Talk:Mycenae/Archive 1

The incorrectness of Mycenaean Civilization

used to argue that later evidence shows that Mycenae did not come to dominate Achae and thus the term, "Mycenaean Civilization" is incorrect. But no evidence was shown and Marcus' "Building Western Civilization" (1998) says Mycenae did dominate Achae. Lir 10:59 Oct 24, 2002 (UTC)

The reported confusion between Mycenae and Argos

Is this paragraph necessary:

Mycenaeans worked as bakers, bath attendants, bowmakers, carders, carpenters, cooks, coppersmiths, doctors, foresters, fullers, goldsmiths, heralds, masons, messangers, oarsmen, potters, saddlers, shepherds, shipwrights, spinners, unguent-boilers, weavers, and woodcutters. -- Zoe

I would say not. It contains little useful information, none of which belongs in an article on a specific city-state.
What's the relationship between Mycenae and Argos? I understand there's some confusion between the two.

It would help if there was a map

It would certainly help if there was a map!

Homeric Greece

[better map] Mycenae just happened to be excavated first, giving its name to the entire civilization. therefore "Mycenea" is (a) a palace, and (b) a collective name for the palace culture. Argos is just the palace. dab 08:39, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Argos, Mycenae and Mycenaean

Mycenae in comparison to the other Late Bronze Age centres seems major as is its position in Homer, also the material culture of LBA Greece seems influenced by that place in particular - hence Mycenaean, which is in any case merely a term of convenience, as with any historical terminology. If you prefer you could call it the Late Helladic period, but Mycenaean is more user-friendly.

About Argos and Mycenae - Argos is on the other side of the plain of Argos from Mycenae, in the west to Mycenae's east - they are two different places, although Argos is also a regional name and in the Iliad Agamemnon is king of Argos (in its regional sense). After the decline of Mycenae in the years following 1200 Tiryns (see the work of Klaus Kilian and now Josef Maran (Heidelberg)) may have become the dominant regional centre - the lower town expanded, population seems to have increased, even the central megaron seems to have been rebuilt in slightly different form and reused, though the palace remained empty. Much later, Argos rose to dominate the fertile plain and in classical times (sixth/fifth centuries BC) the city-state of Mycenae was utterly destroyed by Argos. Argos may have tried to inflate its prestige and compete with the mythic legacy of nearby Mycenae by interposing itself into pre-existing myths, thus confusing the associations of characters and events. Although myths cannot be used to write history such interpositions can help us to understand this jockeying for position that took place in later times (a modern example might be the switching of famous British war-time actions to the Americans in recent Hollywood war films).

I hope the article as it now is will help to clarify the relationships between Mycenae, Argos and other places. The ruling families of these places were interconnected by kinship and marriage, and that is generally true over the entire eastern Mediterranean. Letters from Egypt and the the Hittites are often addressed to "father"or "brother". This situation is non-different from the monarchies of modern times and for the same reasons. Royal folk marry each other to solidify alliances. Often it doesn't work, as the constant warfare now and then attests. So, you get the astounding contradiction of the the heads of states that are mortal enemies addressing each other as "dear brother." States get traded off or get subordinated or become more or less dominant. Large topic. Mycenae was clearly dominant in records and literature and that dominance undoubtedly was the result of the union of the powerful Perseid and Pelopid families. Mycenae was not the first excavated nor was its prevalence to later historians accidental. It merits what we moderns say about it, as we have been saying it for over 100 years in as many different ways as possible.66.30.94.153 01:23, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Organization

I thought it could use some section heads to break it up and make it easier to read and also for easy additions if any should be forthcoming. One disadvantage is that there is no picture at the top. I moved the pictures to the text they illustrate. One problem with Wikipedia is that you need a TOC up front but if a picture is there it does awful things to the format. But, I wouldn't put those pics up front. There are some good aerial photos of Mycenae, in color, too. Maybe someone would like to locate one of those with expired copyright! In putting in the section heads I found the material already well-organized and easy to sectionalize. If anyone prefers it the way it was, just revert it.Dave 03:37, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Pictures

There are so many good pictures of Mycenae around, aren't there any we might be permitted to put in here in the upper portion? A map of the Argolid? An aerial view of the place? Landscapes from the citadel? Reconstructive drawings?66.30.94.153 01:27, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Pronunciation aid

"World Book"? Does that mean that it comes from the Mycenae article in the World Book Encyclopedia? Well, if so it's wrong, even if you anglicize the "c", transliterated from a κ, to an s as is often done. Or at least my professor in Aegean and Greek Bronze Age history never pronounced it this way, and I assume he knew what he was talking about. To my knowledge, "ae" is not pronounced as "ee" in any system of Greek pronuncuation. TCC (talk) (contribs) 11:04, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

According to Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Mycenae is pronounced mI-'sE-nE [1], or mī-sē-nē. So, it appears as if the World Book Pronunciation is correct. Primetime 11:08, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

I'll take my professor's word for it, thanks. But actually both are wrong; these are merely common anglicizations. And I wonder why; an approximation of the Greek isn't all that inaccessible. TCC (talk) (contribs) 11:10, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Pronunciation symbols

IPA is not used very often in the US (where about 290 million people live). Thus, I think in deference to the international audience of Wikipedia, that the American transcription should stay. Primetime 11:04, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

IPA is the Wikipedia standard for rendering pronuncuations. See WP:MOS-P. Americans can just deal with it; it's not complicated. TCC (talk) (contribs) 11:16, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

There already are IPA symbols in the article for people outside the US. Keep in mind that anything that makes an article easier to understand makes it better. I personally think that the IPA is more complicated, because there are many different ways of rendering it (e.g., RP vs. American vs. Australian) and there are more symbols than necessary for what are essentially the same sound (e.g., ə vs. u). Primetime 11:26, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

I just added U.S. before the transcription so people outside the US can skip over it with ease. Primetime 11:30, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

First, u and ə are not the same sound. Second, the various dialects of English would have to be shown differently no matter what system you used: I'm almost certain that the present example is not "my SEE nee" in Australian or British English, so your claimed desire for "the international audience" isn't well served by it, nor are they by giving a US pronuncuation only. Third, IPA is the Wikipedia standard whether you like it or not. Fourth, if you want to give the anglicized pronunciation instead of the correct Greek, you should therefore do so in IPA for a number of dialects and not just the US. See International Phonetic Alphabet for English. I suspect it's the challenge of rendering the usual pronuciation of this place in a number of different Englishes that has prevented it from attempts to do so up to now. I'm not reverting again at this time, but I'll be looking in later. TCC (talk) (contribs) 11:57, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

fair enough, now we have three pronunciations, in this order: Ancient Greek, U.S., Modern Greek. Two are given in IPA, one in "World Book". This seems rather unintuitive to me. Give the "US" (or "English") pronunciation, but give it in IPA like the others, and give it either first or last, but not between the two Greek ones. dab (ᛏ) 13:30, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Map time

Now that a good-looking format has been reasonably achieved, it seems time to bring in the map. I was hoping we'd find a usable plan or aerial photo, but one has not been forthcoming. I suggest we put in the one we do have and also make the ref to "a better map", which really is better, more formal. I will just do this work now for your inspection.Dave 14:17, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Atreid dynasty

I just went through the "Atreid dynasty" section, clarifying the chronology and correcting errors. It struck me that the section is confused about what it's trying to do. The core of it isn't really about the Atreids, but about whether any Atreids can be associated with known events of LHIIIA-B history. That should be a separate section. (Zimriel 21:36, 28 May 2006 (UTC))

It seems like there are at least two separate issues here. One is, what do the legends about the House of Atreus tell us about the historical rulers of Mycenae (and the other cities of the Argolid)? And another, is what do the Hittite letters tell us about the Mycenaean Greeks? The connection between these issues is far from clear, since many scholars think the nation that the Hittites refer to as Ahhiyawa was located in Asia Minor. See Historicity of the Iliad and related articles.

Currently, the article is fairly naive about what myth can tell us about Bronze Age Mycenae. I quote: "References to Mycenae and persons associated with it span nearly all of Greek literature, which is good evidence of an inherited tradition. Modern schools of thought consider these legendary persons as to some degree historical. Future documentary evidence will help to clarify the degree to which they are." What "modern schools of thought" are we talking about? As far as I know, most scholars are highly sceptical that there was a historical Pelops, Agamemnon, etc. --Akhilleus (talk) 23:39, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Naive or optimistic, either way. In the sources actually cited here, Chadwick has an entire chapter, "Homer the Pseudo-historian" where he's dismissive of any idea that Homer is at all historical He concludes, "To look for historical fact in Homer is as vain as to scan the Mycenaean tablets in search of poetry; they belong to different universes." (p. 186) Vermule is, at best, not entirely dismissive; but it's fairly clear she's using the names as representative, not supporting a notion that there actually were Mycenaean leaders with those names. Even if she was, that was 1964 and hardly current scholarship. TCC (talk) (contribs) 04:34, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Hello, gentlemen. The section was originally mine. Thanks for editing it, although at this point I can't remember what you changed. I like it the way it is, though, mine or yours.

For the naivete, I think partly you are encountering the same problem that I did earlier on. There is really so much to say, isn't there? But alas no room to say it in. It isn't the history of the world in one paragraph but is only several paragraphs from it. I would say, rather than I or it being naive, you are somewhat oversophisticated for the topic. You expect too much.

Mythology is mythology. You can't start taking out the things YOU think are mythological and leaving what YOU think is real. There's no way to distinguish, except that what can't be real from our point of view can't be real from theirs either, as the same laws of the universe apply from all points of view. There are no favored points of view, exempt from the laws of physics. So, there are no medusae now and can't have been then either. What can the myth have meant? What was the basis of the myth? No one can say for sure. One commonly used approach (the predominant I dare say) is just to repeat the myth in toto.

Now, we know that these myths were devised around the king of Mycenae. We know where Mycenae is. That is about all we know. So, my approach was to juxtapose the myth and the archaeology. I make no statement about what corresponds to what. No such statement can be made. I'm not heading in any direction as there is no direction in which to head. But the reader I am sure would like to look at the juxtaposition. Did Agamemnon ever reside in that ruined palace? Unless we find his name there we will never know. That is about as far as can be gone with it. The whole thing is a speculative structure but I am sure you will agree that in the absence of documented fact the structure is the only thing the scholars can pursue, and they have been pursuing it with might and with main for some time. Now you come along and probably want to know what the connections are between the myth and the archaeology. There are none. There is no progress, no sophistication, no advances in the field, no climb in the level of technology, nothing for anyone to get behind or ahead in. Myth is myth and archaeology is archaeology and so far the twain has not met.

For the Anatolian connection. That was big in scholarship for a while but unfortunately inconclusive. So, that can't go anywhere, either. But, the reader may want to know something about it!

Well, if I can't get to the bottom line in a sophisticated way I am sorry. There is no bottom only some murk beyond which one cannot see. I would like to see as far as I can, however and so would the general reader. If you feel you can by sophistication add some insight to article, what is holding you back? Wikipedia is not like the professional journals. In the latter you put forward your theses and everyone says, aw, gee, this is awful, or this lacks this or that, or gee, the author is my mentor so this is really great, or gosh, I have to be enthusiastic or make an enemy, etc. Wikipedia is DO rather than SHOW. Make it better if you can.

For myself I see that someone has been filling in some details I couldn't get at the time. I'm delighted. To me the article is meaningful and useful. The importance of Mycenae historically and also in myth is underscored. It has a lot of wonderful pictures now. It refers the reader to other sites and other works where he can get more information but at the same time gives him something to go there with. He starts with Wikipedia. Then he knows enough to go to YOUR book or YOUR article if you have one. Education is served. Best of wishes, and don't ruin it, but do make it better if you can. It is currently pushing the space limit so if you have a great deal more to say we may have to break some out into a different article. What that would be at this point I have no idea.Dave 15:24, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the response, but the basic problems with the section are 1) no sources are cited and 2) it implies that the mythology gives us direct information about Bronze Age history. Few scholars would agree with this.

We should at least label the section as "mythology" rather than "literature" to make clear the nature of the stories the section relates, and we should find some secondary sources that talk about what real history can be drawn from the myths, if any. --Akhilleus (talk) 23:23, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

I see you are a determined person. OK. Here are some answers. 1) It is not clear to me what meterial you are looking for sources for. The mythology is straight forward and is covered by most mythology books and numerous articles in Wikipedia. What do you mean there?Dave 06:08, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I changed the name of the section to "Mycenae in mythology"

OK. That was implied by the first sentence and the rest of the article but I have no objection to making it explicit for the public.Dave 06:08, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

and removed the following text:

The memory of the power of Mycenae lingered in the minds of the Greeks through the subsequent centuries, commonly known as the Dark Age. The epic poems attributed by the later Greeks to Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey, preserve memories of the Myceanean period. Homer's poems make Agamemnon, King of Mycenae, the leader of the Greeks in the Trojan War.

Why did you remove this? Are you saying they don't preserve memories of the Mycenaean world, that the whole thing was made up, that Homer just happened to invent another Mycenae and there is no connection? No, the way it is written reflects the current knowledge of the field; moreover, the ideas are plainly stated not only in the sources I gave you but in all the other sources that write at that level as well. In this session I just gave you a few more. These are some of the most famous texts in the field. I can give you 15 more just from the books on my shelf. Your questioning this view amounts to an original hypothesis. I'm just giving you the standard views and moreover I don't know why you continue to ask for references when I have given them. Have you read those books? Also I want to address another point. Noted scholars such as Chadwick might question how closely the data of Linear B matches Homer but they don't mean what you mean, that these scholars believe there was no connection and Homer was not based on memories of Mycenae, but was devised de novo. I just looked at your user page. I note you are Greek but not a classicist. My suggestion is you look at the sites maintained by the Greek government on the subject and tell me what you think then.

References to Mycenae and persons associated with it span nearly all of Greek literature, which is good evidence of an inherited tradition. Modern schools of thought consider these legendary persons as to some degree historical. Future documentary evidence will help to clarify the degree to which they are.

Well Achilleus there is nothing at all wrong with this paragraph. Check the references.Dave 06:08, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

In addition to citing no sources, this text doesn't reflect academic consensus: the historical reliability of Homer and other poetic/mythological material is highly disputed (Csernica cited Chadwick and Vermeule above to this effect). I seriously doubt there are many scholars who think that the myths of the house of Atreus indicate there was a historical Atreus who ruled Mycenae in the BA. --Akhilleus (talk) 23:30, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Why do you continue to say there are no sources? What there are no sources on is your unusual point of view, certainly not based on any knowledge of the field. I question that you know much of anything at all about academic consensus in this field. Now let me ask you for sources. Give me one noted scholar, just one, that takes your point of view.

The historical reliability, etc. You put words in my mouth based on your own lack of knowledge. I never claimed any proven historicity for the myths. That is the objective of research, to find out how historical they are. Now, you need to understand something. When the scholars question the "historicity" of Homer they are talking about the events and the stories and not about the detail of the artifacts and most of the places. There are works that go through and show how the Homeric epithets describe the locations of the places very well, such as "the high towers of Ilium", "windy Troy" and hundreds of others, and nobody at all questions those. A scholar cognizant of the field knows what he can question and what not, so when he says he questions, he does not mean what you do, there there is no connection. There is no one at all who says Homer does not in any way reflect Mycenaean times. I didn't explain all that because it isn't necessary.Dave 06:08, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

You don't like Vermeulle? Too bad, my friend. She was a noted scholar and still is and her book was and is a standard text known for its sensible and non-partisan conclusions. Who are you and who is the other person to question her? Well, anyone has the right to question anyone in a free society, but in this case neither of you look very knowledgable doing it. Well, I just gave you 5 more reference and if necessary can give 5 more after that that say the same thing. Excuse me, I'm trying to not to be too vehement. I would say this. Speaking modern Greek does not make you a Greek or classics scholar.

OK, here is what I will do. Those paragraphs you removed are transitional to modern times. As far as I can see you have not touched the data of the period itself. I am going to give you two options. 1) Put the paragraphs back in either as they are or in modified form according to your perception. 2) Put a substitute in stating what YOU think is the academic perception and make sure you cite some scholars there. If you put something in without references I am going to ask for references, unless I see that it is a view espoused by some in classics. You ought to put references in anyway. The article is fairly long and those paragraphs are not essential, but there should be some transition. If you do not respond I am going to put the stuff you excised back in or some shorter version thereof.

Meanwhile, stop saying I give you no references. Stop maligning the major scholars in the field when you obviously have no credentials in it yourself. Stop asserting what the consensus view is without references, as there is a serious credibility gap about whether you would know at all what the main academic views are. My suggestion also would be to change your user name, since you think Achilles was a figment of someone's imagination, but that is only a suggestion. Stop asserting that because you may have a crony on here the two of you asserting tha same thing gives it any authority. Start giving counter-references for me to check. Start giveing me valid arguments.

I generally don't follow conflicts down as I am not in this to carry on conflicts. Time settles most conflicts. Either an administrator will settle it or you will find yourself battling an endless war against newcomers and the article will degenerate until they start begging for an expert to straighten it out. The article on the Military history of Ancient Rome is in that category, or was last time I checked. Eventually the public will be be served but it might take months. My bottom line is, if you don't start coming up with substance and continue to protest without reason I will just abandon the article to you and you to the wolves. Eventually I know truth will prevail.Dave 06:08, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate that you have added some works in the "References" section, which provide some very useful things to look at. However, when I say that the removed text doesn't give references, I'm looking for specific citations that support the assertions made by the text. This is standard WP practice; see WP:CITE for the sort of thing I'm talking about. For an article that has ample citations, see Joan of Arc, which has a footnote or two every paragraph. So, if the paragraphs I removed to this talk page are based on secondary sources, simply stick in some footnotes to the specific page(s) of the secondary works that support the text, and put them back in the article.

One starting point might be the sentence: "Modern schools of thought consider these legendary persons as to some degree historical." Well, which modern schools of thought? What specific scholars? Which works? What specific page(s) of those books? Put that in a footnote, and the text goes back in the article. (Although then we will probably argue about various scholarly approaches to the historical reliability of myth, but it would be better to do so based on actual sources, rather than half-remembered impressions of stuff we read somewhere once.)

In removing these paragraphs I have followed the policy laid out in WP:V, which states "Any edit lacking a source may be removed, but some editors may object if you remove material without giving people a chance to provide references. If you want to request a source for an unsourced statement, a good idea is to move it to the talk page."

Also, I think you have misunderstood my comments: I agree with Csernica's citation of Chadwick and Vermeule. Chadwick believes that Homer isn't a reliable historical source, and Vermeule express doubt that the myths provide accurate details of Bronze Age history. I'm not disresprecting Chadwick or Vermeule at all; I haven't read much Vermeule, but I think Chadwick's work was pathbreaking and ahead of its time.

Finally, please try not to cast personal attacks in my direction. You haven't interpreted my user page properly: it simply says that I'm some guy who likes contributing to pages related to classical antiquity. It doesn't say whether I'm Greek, Indonesian, or Incan, and that's on purpose. If you examine my edit history, you could perhaps conclude that I read ancient Greek and have scholarly training, and try to provide references to secondary sources where possible. But that doesn't really matter; what matters is what reliable sources say. And if you want material to appear in the article, it is your responsibility to provide sources that support your edits. --Akhilleus (talk) 06:48, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

In the spirit of providing reliable sources, I'll quote John Bennet, "Homer and the Bronze Age," in Ian Morris and Barry Powell, eds., A New Companion to Homer (E.J. Brill, 1996), p. 513: "the substantial differences between the world of Homer's epics and that of the Late Bronze Age have become clear, while the similarities with the Iron Age have become more obvious. Indeed, the very implausibility of the idea that Homer could ever have embodied a 'real' picture of the Bronze Age has been thrown into sharper focus. Perhaps 450-500 years separate Homer's time (c. 800-700 B.C.) from that of the latest palatial phase of the Bronze Age palaces of Mycenae, Tiryns, Pylos, Athens and Thebes (c. 1200 B.C.), a minimum of twelve generations, perhaps as many as eighteen. Accurate memories of life in the Bronze Age would have to have been handed down intact throughout this period, without the aid of writing, and in a period--as most agree--of great social upheaval and movement." --Akhilleus (talk) 07:04, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

And to quote from the very book by Vermeule (note spelling) cited in the references section, the concluding paragraph from page 312: "Homer and Hesiod suffered relatively little change after their death because their poems were written down. Before that, the material they used had been subjected to four or five hundred years of creative change. Since 1100 B.C. at the very latest no one had seen a live Mycenaean or knew what he ate or wore, how he lived or sang. Occasionally the accidental discovery of a tomb gave impetus to myths about the past; sometimes traditions were kept alive in families. But whatever the Greeks knew about their own Bronze Age past was surely very different from past reality." The entire section from p. 309 on is worth reading, as are the various mentions throughout about how the archaeology differs from the poetry. Sure, she uses Homeric names freely throughout her text as "talking points", but you can't read her in context and come away with the impression that she takes Homer seriously as history. M. I. Finley does the same thing explicitly in his The World of Odysseus p. 50 (1956 Revised edition, ISBN 0140205705) "It is convenience, finally, rather than license, that suggests retention of the ten-year war, and of Achilles and Hector and Odysseus and all the other famous names, as useful labels for unknown King X and Chieftan Y." This is at the conclusion of a chapter where he explains how we can know virtually nothing of the Bronze Age from Homer, and that the society he's describing (but not the history) is most likely that of the 10th and 9th centuries B.C., which is therefore the subject of the book.

Anyway, I think Dave is reading too much into all this. No one is saying that there's nothing in Homer that might have some bearing on real history. (Although in point of fact Mycenae could not have been forgotten since the area around the citadel was inhabited, and called by the same name, up until the Classical era. Most of the Bronze Age sites existed in some form at that time.) The point is that we can't rely on Homer for history; he gives us nothing that's directly useful. It must all be verified, and we most frequently find that he was in error. After centuries of oral transmission, it would be surprising if he was not. I think this is view is well-supported by the sources at hand. TCC (talk) (contribs) 07:44, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Csernica; I certainly wouldn't say that Greek mythology was created out of nothing in the 8th century. To focus just on Homer for a second, most scholars would agree that Greek epic poetry has a long history of development that reaches before the Bronze Age, as shown by formulas that exist both in Homeric and Indic epic--a common inheritance from an Indo-European tradition of epic song. So sure, Homer might have something to tell us about the Bronze Age--but the poems are not straightforward records of historical events. Neither is mythology. And this is basically the problem with the mythology sections as it appeared in the article, especially the removed text--the article seemed to claim that mythology told us about historical individuals named Pelops, Atreus, and Agamemnon whom we can identify as the actual rulers of Mycenae. That's too simplistic, and it's not supported by scholarship. --Akhilleus (talk) 13:42, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Hercules and Early Bronze Age

I commented out this remark. It does not correspond to the excellent article on Hercules and is totally unsupported. As it seems like someone's offhand opinion, I didn't see any point in the templates at this point. When I did this article I didn't use footnotes. If ther ereally is an issue here, I suggest putting a footnote section in.Dave 14:19, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

The tj-n3-jj of the deep blue sea

I had Danaja in there which is what most sources have. Most of us are not Egyptologists so we have no idea what tj-n3-jj might actually be. How is that pronounced anyway? Can we not make a few concessions to the general reading public and restore the way it is pronounced, putting the Romanized hieroglyphic in a footnote or in parentheses?Dave 03:58, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Additional development. I found a chapter of a book on the Internet that discusses the statue base extensively. While the discussion is somewhat beyond the scope of this article, it does transcribe "Tinay", in which Tin plausibly has something to do with Dan. The name of the Danaans of course is a rather large topic in its own right and one which is ongoing, as I see from the media that there is a hypothesis concerning the emigration of some of the followers of Moses into the Mycenaean world. I'm in no position to evaluate that topic. All this might be the content of one or more interesting articles, but not, as I see it, this one. So as I have as yet not received any response to the request for pronounciation I am going to put in Tinay and cite the article on-line as a source. It's a pretty substantial article and I don't have to agree with everything in it to use some of its material. I still invite someone who knows more about it than I (I am sure there are many of you out there) to correct it if it is wrong.Dave 18:36, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism

This page appears to have been extensively vandalised. I will have a go at cleaning up the blatant profanities tomorrow at work if I get the time, unless someone beats me to it.

S.Keroro

Sergeant.keroro 22:51, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Don't worry about it. Fixing vandalism is actually pretty easy if there have been no intervening good edits. You simply revert the page. See Help:Reverting TCC (talk) (contribs) 23:35, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

too much unsupported conjecture

This article is too big to have only six references and to have many sections and paragraphs starting with the words "it is believed". The article needs to be pared down to the facts with conjecture cut out. The direction of the article needs to be confirmed. Is it about the archaeological site (as protected by UNESCO)? About the historic city state? About the civilisation? About the mythology of the Atreids? At the moment it is a misleading and wandering collection of unsupported and often unconnected texts. I will try to do something about it but this something may involve cutting large sections of text out. --5telios 07:44, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

I fully agree- it reads like a brochure on the archaeological aspects of Mycenae and sprinkled with some history. I have my own project that I'm working on, but I have marked several articles that badly need revising. If you removed large chunks and reordered the mess I wouldn't mind at all. Monsieurdl 11:58, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

I have read up a little on what links here - it seems to be 1) other UNESCO sites, 2) articles about BA Mycenae, 3) articles about historical Mycenae and 4) articles about mythology. Would anyone be upset if there was a lot of cutting of text (and moving it to talk, of course)? --5telios 14:43, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Is a section on religion relevant in an article about a) an archaeological site or b) a city state? Possibly, but surely this could be calved off to a Mycenaean Religion article... --5telios 08:42, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

"Fungitecture™" [sic]

The following external link has been inserted here and at various other articles: www.fungitecture.com A sense of what's up with this ican be had from the following introductory statement: "The term Fungitecture was coined to describe the peculiar resemblance between certain ancient styles of monumental architecture and the fruit of one or other species of fungus. However, Fungitecture also serves as an umbrella term covering a much wider field of human endeavour, wherever fungus imagery, lore or substance may have been invoked." There are no references to any responsible peer-reviewed literature, needless to say. This does not show Wikipedia in a flattering light, in my opinion.--Wetman (talk) 01:54, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Wetman's incompetent reference to link corrected. O8TY (talk) 14:29, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

The name "Fungitecture" is a trademark and must be recognised as such. O8TY (talk) 10:07, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

See also response here. [O8TY:Talk] O8TY (talk) 05:28, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Citadel facts and figures

Is there a source for the new material in "Citadel facts and figures"? For example, Time to move 1 Block using men: 2.125 days Time to move all Blocks using men: 110.52 years could be original research. --Old Moonraker (talk) 06:20, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes "The Seventy Wonders of the Ancient World" edited by Chris scarre 1999 It was marked 5 when I just checked it.

Zacherystaylor (talk) 06:52, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

So it was—sorry. I missed it because of the <BR> formatting, which made it look as if it referred to a separate paragraph. --Old Moonraker (talk) 08:37, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Information on Grave Circle B

Is currently incorrect. There were 24 graves found in GCB according to the official site report by George Mylonas, the archaeologist. 14 of these graves were shaft graves, while the remaining ten were cist graves. Here is the site plan map for GCB for reference, the graves are marked with Greek letters. http://www.ou.edu/finearts/art/ahi4913/aegeanslides/132-2.gif. The label C is the so-called Tomb of Clytemnestra.

Cut text and ref from image of lion gate

I have cut the following from the image of the lions:

that represents a god or goddess.<ref>"A frequent design on engraved Cretan gems is of the type made famous by the Lion Gate at Mycenae, a single upright pillar, flanked by a pair of guardian animals. Sometimes the same arrangement is preserved, but the the anthropomorphic figure of a god or goddess takes the place of a pillar" W.K.C. Guthrie, in ''The Cambridge Ancient History'' (1975) vol. I, part ii, p. 864 (and illustrations from Nilsson).</ref>

I do not know of any authority claiming that the pillar represents a god or goddess. The ref above quite clearly states that sometimes a god or goddess is placed in the position taken by the pillar, not that a pillar takes the position of a god or goddess as would be required for the cut text to be valid. I have corrected this misunderstanding wherever the same image is used (and has text saying that the pillar represents a deity). --5telios (talk) 15:51, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

When the deity is substituted for the aniconic pillar on other occasions, at other Aegean sites, the rest of us are quite sure that a pillar supported in the identical way stands in for a god or goddess: "pillar deity" may be a new phrase to 5telios, who has not actually added any information to this article. The citation of CAH had been inserted in a footnote precisely to make the statement fool-proof, after 5telios blanked the statement previously, 06:44, 13 October 2008. The repeated deletion, which shows that thoughtless but surely well-intentioned blanking can have the same effect as vandalism, has been restored. Thoughtful editors are even more careful of what they remove as what they add.--Wetman (talk) 20:33, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Thoughtfulness obviously does not extend to the avoidance of ad hominem. If a deity is flanked by lions in iconography, it does not follow that a pillar flanked by lions is a representation of a deity. The reference I removed clearly states "the anthropomorphic figure of a god or goddess takes the place of a pillar". I will consider that you have supported your argument when you have presented a text that the pillar represents a deity. By deity I understand an anthropomorphic god or goddess. I will not revert the article as you are too ready to throw wikipedia guidelines at me and would probably enjoy doing so. However, the correct thing to do would be to support your claim, rather than rely on a reference which uses all the words of your claim but in the wrong order. --5telios (talk) 22:39, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

That the pillar has sacred connotations is such a commonplace, I find it even on-line at this Southern Illinois University site "The Lion Gate at Mycenae". "At Mycenae it is the central column that seems to be the guardian, though though it is also guarded in its turn", writes Joseph Rykwert, (The Dancing Column: On Order in Architecture, MIT Press, 1996 p. 151ff); "the triple theme is sometimes varied to show a human figure, usually male, imposing its will on two beasts, bulls or lions." The Minoan seals show that "usually male" is not strictly right, and his "heraldic" applied to the Mycenaean lions is a strained attempt to divorce them from sacred connotations, as his theme is the architecture of post and lintel. Hera represented as a tree-pillar is examined by Joan V. O'Brien, The Transformation of Hera, (1993) ch. 5 "Hera Argeia". I recommend, to one proceeding from a standing start, Arthur J. Evans, "Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Cult and Its Mediterranean Relations" The Journal of Hellenic Studies 21 (1901), pp. 99-204 (available through JSTOR), with the usual reservations.--Wetman (talk) 06:29, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I am not proceeding from a standing start. I am familiar with the representations of pillars in depictions of shrines and the pillar crypts of the Minoan palaces themselves. This is why I have a problem with the statement that the pillar represents a deity. In the pillar crypts and the representations of tripartite shrines the pillar takes the place of a stalagmite / stalactite as worshiped in the cave cults that preceded them. A rather good introduction, better perhaps than Southern Illinois and actually cited by the Southern Illinois page is Rutter's website on Aegean Archaeology: http://projectsx.dartmouth.edu/classics/history/bronze_age/lessons/les/15.html#7, where he states:

The column or baetyl may therefore symbolize a deity or be a symbol for the palace of the king (as is often argued for the column in the Lion Gate relief) or for the shrine of a divinity. In this connection, the flanking animals are considered to be "protectors", appropriately enough in that they are usually lions or griffins.

So while in general agreeing with the text in Guthrie, he clearly says that in the case of the lion gate the pillar symbolises the palace itself (not a divine being) and it does this by recalling it architecturally. I am unfamiliar with the O'Brien citation you give, but I am wary to extrapolate first millennium ideas back into the prehistoric second millennium. Similarly, a study on architectural subjects will not be the best support for a religious interpretation of an iconographic scene - as you yourself admit. Rutter gives a good bibliography at http://projectsx.dartmouth.edu/classics/history/bronze_age/lessons/bib/15bib.html . The subject is not a simple one, not least because we have no translated written texts from the cultures which are responsible for the iconography. When I have had a chance to read up on the bibliography and I can get citations out of it, I will come back.

Until then I will continue working on improving some subjects about which I am knowledgeable. I do not appreciate being called a fool and having my intentions questioned when the kooks are running rampant through the bronze age. --5telios (talk) 10:06, 11 June 2009 (UTC)