Mycenaean religion

• 1. Fragments From The Bronze Age

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  A 14th century BC figurine of a bird goddess sits in the Archaeological Museum of Nafplion. This small object is one of the few physical clues to what people believed during the Mycenaean period between 1600 and 1100 BC. Scholars face a difficult task because no complete religious texts survive from that era. The Cambridge Companion to the Aegean Bronze Age notes that existing evidence remains limited regarding archeology, iconography, and material records. John Chadwick pointed out that at least six centuries separate the earliest Proto-Greek speakers in Hellas from the first Linear B inscriptions. During this long gap, concepts likely fused with indigenous pre-Greek beliefs and Minoan religion. A collection of offerings lists found on tablets reveals little about actual practices since there is no other surviving literature. Thomas G. Palaima published research in 2008 stating that key elements of Minoan traditions are either absent or negligible among Mycenaeans.

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• 2. Gods In The Tablets

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  The name Po-se-da-o appears frequently in Pylos tablets as a deity holding a place of privilege. He functioned as a chthonic deity connected with earthquakes under the title E-ne-si-da-o-ne meaning earth shaker. Another inscription at Knossos names the mistress of the Labyrinth da-pu-ri-to-jo po-ti-ni-ja. This title applied to many goddesses including figures later identified as Demeter and Persephone. A tablet from Pylos mentions two queens and the king wa-na-ssoi waana-ka-te. These terms link to precursor goddesses of classical times. Inscriptions also mention Pe-re-swa who may relate to Persephone and Si-to po-ti-ni-ja an agricultural goddess. Her cult title Sito means wheat according to Eustathius of Thessalonica. Artemis appears as a daughter of Demeter in Arcadian cults and became the most popular goddess in Greece. The earliest attested forms of her name appear as a-te-mi-to and a-ti-mi-te written in Linear B at Pylos. Dionysos Di-wo-nu-so also appears in some inscriptions though his name is interpreted as son of Zeus.

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• 3. Merging Traditions

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  Scholars debate how much Minoan religion merged with indigenous Mycenaean beliefs during the Late Bronze Age. Martin P. Nilsson asserted that many Minoan gods and religious conceptions were fused into Mycenaean religion based on representations and general function. He rejected confusion derived solely from archaeological correlations or treacherous etymologies. Moses I. Finley detected very few authentic Mycenaean reflections in the eighth-century Homeric world despite its setting. Recent scholarship by Thomas G. Palaima determined that while common origins existed, key elements of Minoan traditions are absent among Mycenaeans. A fresco from 1400 BC represents a procession with animal masks before a goddess on a golden ring from Tiryns. This imagery might explain the Greek myth of the Minotaur originating from a similar daemon. The existence of nymphs was bound to trees or waters which they haunted according to ancient texts. Artemis became connected with the Minoan cult of the tree an ecstatic and orgiastic cult represented on seals and gold rings.

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• 4. Walls Of Worship

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  Sites like Lerna typically took the form of house sanctuaries rather than free-standing temples. Free-standing temples containing a cult image in their cella with an open-air altar before it developed later. Certain buildings found in citadels had a central room called the megaron of oblong shape surrounded by small rooms. These structures may have served as places of worship alongside domestic cults. Some shrines were located at Phylakopi on Melos where statuettes discovered there served as offerings. Archaeological strata suggest sites such as Delphi Dodona Delos Eleusis Lerna and Abae were already important shrines. In Crete several Minoan shrines show continuity into LMIII between 1400 and 1150 BCE. A bronze figurine of a man from the Sanctuary in Phylakopi dates to the Late Helladic III C period. This artifact sits today in the Archaeological Museum of Milos.

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• 5. Rites And Symbols

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  Animal sacrifices and votive offerings survived from Mycenaean times into the Greek period. Terms such as theos meaning deity hieros meaning holy man nawos meaning temple and temenos meaning land cut off for communal purposes persisted. Pausanias mentions animal-headed statues of Demeter and other gods in Arcadia. On a marble relief at Lycosura figures of women appear with heads of different animals during ritual dances. Wooden masks representing human faces found in Artemis temple at Sparta were used by dancers in vegetation-cults. Paean Pa-ja-wo was probably the precursor of the Greek physician of the gods in Homer's Iliad. He personified the magic-song supposed to heal patients before becoming a song of victory. The magicians also called seer-doctors applied this function later to Apollo. Representations of the Minoan Genius are widely found in continental parts of Mycenaean Greece.

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