The Coming of the GreeksLorimer's analysis is still widely accepted, even though its
foundation is now eroded: Lorimer erroneously assumed that
the Linear B tablets that Evans found in the "Armoury" at
Knossos were Minoan documents. 40 Ventris's decipherment of
the tablets as Greek ought to transfer the composite bow from
Minoan to Mycenaean hands. As for the fifteen adjectives that
Homer applies to the bow, "none of them need refer to a self
bow; none is inappropriate for a composite bow." 4 '
Although it is likely that the bow was very important in
Mycenaean chariot warfare, it must be conceded that the par-
ticulars of combat in Mycenaean Greece are not sufficiently
known to permit us to picture the fighting with any confi-
dence. It is possible (although unlikely, given the difficulties
of throwing anything from a moving vehicle) that Greek char-
iot fighters threw javelins from their vehicles, or that—attack-
ing in a formation of massed chariots—they ordinarily relied
knew of two Mycenaean representations of the bow and found that "in both
cases it is unmistakably of European type" (p. 278; a "European" bow is a
self bow). One of the two representations is on the gold ring from Shaft
Grave iv, the other is on the blade of the Lion Hunt Dagger. Apparently,
Lorimer found the size of these two bows, relative to the men who wield
them, too small to have been composite bows; but it should be pointed out
that the Mycenaean artists in both cases had a great deal of trouble putting
things in proper scale (the lion, on the Lion Hunt Dagger, is taller than the
men who are attacking him). Nor is it clear how Lorimer decided that of
the several Mycenaean artifacts depicting bowmen only two were truly
"Mycenaean." According to Lorimer, the archers on the Silver Siege Rhyton
are using bows that are "certainly composite," but the archers are not My-
cenaean (279n. 4).
- Several of these tablets are inventories of goat horns, and Evans
reasonably concluded that these inventories were kept in the "Armoury" be-
cause the horns were needed for construction of composite bows (see Evans,
Palace of Minos, vol. 4, pt. 2, 833—34 ("Materials for Horn-Bows"). Lori-
mer, like Evans, assumed that the Armoury Tablets were written in the Mi-
noans' language and reflected Minoan weaponry. Professor Emmett Bennett
assures me that the pertinent tablets are in "classic Linear B." - Thus the summary in HSCP 71 (1966): 330, of McLeod's "The
Bow in Ancient Greece, with Particular Reference to the Homeric Poems."
169