sophisticated in craftsmanship and design. The techniques of engraving, enchasing
and embossing were well developed and so was that of inlaying bronze with precious
metals. Ivory and amber imported from the east and the north are commonly found
and indicate the extent of Mycenaean commercial relations. The handsome silver
vessel for making libations, called in Greek a rhyton(fig. 8) in the shape of a bull’s head
with magnificent gold horns, discovered in a grave circle into which it was doubtless
put to honour a great hero or king, has been beautifully crafted by hammering the
metal from the inside. It is Minoan in conception and design and its presence among
these Mycenaean treasures two centuries before the fall of Cnossus in 1400, whether
it was inspired by a Cretan original, copied or imported, suggests a long-standing
cultural connection between Crete and the Greek mainland. After the destruction of
Cnossus in 1400, Mycenaean civilization was at its most powerful and advanced and
it seems to have lasted for a further three hundred years until its collapse just before
1100.
Schliemann’s excavations at Mycenae came after his earlier excavations at
Hissarlik in northern Turkey, which he believed to be the site of Troy. Excavations
here have recorded nine settlements, the seventh of which was destroyed by a great
fire in the mid-thirteenth century, so that archaeological evidence might seem to lend
support to the possibility of a historical Trojan War of which the Homeric account
records the distant poetic memory.
8 THE GREEKS
FIGURE 6 Lion Gate, Mycenae
Source: ©Stockphoto.com Toon posserniers