The antler-tine horse-bridle piece is one of several discoveries in LH I and
later Prepalatial levels at Mitrou that signal a major social change—
specifically, the rise of a warlike elite that assertively displayed its elevated
status in life and death, transforming the settlement in the process. Only very
small parts of the preceding Middle Helladic settlement at Mitrou have been
excavated, but the exposed remains indicate that it had a rural character, with
narrow dirt roads and open areas strewn with trash.^36Although the archaeologists refrain from attributing the transformation to any
event, an historian may take the liberty of doing so. I will accordingly suggest
that the transformation of Mitrou was the result of a takeover of parts of eastern
Greece by a military force, in which chariots played a significant role.
Kiapha Thiti, along Attika’s southwestern coast, is another site that suggests
the presence and importance of chariots at the end of MH III and the beginning
of LH I. The hill on which the fortress was built at that time towers 100 m over
the valley that it overlooks. The hill had steep sides on the north, east and south,
but had a traversable slope on its western side. Excavations directed by Dietmar
Hagel from 1986 to 1988 showed that low on the slope a ramp had been con -
structed, 70 m long. It led to the only gate through the fortification wall, the gate
being 2.2 m wide.^37 Because the length of a chariot axle was about 1.50 m, the
gate was wide enough for a team of horses and a chariot to pass through, and the
ramp can be explained as an accommodation for wheeled vehicles (humans and
pack animals do not need a ramp). Less informative fortification walls from this
period have been found at Peristeria on the northern Messenian coast, and at Malthi,
15 km east of Peristeria (although the late MH date for the Malthi site is
contested).^38
Skeletal evidence, bridle bits and artistic representations
For tamed horses on the mainland the most dramatic skeletal evidence, even though
barely published, is that of a team of horses that had been slaughtered in the dromos
of a tholos tomb at Marathon. These skeletons, unearthed by Spyridon Marinatos
in 1958, date to the LH II period, toward the end of the fifteenth century BC.^39
Much earlier evidence is the skeleton of a horse sacrificed atop Grave 3 of
Tumulus I at Vrana, a 15-minute walk from the Marathon tholos. This grave too
was published only in Marinatos’ preliminary reports, but its date is not disputed:
late in the MH period.^40 Petros Themelis’ argument that the horse collapsed on
the MH grave in the Byzantine or Turkish period does not withstand scrutiny.^41
Other early skeletal evidence for the tamed horse was found in 1976–77 at
Dendra.^42 A team of matched stallions was sacrificed for the funeral of the man
buried under Tumulus B, and the horses were buried in a pit. The ritual was repeated
for a funeral at Tumulus C. The excavator, Evangelia Protonotariou-Deilaki,
concluded that both sacrifices were made late in the MH period, despite the presence
of some LH sherds within the tumuli (Protonotariou-Deilaki believed the sherds
were intrusive).^43 Any native who witnessed the slaughter of a draft team at one
Militarism in Greece 183