The Coming of the Greeksvery well with their life style, becoming a symbol
of their aristocratic standing. 49This explanation appears vulnerable on several counts. One
must first of all observe that to explain the shaft graves as the
result of the growth of an indigenous ruling class is circular:
the only evidence for the growth of such a class are the shaft
graves. Secondly, the theory posits a remarkable coincidence:
the local chieftain families of Mycenae made their rocketlike
ascent to the requisite level of opulence and sophistication at
precisely the time when somewhere in the Near East (all of
which was at that time suffering through a calamitous dark
age) chariots were first being made available for export to for-
eign buyers. This touches on an even greater difficulty. There
is good reason to believe that when an Hattusilis or an ambi-
tious amurru prince acquired chariotry for himself, he did not
simply purchase vehicles. He also acquired teams of trained
chariot horses; but even good horses and good chariots would
by themselves have been useless. The most important ingredi-
ent would have been the men who knew how to repair the ve-
hicles, to care for the horses, to drive them in battle, and to
fight from a fast-moving chariot. One cannot imagine wealthy
natives of Mycenae ordering from a foreign manufacturer war
chariots that they themselves planned to drive and to fight
from.
Nor, by way of escape, can one interpret the chariots of the
shaft-grave lords as sportsmen's hobbies, or as status symbols.
As Crouwel himself well demonstrated, the stelai reliefs por-
tray scenes of combat and not, as was once thought, of chariot
racing. In addition, interpretation of the shaft-grave chariots
as status symbols seems to reverse the relationship of the char-
iots (and the weaponry) to the wealth that accompanied them.
If one interprets the chariots and the weapons as the playthings
with which these extraordinarily wealthy men chose to amuse
themselves, one is left with the considerable problem of ex-
- Ibid.