The Coming of the Greeks
shaft graves.' 6 In addition, it appears that Homer's few for-
mulas for bows and arrows are "the residue of a much larger
system" that earlier bards had employed. 37 Finally, bronze ar-
rowheads appear rather suddenly in Greece in LH I levels (in EH
and MH levels all arrowheads are of stone). The conclusion is
quite inescapable that the bow was much more important in
Late Helladic warfare than was once thought.' 8
As for the type of bow used by the Mycenaeans, Helen Lor-
imer insisted that although the Minoans knew the composite
bow, the Mycenaeans were familiar only with the self bow. ' 9
- In Grave VI, Schliemann found grooved stone objects whose
purpose has only recently been discovered: they were meant for smoothing
and polishing arrow shafts; see H. G. Buchholz, "Der Pfeilglatter aus dem
VI. Schachtgrab von Mykene und die helladischen Pfeihphzen," Jabrbuch
des Deutschen Archaologischen Institute 77 (1962): 1—58. The archers on the
Silver Siege Rhyton from Grave IV have long been known, but archers on
another silver vessel (a krater) from the same grave were not recognized un-
til the 19503. The krater, which had crumbled into a multitude of frag-
ments, was reconstructed by Ch. Karousos after World War II. For the
publication, see A. Sakellariou, "Un cratere d'argent avec scene de bataille
provenant de la IVe tombe de 1'acropole de Mycenes," Antike Kunst 17
(1974): 3-20. Two archers, along with spearmen (both archers and spear-
men are on foot), are engaged in battle.
- Page, History and the Homeric Iliad, 27911. 63. For a comprehen-
sive study of the subject, see W. McLeod, "The Bow in Ancient Greece,
with Particular Reference to the Homeric Poems" (Ph.D. diss., Harvard
University, 1966); for summary, seeHSCPji (1966): 329—31.
- The argument is well made by R. Tolle-Kastenbein, Pfeil und
Bogen imalten Griechenland (Bochum: Duris Verlag, 1980), 24-26 and 41-
- Tb'lle-Kastenbein also presents, in tabular form, the types of arrow-
heads attested for Bronze Age Greece; it is remarkable how many of these
types appeared at the beginning of the Late Helladic period. Robert Avila,
Bronze Lanzen- und Pfeilspitzen der griechischen Spatbronzezeit (Munich: Beck,
1983), 117, observes that bronze arrowheads first appear in Late Helladic
levels, but he attributes the shift to "dem gesteigerten Wohlstand" of the
Argolid Greeks in the sixteenth century B.C. (on the circularity of this argu-
ment see below). Because of their size, Avila believes that most of the four-
teen types of arrowhead attested for the LH period were used as Kriegswaffin.
- Lorimer, Homer and the Monuments, 276—305, remains the most
influential discussion of the bow in Minoan and Mycenaean times. Lorimer
168
