168 i Flora Unveiled
The second question concerns the identities of the shaft grave rulers themselves. Were
they indigenous chieftains or foreign invaders? According to scholars, the weight of the
evidence indicates that the rulers of Mycenae in the early sixteenth century bce were
indigenous chieftains who spoke an early form of Greek. Oliver Dickinson has sug-
gested that the high quality of the artifacts found in the shaft graves may “represent a
burst of exuberant innovation,” which was “the work of only one or two workshops,”
rather than part of a generalized cultural tradition spread throughout the mainland.^61
Beginning in the fifteenth century bce, however, a more widely prosperous period seems
to have emerged, one characterized by a different kind of royal burial chamber, the tholos
tombs (large, underground domed chambers). Tholos tombs, which may have been mod-
eled after smaller vaulted tombs found on Crete, suggest increasing contacts with other
Mediterranean societies in the course of vigorous trade and population expansion to far-
flung settlements.
Although the term “Mycenaean” has been adopted for the entire culture of the mainland
during this period, it is important to remember that Mycenae itself was but one of many
competing palace- based societies scattered throughout the mainland during the Bronze
Age. Like Mycenae, some of these large settlements were well fortified and rich in art and
artifacts. According to Linear B inscriptions on clay tablets from Pylos, the palaces took in
flax, linen, woolen textiles, livestock, ox hides, perfumes, raw materials, and certain spices,
and distributed quantities to workers, craft workers, shrines, and the like.^62 However, most
agricultural products, including wheat, legumes, and orchard fruits, were not processed
through the palace, but were obtained from independent suppliers (farmers and private
estates), although the nature of the arrangement is unclear. This is consistent with the pres-
ence of many smaller, unfortified farming settlements scattered throughout the mainland,
which apparently co- existed with their local palaces according to some type of social con-
tract. As noted earlier, co- existence of the outlying communities and the palaces suggests
that the warlike reputations of Mycenaean kingdoms have been exaggerated. A relatively
stable economic system seems to have prevailed on the mainland during much of the Late
Bronze Age. Only at the cataclysmic end of the Bronze Age do we encounter evidence for
the sort of widespread violence often associated with Mycenaean society in general, a mis-
conception ultimately derived from the Homeric epics.
Minoan Versus Mycenaean ArtThe art and religious iconography of the Mycenaeans was strongly influenced by the
Minoans during the early part of their history. Just as Rome ceded the realms of scholarship,
religion, and art to the Greeks, the Mycenaeans seemed content to defer to Minoan tastes
and styles in art, pottery, clothing, and religious iconography. This includes the Minoan
tendency to associate sacred plants with women. For example, a gold pin found in the shaft
graves of Mycenae shows a sacred tree emerging from the head of a woman, presumably a
tree goddess (Figure 6.19A). This may, in fact, be a Minoan import, but its presence in the
shaft graves suggests that Mycenaeans had assimilated the iconography.
Mycenaean ring seal images are also strongly reminiscent of Minoan ring seals. In
Figure 6.19B, a central goddess is flanked by a woman bent over a table (right) and a male