I think of it as like, you know, she was so important to regular daily life, like real life, that she just, it didn't matter that she didn't end up in the stories because everyone in their daily lives was so aware of her.

• 35:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 35:05Liv Albert?

  That it, yeah, she didn't need to be there, but then to us, she feels like this missing figure.

• 35:10Speaker 04

  Right.

• 35:10Liv Albert?

  In a way that she, yeah, she was distinctly not back then. So it, it kind of reminds me of that, this idea that they, maybe they're not in narratives because they're too busy being, you know, the thing that everyone thinks of all the time.

• 35:20Speaker 04

  Right. And I think Hestia may be very important in the Bronze Age, not necessarily is the named goddess that we know of later. I mean, she may have been a named goddess, but she didn't show up even then in the, in the nomenclature in the same way. But of course, her name literally means the heart, the center of domesticity. And

• 35:44Speaker 04

  Not only in the center of every living space, but even in the palace, and even in these religious buildings in the, in Mycenae's cult center, have a hearth in the center of them.

• 35:55Liv Albert?

  Hmm.

• 35:56Speaker 04

  Which, which is not something that we have later on. That's something we lose in the Iron Age that in Crete it keeps going, that those, there's all the way into the archaic period, there are temples that have a hearth, right in the center of the building, but we lose that on the mainland, but, but in the Bronze Age, we definitely do. So the center of, of life, probably symbolically in the center of the throne room of the palace, we have this giant hearth. And then we do in all of these buildings, we have different kinds. Some are open fire. A lot of them are not open fire, but are probably for different kinds of offerings, but still considered the center, right? The hearth, the place of, of worship, the place of dedication.

• 36:39Speaker 04

  So I think she's there and really important and everything is kind of centered around her. And of course, the house is always the place where we look for the women in the Bronze Age. And that's, you know, when you're looking, when you're looking, sometimes you can find them, but they don't always leave as much of a footprint um as we, as we would like. But some of that is also scholarly bias. So we're trying to improve on that all the time.

• 37:06Liv Albert?

  Yeah, yeah. I, I mean, I'm not in that side of it, but that's the entire purpose of my show. Let's talk about the women who tended to be forgotten or misrepresented. But yeah, that's so interesting. Um, I mean, it sounds like Hestia, you know, later, right? Where she just, yeah, she's just there, but we don't hear much about her.

• 37:26Speaker 04

  Right.

• 37:27Liv Albert?

  Her fire is just always burning and everyone knew that.

• 37:29Speaker 04

  Right. Being foundational means you not always, you don't always get to be flashy and have terrible stories told about you. Maybe that's a blessing.

• 37:38Liv Albert?

  I mean, it feels like. And maybe I'm just so deep in my Women's History Month episodes as well, but like, it just feels also just sort of as the way that women are so commonly represented even today, right? This idea that like, the role, and I mean, this is not an idea that I personally love, as somebody who will never be a mother, but like, this idea that a woman is a mother and she, you know, is in the home and therefore like, leaves less of a mark. Like, obviously, that's changing now, but I mean, 50 years ago, it's very accurate, right?

• 38:10Speaker 04

  Right.

• 38:11Liv Albert?

  This idea, yeah, that, that, that women don't leave a mark because their mark really is like, the children and the home, but it's like, you know, it's more that they are the nurturers versus being, you know, yeah, something that sort of is remembered in the same way.

• 38:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, and, and you know, I would add to that, and I would say that,

• 38:30Speaker 04

  it's also, again, the difficulty of preservation. So, if you are working predominantly with organic materials and ephemeral foods, textiles, you know, all of that.

• 38:44Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 38:44Speaker 04

  You, you are not going to leave the mark that, that survives for us in the same way as weapons do.

• 38:52Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 38:53Speaker 04

  So, and that's, you know, that's our fault for, for prioritizing something. And also, though, having the assumption that all tools mean that it's a man, which is ridiculous.

• 39:03Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 39:04Speaker 04

  I mean, we have to, to realize that women are using all kinds of tools, and that we find them all the time, including in burial contexts, and we can't assume that those are, are male identifying objects.

• 39:15Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 39:15Speaker 04

  Because they're not. Even the weapons, even the weapons, in fact, are not always male identifying, but, but they are, in the Bronze Age, they do tend to be more skewed that way, when you're talking about large-scale swords, daggers, you know. When we get down to the knives and the stilettos, and the, the butchering knives, and all those types of things, all bets are off. Could be, could be male or female, because those are, those are really tools, rather than weapons. And women are using them in all kinds of contexts.

• 39:48Liv Albert?

  Yeah. Well, and I think to clarify my point, because I think that's what I, that's more of what I mean. You're just saying it better.

• 39:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 39:53Liv Albert?

  Like just this idea that, yeah, like the, the stuff that women touch either, yeah, doesn't get attributed to them because of bias of past, you know, interpretations, or, you know, or the stuff that they do just doesn't last. And so we get this idea that, yeah, that they were, didn't leave a mark. But what it was is yet, yeah, like you're saying, their mark was in organic material, both in terms of, yeah, the, the stuff that they created, the physical items, but even also in the people that they created, right?

• 40:19Speaker 04

  Correct. Yeah.

• 40:19Liv Albert?

  Like, yeah, everything that women worked to create traditionally just doesn't last. And so we get this skewed idea. It's just, yeah, it's, it's very interesting. Meanwhile, of course, what they were creating was invaluable, like the most important stuff to every civilization, every culture.

• 40:36Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 40:38Liv Albert?

  Oh, it's so interesting.

• 40:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 40:40Liv Albert?

  Now, one thing that, that came up earlier when we were talking about, when you were talking about the Linear B tablets and things like that that we have. I'm really curious about the god, the god and goddess names that we know that, that they do appear in Linear B. And, you know, I know they're in different forms, obviously, I mean, but who do we know, you know, was existing as, as a god and goddess, like during that time, like from the, you know, the, the later, like the Olympians, I suppose.

• 41:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, we, we really have the whole pantheon.

• 41:09Liv Albert?

  Do we? Okay.

• 41:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, some of them do have slightly different names, but we know that those names are associated with them later on. Um, and include, I mean, Athena is Atana in the Linear B tablet. So we, we definitely even have, have her name. Um, Apollo has, he's usually like Pallas and, or, you know, he has a slightly different name. And we know Ares from Naluyan is this weird early name. And we actually have a Um, a sanctuary to him that dates to the archaic period at Mycenae in, in a different part of the site, but, but there, that he remains being called that Linear B name, even there. But we know it's Ares and you can see the stuff, everyone gives him shields and swords

• 41:54Speaker 04

  and helmets and stuff is his votive, votive gift. So there's no, you know, and there's things that say Ares, but all over it, the votus are inscribed with the Linear B name. So that's, that's kind of cool, that kind of continuity that survives.

• 42:07Liv Albert?

  So like, are they writing in Linear B or is it like transliterated?

• 42:10Speaker 04

  No, no, it's just, it's written in the Greek alphabet. But it's the, it's the name that we know from Linear B tablets. And then one of my favorite things is that, um, in addition to, let's say Hera, we have a Hera, um, we also have who I call a Lady Zeus. We also have a Lady Poseidon. And what I mean by that is that we have the feminine version of their names as additional deity.

• 42:39Liv Albert?

  Really?

• 42:40Speaker 04

  So there's a, a man Zeus and a lady Zeus and a man Poseidon and a lady Poseidon.

• 42:46Liv Albert?

  Huh.

• 42:47Speaker 04

  So I don't know, they definitely do not survive the Bronze Age in any way that we know of. We can't really connect them at all. But it's interesting that you have the Deos and the Dewia and the Posidonas and Posidonia. So you, it's literally the feminine, they've changed the name into a feminine version of the name.

• 43:09Liv Albert?

  That's so interesting. That makes me so happy.

• 43:12Speaker 04

  Yeah. And of course, we only know them from the, from the tablets. If we didn't have those tablets surviving, we wouldn't know that they had existed at all.

• 43:20Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 43:21Speaker 04

  Um, and again, that trajectory, like what, you know, what happens to them? Are they just considered irrelevant? Do they, you know, subsume to one of the other goddesses? It's, it's not clear, but it's very interesting that earlier there were more, there were more deities, there were more female deities than we, we have later on.

• 43:37Liv Albert?

  Those particular gods too, having, having feminine versions feels very, very interesting. And, and this is very much my, you know. Feminist mythology obsessed like theorizing, but it it feels to me like like those two gods so specifically represent almost a like like a visualize like and you can see the the intent to make women less powerful in those two gods more than in any others.

• 44:08Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 44:09Liv Albert?

  Like they are the ones perpetually, you know, subjugating women like, I mean assaulting them, all these different things that are, you know, storytelling, sure, but are so intentionally meant to make clear that men are more powerful than women and that women need to do what men want.

• 44:27Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 44:28Liv Albert?

  So having them as as female forms is it's sad to have lost them. But also, yeah, like I you can like really see kind of what's what's going on.

• 44:37Speaker 04

  Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And how important that um sort of the early Iron Age period must have been for the changes in all of these stories. And some of that is because we have less social stratification. And we have a bit of a nostalgia, it feels like, back towards the palatial period. But yet lots of places are able to blossom in ways that they wouldn't have been able to if they were still under the palatial control.

• 45:11Liv Albert?

  Mm hmm. Yeah, yeah.

• 45:13Speaker 04

  And a byproduct of that seems to be how the religion starts to change.

• 45:17Liv Albert?

  Yeah. Linear B is just so interesting. I mean, I I I love that we have so many so many gods. Oh, actually, I'm curious about Aphrodite. Because of course she has like such distinct eastern origins compared

• 45:33Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 45:33Liv Albert?

  to the other gods. You know, she's coming from Cyprus and probably from the Phoenicians. So do we have any kind of evidence of that in whatever form she takes in in Mycenae?

• 45:43Speaker 04

  I know, I'm trying to think, I feel like we think we have her, but, but with a different name.

• 45:48Liv Albert?

  Okay.

• 45:48Speaker 04

  But she's not as prevalent.

• 45:50Liv Albert?

  Right, because she was gonna come later.

• 45:52Speaker 04

  But I think that she is very much made up of many of the Potenias that we have. That many of those will end up being the essence that is Aphrodite.

• 46:03Liv Albert?

  Right.

• 46:04Speaker 04

  And I, it is interesting, I mean, a lot of the gods that were later on are assumed to be of eastern origin, including Dionysus and Apollo. In fact, we have in the Bronze Age. So I think we probably had more of Aphrodite, and I think we have more evidence for someone like her on Crete, actually, than we do from the tablets at Pelos.

• 46:25Liv Albert?

  Right, I mean, that makes sense, yeah.

• 46:26Speaker 04

  Which would also make sense, yeah.

• 46:27Liv Albert?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 46:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:28Liv Albert?

  Well, and it would make sense if, if these gods like, like her and, and Dionysus, because I was gonna ask about him as well.

• 46:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:34Liv Albert?

  Um, you know, have these origins in the Bronze Age and then also are gonna be subsumed with this idea coming from the east and just become the gods that we know of, you know, from the later periods, it's kind of combining.

• 46:47Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 46:47Liv Albert?

  But that's, yeah, that's really interesting. Um, yeah, Dionysus does appear as well, so it really is, like, and Hades, I imagine, he's like the one we haven't mentioned, but...

• 46:57Speaker 04

  Um, we don't really, but then that would be weird too, because usually you don't mention him.

• 47:05Liv Albert?

  Right.

• 47:05Speaker 04

  Like even in later traditions, and you don't say his name, you know, he's the, the one who shall not be named. Um, and so the fact that he would be missing doesn't surprise me because there aren't sanctuaries to him either. And where we get the names in the tablets is because the palace is provisioning sanctuaries, giving things to particular sanctuaries. So we either have mention of those gods, or they don't make it into the cut, if it's not one of the things that, that they're provisioning.

• 47:36Liv Albert?

  Yeah, that makes sense, yes, it's all palace records, they're not gonna be like, well, we're sending this stuff to, to Hades. Yeah, yeah, that's, yeah. So, you know, they, they're obviously having all these contacts with, with the Minoans and everything, um, you know...

• 47:52Liv Albert?

  The Minoans are worse quite a bit earlier than the Mycenaeans in terms of, yeah, their whole structure. So do we kinda, do we get a sense that, that Mycenae was inspired a lot? I guess you did mention already that they, you know, the, the palatial structures were inspired by them. Um, but the, this is, I should have looked this up before I say this aloud, but, but the Mycenaeans end up taking over the Minoans, right? Or do they, do they, what do they do?

• 48:17Speaker 04

  Well, it's debatable. It's debatable. Um, what we can say for certain is that during the sort of last couple of generations of the palace of Knossos on Crete, and when, in which it was, existed and many of the other palaces did not, um, there were people writing in Linear B.

• 48:38Liv Albert?

  Right, right.

• 48:40Speaker 04

  So the administration in that palace were speaking and writing Greek. And we see spread out through the island, mostly through mortuary stuff, mostly through the introduction of certain kinds of tombs and certain practices, that there may have been some desire to emulate things that we, we see earlier on the mainland. So there's a, you know, and there's a bit of a material culture, whereas, um, you know, 1500 to 1400, Minoan material culture is influencing and inspiring what's being made on the mainland.

• 49:20Speaker 04

  And then from 1400 to 1300, we have a flip and we start to see quite a bit of, you know, mainland-inspired things than inspiring material culture on Crete, which suggests there's a stronger emphasis on feasting and group dining and, um, sharing especially of drinks. And the, so the cups are different with multiple handles for passing and larger capacity and, um, you know, there's little things like that. Even some of the iconography starts to change a little bit.

• 49:54Speaker 04

  Um, but there's no evidence that the people just like that they destroy the island and take it over.

• 50:00Liv Albert?

  Right.

• 50:01Speaker 04

  It's not, it's not that. It's, I would say the markets, the, the economy on Crete is probably very reliant on the Mycenaeans.

• 50:14Liv Albert?

  Right.

• 50:14Speaker 04

  Once they, you know, in the 14th century, once they start really taking over the trade routes, which we can see in Egypt, which we can see in the Eastern Mediterranean, that there's this change of what seemed to be predominantly Minoans showing up with their wares to predominantly Mycenaeans showing up with their wares. And um, so that, that seems to be where we might say the Mycenaeans took over, they took over the, the sort of economic routes and the economic successes, which likely tied into the bureaucracy of the administration at the Palace of Knossos. But I think your general rank and file still were very much how they had always been.

• 50:57Speaker 04

  And we still see that in most of the settlements and the sanctuaries and their particular preferences for things that have always been the preferences on Crete. That very much stays the same. So that when in the Iron Age, once the palaces, the mainland palaces are destroyed, Crete always is a little different from everywhere else.

• 51:17Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 51:18Speaker 04

  And there are things that you can point to in the early Iron Age and say, that is so Minoan.

• 51:24Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 51:25Speaker 04

  And that includes the material culture and it includes the goddess worshiping and it includes all kinds of interesting things.

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• 53:40Speaker 04

  And you know, you were, you're interested in the, this battle between the patriarchy and the, and the mother, and Mother Earth, right? It's so fascinating that where that survives in Greek myth, like the fact that Zeus is hidden and then reborn on Crete.

• 53:59Liv Albert?

  Oh, yeah.

• 54:00Speaker 04

  Right? From a cave, which is literally, according to the Minoans, the womb of the goddess.

• 54:06Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 54:07Speaker 04

  Right? Every time you have a god like Apollo taking over the sanctuary at Delphi, he has to fight the python or the mother goddess, right? Because that's her spot. And so we literally have that just baked into all of these, these traditions. And we know that this was probably, probably going on all around.

• 54:27Liv Albert?

  Yeah, yeah. Oh, I talked about it all the different.

• 54:30Speaker 04

  And Crete's such a fascinating place to watch that, to watch that happen. And how actually the goddesses remain being so significant to the point where...

• 54:41Speaker 04

  They kind of have to almost legislate to make sure that the male gods are the predominant, the predominant gods. Because traditionally, for hundreds and hundreds of years, that hadn't been the case on Crete.

• 54:54Liv Albert?

  Well, exactly. I mean, I think about it, the Zeus in the cave, I'd never thought about the cave imagery. That's wonderful. Thank you. It also ties in.

• 55:03Speaker 04

  You're welcome.

• 55:04Liv Albert?

  I, I mean, I love, I've been learning a lot of these things lately where like, you know, these things I've always associated with some kind of patriarchal structure alongside the goddesses, but hadn't quite conceptualized just how like visceral it is. Like I, I released an episode today where I spoke with somebody who pointed out that Charybdis is like, just like this hungry hole, is how we phrased it. And it's just like, the cave makes me think of that too, like all these.

• 55:30Speaker 04

  Yes, the hungry hole that sucks the men in.

• 55:32Liv Albert?

  Yes, right.

• 55:33Speaker 04

  And eats them alive. Yeah.

• 55:36Liv Albert?

  It's so good. I just, I love that.

• 55:38Speaker 04

  Afraid of, afraid of women's sexuality much?

• 55:41Liv Albert?

  For real. Like, I mean, I've always considered her as this like obvious notion of male fear, but I never had like really dug that deep. I love it.

• 55:51Speaker 04

  And when you pair that, of course, with Skila.

• 55:53Liv Albert?

  Yes.

• 55:53Speaker 04

  Who is a female dog, right?

• 55:55Liv Albert?

  Yep, she's a bitch.

• 55:56Speaker 04

  You have the bitch on the one side and the, and the, you know, sucking up hole on the other. Yeah, I know. It's crazy.

• 56:01Liv Albert?

  It's so good. No, and.

• 56:03Speaker 04

  This is why you love myth. This is why you love myth.

• 56:05Liv Albert?

  Absolutely. And then, you know, I, I've been doing this for seven years and still somebody can come and be like, well, you know, for all the Charybdis is male fear, she's really just a gaping hole. And I'm like, oh, my God. Oh, like, yeah, okay.

• 56:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 56:16Liv Albert?

  Um, but, but on Crete, you know, the, there's the cave. And then I think of too, the, you know, the whole Europa myth.

• 56:23Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 56:24Liv Albert?

  It's like, oh, well, no, but a man brought her there. Like, that's why Crete had all these goddesses to begin with, but they didn't start there. You know, Zeus had to bring her. And I think that's, yeah, such an interesting kind of like way of rewriting this mythological history that already existed. And then the people coming in, the men coming in rather like, want to emphasize, you know, they're, they're maintaining something that they know was already there, but they are also finding this way of, you know, making it about them.

• 56:54Speaker 04

  Yes, yes, but also the later Greeks too connecting with what they they must have heard about Crete. So whether that's whether that Zeus is the bull bringing Europa. Or it's the Minotaur, right, Pasiphae and Dados and the fake cow and the whole, you know, Cretan bull, marathon bull, and then obviously the Minotaur is the ultimate, you know, expression of that. Those, I mean, that has to be stories, some that, you know, at the seat of it are misunderstood stories coming out of the Minoan belief system.

• 57:32Liv Albert?

  Mm hmm. Yeah.

• 57:33Speaker 04

  That that's super strong connection.

• 57:36Liv Albert?

  I mean, I could, I could see it, you know, in in the museum in Heraklion where you're like, well, okay, there's women, paintings of women everywhere, goddess figurines everywhere, and then bulls everywhere. And so you can just, yeah, see where these later people who, you know, can't read Linear A, like we can't, and they're like, looking at these things and they're like, okay, like, put the two together and, and, you know, make it this story.

• 57:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 57:58Liv Albert?

  I mean, it's just, it's clearly so fascinating. I love this part of my job so much. Um, you you touched on the the interactions, you know, beyond the Minoans. So I'd love to hear more about the ways that that Mycenae did, you know, the Mycenaeans broadly, did interact with the wider Mediterranean.

• 58:17Speaker 04

  Sure. And and we know from quite early on that they were interacting, especially with the Eastern Mediterranean. And we see that really amplify in the historical, in the palatial period, where their economy is very much based on the import of raw materials that are coming from outside the Greek world. They're creating of crafts with these materials and then selling them back to those same cultures that supplied the raw materials in the first place. Ivory is a good example of that.

• 58:53Liv Albert?

  Right.

• 58:54Speaker 04

  Um, but then also the fact that they. You know, undeniably had the best wine and olive oil and the honestly, the best ceramic containers for them that were in production during that time, meant that there was this whole other sort of industry too, where they're selling their own resources and trading them with the Eastern Mediterranean. And then luckily for this, this pottery leaves its footprint everywhere. So we can find them in Egypt and we can find them in the Levine, we can find them in Asia Minor and also to the West, because they've then begin to expand also to the West into Italy and Sicily and Spain. And I think we even have some stuff as far as Portugal now.

• 59:35Liv Albert?

  Really, from the Bronze Age?

• 59:36Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah, Mycenae, Mycenae pottery.

• 59:39Liv Albert?

  Wow.

• 59:40Speaker 04

  Yeah. And the Mycenians themselves seem to have had some, probably not one on one, but probably chain trade going on with more Central Europe, because we have all this amber, it's Baltic amber, that ends up in Greece. And then it seems to come out of Greece and go to other parts of the Mediterranean as a trade item. But it looks like something that the Greeks are bringing from further north into the Greek peninsula and then are distributing from there.

• 1:00:11Liv Albert?

  Wow. Wow.

• 1:00:13Speaker 04

  So, you know, so yeah, gold, gold is coming from, from the, the Eastern Med, ivory's coming from the Eastern Med. A lot of this sort of precious stones are coming from there. But then we have silver that the Greeks have themselves, the amber that's coming from the north, maybe also copper to the West. Um, we know they were getting copper from Cyprus, but it looks like they were also getting some copper from, from um, Ebla and other places um, as well.

• 1:00:42Liv Albert?

  Wow. I, they didn't really work much with marble all the way back then then, did they?

• 1:00:48Speaker 04

  No, they didn't. They didn't. They weren't really mining um, the marble. They're, they were using limestone that they had and they were carving with and they were actually trying to make sculpture with it. But we think this is one of the reasons the Mycenians didn't really have large scale sculpture.

• 1:01:05Liv Albert?

  Right.

• 1:01:06Speaker 04

  Everything was, was relatively small, small scale. Um, the exception being the lion gate, which is made out of the local limestone.

• 1:01:14Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:16Liv Albert?

  Yeah, that's interesting. And it's, it's interesting just because like the, the palaces were so monumental, like the palaces were, were enormous and made of these enormous stones. But yeah, they weren't, you know, they weren't making art out of them in the same way that, that people would later.

• 1:01:32Speaker 04

  They would use some, some colored stones, um, were ending up as decorative elements. But they tend to be softer. So I think they worried about their stability, which is why they would use them as accents rather than, you know, rather than using the limestone or the conglomerate limestone for, for what, you know, was sturdy and holding up the buildings and the tombs and all of that. And those were locally familiar to, with them. We don't really have a huge amount of marble in the Peloponnese.

• 1:02:03Liv Albert?

  Right. That makes sense.

• 1:02:04Speaker 04

  You know, and so much of the later like marble sculpture and stuff actually comes from the islands.

• 1:02:09Liv Albert?

  Yeah, yeah. And so did they have a lot of, did they do much with the, the, the other islands? Was there a lot? I mean, I know obviously the Socratic cultures were going on. So yeah, were they, were they also interacting with them?

• 1:02:20Speaker 04

  Yes. And where the late, late Socratic cultures is very much entwined with the Mycenaean world. And in part because you can't sail anywhere without hitting an island. So if you're going to be doing any international exchange, you have to mobilize the islands and use them, um, to go through. And we see that reflected in the Socratic material culture.

• 1:02:40Liv Albert?

  Right. Yeah. Oh, I love the Socratic islands so much. And their art, their art was so different. Like, do, do we see the, the sharing of any of that art with the Mycenaean? Like, I just think of, you know, the, the big head kind of figurines.

• 1:02:53Speaker 04

  No, in part because that was so early.

• 1:02:56Liv Albert?

  Right.

• 1:02:57Speaker 04

  So the, all of those figurines were from the early Bronze Age.

• 1:03:00Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:00Speaker 04

  And we have a few that made it to the mainland, but it was well pre Greeks on the mainland. It was possibly even people from the Socrates that had, you know, settled in Attica, for instance, where we have some of the Socratic figurines.

• 1:03:16Liv Albert?

  I think it's so, it's just so easy to forget just how widespread this was, just like across the whole of the region. And I, I, I visited Samothraki a couple of years ago and learned that they found Linear A there. And I, like, that kind of thing, it's just, I just love it so much, this idea that like, they were really just traveling all over the place.

• 1:03:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:03:40Liv Albert?

  Yeah. It, it, it feels like such long distances, like so much water. Like, I'm just so impressed. I know, it's, yeah, it's, I feel like I should get used to it, but it's just, it's so interesting.

• 1:03:54Speaker 04

  It is.

• 1:03:55Liv Albert?

  Yeah. So, I mean, I would be, you know, missing out on a major thing if I didn't ask about what we know about their interactions with like the Hittites and the whole, the Troy of it all.

• 1:04:04Speaker 04

  Mm hmm. Well, we definitely know that they were interacting with the Hittites, both because of the Hittite documents that seem to record the Akhenites that we think are the Mycenae and Greeks, but also through some technology that they shared. For instance, there's a colleague of mine, Nick Blackwell, has done a lot of research on the kinds of tools that they use to carve the lion gate and to carve other things. They use this pendulum saw that was, that was a Hittite tool. And, and whether these were Hittite artists, or they were, you know, sculptors who were trained in the Hittite way of doing it, that's really strong evidence that they were an introduction. You know, they were in some exchange with them, whereas

• 1:04:47Speaker 04

  we kind of knew it already. We had some material culture that also suggested it. And then, um, I, you know, I teach a whole class about the Trojan War, so it's hard to say in, in a nutshell, but, I mean, I think that the point you made about Samothres, Samothraki, is that, that both the Minoans and the Mycenaeans were traveling all around the Mediterranean. And the idea of expanding into the Black Sea, which is what of course Jason, the Argonauts is all about, the Mycenaeans expanding into the Black Sea, is you have this very powerful place that's right there in the doorway into the Black Sea that you have to deal with. And I think that it's more likely that that if there was a war, which I think there were probably

• 1:05:31Speaker 04

  multiple wars, and not just one that was immortalized in the story, but there were in fact multiple wars, um, that it was really about trade rights and access.

• 1:05:40Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:41Speaker 04

  More than it was about a beautiful woman, as romantic as that is.

• 1:05:44Liv Albert?

  Oh, really?

• 1:05:45Speaker 04

  You know, I know, I know, go figure, go figure.

• 1:05:49Liv Albert?

  They found a way to blame a woman?

• 1:05:52Speaker 04

  I know, I know. Um, but that's, I, I, I do think that we actually have evidence from lots of places in a sort of off, off the west coast of Turkey that shows similar kinds of things, that there was lots of interest in, in access to those areas and those resources, tin being one of them, tin and gold coming from those areas, not to mention horses and textiles and all kinds of other things that came from that part of the world. Um, and, and for whatever reason Troy got, got immortalized. It's the one that, that, that kept being told and retold. But I think there were probably lots of little Trojan wars like that.

• 1:06:31Liv Albert?

  Yeah. So I, I love these connections to mythology. So they got gold from that area. Like that's where the golden fleece, that's why the golden fleece. I'd never even thought.

• 1:06:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, the gold, you know, the golden fleece comes from the way that you used to in pre-industrial times, they used to collect the alluvial gold. So the gold is in the river, like here in California.

• 1:06:52Liv Albert?

  Right.

• 1:06:52Speaker 04

  And you would put the, the fleece, the, the wool with the lanolin, the sticky stuff on it.

• 1:06:58Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:58Speaker 04

  You put it, you put it as like a dam across the thing and it would catch the gold. It was like panning the river for gold. So when you picked up these fleeces, they would look all gold and shimmery because they would catch all the gold. So that's what a golden fleece is. That's where that comes from.

• 1:07:12Liv Albert?

  Why have I never looked that up before?

• 1:07:13Speaker 04

  That's okay. Not everyone thinks to do it, but it's, it's a totally actual, real thing that people would have known. But they mostly did it in that part of the world, sort of the northwestern part of Anatolia, but also up in the east part of Black Sea where Colchis is, where the, that, that part of the world was very much where, where all that was going on, where that kind of gold recovery was, was happening.

• 1:07:36Liv Albert?

  A couple of years ago, it finally occurred to me that the reason Medea lives out there and is the daughter of the sun is because the sun is rising.

• 1:07:44Speaker 04

  Yes, rises in the east. And that was the furthest east they could imagine.

• 1:07:48Liv Albert?

  Yes.

• 1:07:49Speaker 04

  The furthest east that they had discovered or knew about. Yeah.

• 1:07:52Liv Albert?

  Yeah, so this is just adding to my little like, okay, I got my little collection of like, just I it's, I mean, it adds so much to the mythology. And I think that so often people find Greek mythology just because it's fun stories and, you know, I, I am so fascinated in, in where it's all coming from and why it's all being told, like so much more than the stories themselves.

• 1:08:15Speaker 04

  Yep. Don't get me started on Heracles.

• 1:08:18Liv Albert?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 1:08:19Speaker 04

  We'd have to have a whole nother podcast on Heracles and all of his archaeological reasons why he's doing all these labors and where they're, where they're located.

• 1:08:27Liv Albert?

  Everywhere.

• 1:08:28Speaker 04

  Well, and you know, because, because of Nemea is my other site, we do have a special connection with

• 1:08:34Liv Albert?

  Of course.

• 1:08:35Speaker 04

  Heracles, so.

• 1:08:36Liv Albert?

  Are, are you familiar with the, the, I think it's the school of paleontology in Athens, that like the Greek school, they did this big exhibit a couple of years ago where they, they created this like very large scale, interactive display showing how a lot of his labors, specifically in the Peloponnese, align with like geological

• 1:09:03Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 1:09:03Liv Albert?

  formations and things. Yeah, I got to, I got to get, they were so sweet and like emailed me to give me a private English tour of this thing that is like all entirely Greek.

• 1:09:14Liv Albert?

  But yeah, it, it reminds me of that. It, it looked at all of these ways, like the Lernaean Hydra, you know, aligns with some geological things happening in the earth and like.

• 1:09:23Speaker 04

  Multiple rivers, multiple rivers that come out at that spot. Yeah.

• 1:09:26Liv Albert?

  Exactly. And, and they were, you know, noxious in some way. And so fire was involved and I just, yeah. And then there was the, the river, is it Aklos? Yeah. Where he has to like split it because anyway, it was just, I, I, it makes me now, now I want to know about all the archaeological connections because I've got all the geological ones in my.

• 1:09:48Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 1:09:50Liv Albert?

  Well, you know, I don't want to keep you too long, but I might try to get a Heracles episode out of you sometime.

• 1:09:56Speaker 04

  Sure. Anytime. He's one of my favorites, although don't tell Perseus, because he, of course, founded Mycenae, so I have to have a special.

• 1:10:05Liv Albert?

  True, of course.

• 1:10:06Speaker 04

  Special relationship with Perseus.

• 1:10:08Liv Albert?

  I'm currently working on a section of a book on Medusa and looking at all of those kinds of origins as well, so I'm locked into that realm myself.

• 1:10:17Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:10:18Liv Albert?

  Because she is my, she is my obsession. Undying. But yeah, before, you know, before I let you go, because this has been incredible, so much better than I expected, which always happens, it's such a joy. But is there anything, you know, do you have like a favorite fun fact or thing about Mycenae that's your just kind of love that you want to share before we sign off?

• 1:10:39Speaker 04

  Um, I mean, there's lots of cool things about, about Mycenae in general, and I've been, you know, working there and excavating there for a very long time, so it's a very special relationship that I have with it. But I would say to sort of circle back to, we were talking about the monumental tombs.

• 1:10:59Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:00Speaker 04

  And one of the tombs that I know you visited was what we call the Treasury of Atrius.

• 1:11:04Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:05Speaker 04

  Or locally, they call it the Tomb of Agamemnon, which was, which was the largest one, not only at Mycenae, but on the mainland that we have. And of course, it has survived, still standing today.

• 1:11:14Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:15Speaker 04

  And what very few people realize is that in the fall and spring equinoxes, because that tomb faces directly east, the sun comes in at, when it pops over the mountain opposite, the sun comes in the triangle, and it refracts off the back curved wall and rebounds into the triangle of the little side chamber and lights it up like daylight. It's very cool.

• 1:11:41Liv Albert?

  I'm so glad I asked you that.

• 1:11:42Speaker 04

  It happens at like seven o'clock in the morning, so the site's not open, so you have to sort of know about it. So I used to, when I lived, I lived in Greece at Mycenae for 12 years. I would pop up there and it would be me and the guards with our coffee, you know, waiting for the sun to pop up over the mountain, but it's really amazing. And I would love to say that it was all done intentionally. But I don't think it, I mean, maybe a little bit, but we know that, for instance, the triangle was covered with sculpture. So it wouldn't have been open in the ancient period. Anyway, all the rest of the folio don't face directly east, so this one just happens to face right. So at the same time, I feel like this can't be a coincidence either.

• 1:12:21Speaker 04

  They're such good engineers, they must have navigated with the stars and known all about the sun and the moon courses and all that. So I feel like they were able to do this, it was possible for them to do this, that that was the full intent of this burial monument. No, I don't think so, but I'm super happy that it worked out that way. And that it's a, it's a fun thing for those of us who work there and, you know, are able to be there at seven o'clock in the morning on the fall or spring equinox.

• 1:12:51Liv Albert?

  I, I, I like, maybe, I like to imagine, maybe like the, the architect who just made that one, just kind of added, like was a great king himself. You know, like it was more of like a personal decision and that's why it's like just in that one. I love that, though. I'm going back in June and I'm very glad to have that fact. You did make, make me think though, do you, just really quickly, do you have any, are there, is there any evidence in Mycenae that links to the, the later curse of the, the?

• 1:13:20Speaker 04

  Curse of the House of Atreus?

• 1:13:22Liv Albert?

  Yeah, because it's my favorite thing in the whole world, that line of curses.

• 1:13:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, I, I jokingly always say that we still live under the curse of the House of Atreus at Mycenae, because what will go wrong, will go wrong. Like, we just, we just know. It's a, it's a big, complicated, expensive site that everyone feels like they have their own stake in. So everyone's like not cooperating the way they should, which is really what the site needs. So I always, I jokingly, but not jokingly, say that we're still under that curse for a lot of ways. But I've never seen anything from the Bronze Age itself to suggest that, we don't even know. I mean, we have cursed tablets later, as part of a Greek tradition, that you actually could ask for people to be cursed and things like that.

• 1:14:10Speaker 04

  But, um, the, we don't have anything in, in the evidence, in the archaeological evidence. I do think, though, that a lot of these stories go back very early. And that some of these names may well have been attached to people very early on. There may have been an Atrius, there may have been a Pelops for that matter.

• 1:14:28Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:28Speaker 04

  So the fact that you have this, this horribly tragic curse-filled family, generation after generation after generation, may be an, an overblowing of, you know, some weird things that happened to this family who, you know, they couldn't keep it in their pants. They couldn't, you know, do the things they're supposed to do.

• 1:14:48Liv Albert?

  They couldn't keep them killing children and eating them.

• 1:14:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, and making them into kid soup. Who wants kid soup, you know?

• 1:14:53Liv Albert?

  They just couldn't help themselves.

• 1:14:54Speaker 04

  I mean, yeah. So they're, they're weird, we're a weird, weird, complicated uh, group and problematic group to be your sort of people that you are working with. Um, but I always hope that the stuff that we find and the narratives that we create will, will be a better choice. Will be, you know, find that in fact, it wasn't, it wasn't all that tragic and bad. It just makes for a good story.

• 1:15:19Liv Albert?

  Yeah. No, they've always interested me because, I mean, one, they're just some of the most entertaining stories from myth.

• 1:15:24Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 1:15:25Liv Albert?

  But two, yeah, what you mentioned, this idea that like, they are like the biggest and best kings still, like, even when you are a child of one of them, eh, eh, like they're so openly proud of who they come from. They're like, yes, I am a Tantalid. Did he try to eat my grandfather? Sure. I still am proud that I'm a Tantalid. Like, yeah, it's, I just, I, I find that to be such an interesting kind of, you know, it feels like a, I don't know the word I want, but it just feels weird, I guess, to be like, yeah, these are our people.

• 1:15:55Speaker 04

  And, and it's a lesson in the sort of Greek, uh, I guess, acceptance of things like arrogance and hubris and things that, you know, they did retell these things and celebrate them. And I guess it's supposed to be a moral lesson. At the same time, they keep missing the message. So, you know, what are you gonna do?

• 1:16:16Liv Albert?

  I mean, it makes for great content for me. So I'm not.

• 1:16:18Speaker 04

  There you go. That's, that's, it ma- it makes good content for me, too. Teaching, you know, touring an archaeological site, all of those things.

• 1:16:26Liv Albert?

  Yeah, yeah. I thought a little bit a lot in the tomb of Clytemnestra, you know, quote unquote, tomb of Clytemnestra there. Oh, it's just, yeah, those, those tombs, I'll never forget them. I can't wait to go back. Um, well, this has been utterly incredible. Thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate you making the time and, I mean,

• 1:16:44Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 1:16:45Liv Albert?

  It was so worth it on my end.

• 1:16:46Speaker 04

  Absolutely. Well, I will be, I will be around in the area in June. So if you are there, um, send me an email and I will, I'll tell you how to get in touch with me by phone. Um, once you're in Greece, because I will be, I'll be working both at Nemea and at Mycenae in June. So I'll be around.

• 1:17:03Liv Albert?

  I would, I would love to do that. Thank you so much.

• 1:17:06Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 1:17:07Liv Albert?

  Well, thank you so much for speaking with me. Um, is, is there anything you want to share with my listeners, reading more from you or, or anything like that?

• 1:17:16Speaker 04

  Um, not yet. We will have, I mean, I, but most of the stuff that I work on is pretty, you know, scholarly based and all that. But, um, they, they're welcome to go to, um, my website, which is, uh, nemeacenter.berkley.edu and see all of the exciting projects we have going on. Um, all three of them have a Bronze Age element, but, but also a later classical element, too. And I will say that, and this is in part thanks to Eric Klein, who I know recommended me. Um, uh, my colleague, Link Vopel, and I are going, are actually going to be producing a book for his series that he's doing, in which we're looking at very much the everyday Mycenaeans.

• 1:17:59Speaker 04

  So flipping the script, not talking about, um, just the, the kings and the elite, but actually looking at everyday life and the other context that we know. And, um, and from the perspective of two women, um, field archaeologists, which actually are.

• 1:18:17Speaker 04

  Relatively rare in our part of the world as well. So we're putting a, you know, how, how does one excavate with a, you know, while they're breastfeeding, right? You know, they don't talk about those things very much, but we're going to very much infuse this book about, you know, women excavating women, sort of the idea. So.

• 1:18:36Liv Albert?

  Okay. Well, whenever that exists, you can expect me to.

• 1:18:40Speaker 04

  Hopefully, hopefully sometime next year. Hopefully sometime in early 2025 is the hope.

• 1:18:45Liv Albert?

  I, I've been very lucky. I, I think most of the archaeologists I've ever had on this show have been women, mostly just because of my own circles, but it, it makes it seem like there's a higher representation, which I know there's not, but I'm lucky to speak to so many. So.

• 1:18:59Speaker 04

  Yes, that's great. That's great. And thanks for, thanks for giving us the platform to speak.

• 1:19:04Liv Albert?

  Oh my God. It's my favorite thing in the entire world. If you haven't been able to tell from my like enormous smile throughout this entire conversation.

• 1:19:26Liv Albert?

  Oh nerds. That episode was so much fun. Oh my God. Like I just, you know, I, this is such a thrill for my job. I just truly love so much when people can come on and share all of this stuff with me. It's just such a joy. I'm at a loss for how to describe just so much of the joy. So instead I will just again say joy. I hope you enjoyed it. I'm sure you learned a lot. I know that I did. And I am just so excited for this conversation and everything that I have to come for the series because we have another three conversations coming in addition to another two scripted episodes detailing so much more about the Bronze Age Mediterranean and its collapse.

• 1:20:14Liv Albert?

  Thank you all so much for listening. As always, it means the world to me. If you've just found the show through this series, hi, welcome. Normally I talk about mythology. It's usually more storytelling. Still always fun, though. That's why I'm here. I have some of the most incredible guests on my show. I am so lucky. It is such a joy. Welcome, welcome. Let's talk about Myths, Baby is written and produced by me, Liv Albert. Michaela Smith is the Hermes to my Olympians, and during this Bronze Age series, she is also the writer. Let's be perfectly honest. The writer of the episodes. Not this one, because it's just a conversation. That'd be weird. But Michaela and the Bronze Age are closely tied, is all I'm saying. Laura Smith is the production assistant and audio engineer,

• 1:20:59Liv Albert?

  and she worked her wonders on this conversation. Everyone has their hands in all the different pieces, because somehow my show has grown to be three people, and aren't we fun? The podcast is part of the iHeart Podcast Network. Listen on Spotify, or Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. Help me continue bringing you the world of the ancient Mediterranean by becoming a patron, where you'll get access to past bonus episodes, hopefully more new ones, and, you know, generally just contribute to the free show that I give you all twice a week. That's patreon.com/MythsBaby. I feel like I am slightly losing my mind again. Apologies. We're living on the edge. We're living on the edge. I am Liv, and I love this shit.

• 1:21:57Speaker 02

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• 1:22:23Liv Albert?

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• 1:23:45Liv Albert?

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