User:UndercoverClassicist/Mycenaean religion
Mycenaean religion
Beliefs
[edit]There is very little evidence for the earliest phases of Mycenaean religion; almost no material can be securely connected to religious practices earlier than the Late Bronze Age.[1]
Practices
[edit]Places of worship
[edit]
Mycenaean religious sites existed both within and outside palatial centres; some included buildings, while others did not.[2] They are generally identified by the presence of Mycenaean figurines, including humanoid and animal-shaped terracotta figures; other cultic objects, such as tripods and rhyta; objects likely to have been left as offerings, such as valuable or exotic artefacts; eating and drinking vessels; and burnt animal bones likely to be connected with sacrifice.[3] Broadly, Mycenaean religious sites divide into the central hearth-rooms (megara) of palaces, shrine buildings, and open-air sites, though other categories, such as peak sanctuaries and cave-based cults, have also been proposed.[4]
Cult buildings are known from the citadels of Mycenae and Tiryns, and from non-palatial settlements such as Ayios Konstantinos on the Methana Peninsula in the Peloponnese, Phylakopi on Melos and Agia Eirini, Kea on Kea.[5]
Vassilis Lambrinoudakis has argued that the Mycenaean remains near the later Sanctuary of Apollo Maleatas at Epidaurus in the Argolid represent a peak sanctuary, while Klaus Kilian has speculated that finds in the cave of Ayios Ilias near Tiryns could have been part of cultic practice.[4]
Most cult buildings are relatively unelaborate; they have various architectural plans, are usually accessed indirectly, and often include a platform in the centre or against the back wall, which may have functioned as an altar.[6]
Ritual activity is believed to have taken place in the central hall (megaron) of a Mycenaean palace, probably focused on the central hearth and conducted by the ruler or those closely connected to them.[2] However, secure evidence of such cultic practice in surviving megara has yet to materialise.[7] Analysis in the twenty-first century of finds from the LH IIIB House M on the citadel of Mycenae, excavated by Christos Tsountas in the late nineteenth century and by George Mylonas in 1962–1964, furnished evidence (including figurines, libation-vessels and valuable objects, possibly left as votives) that this structure may also have been used for religious practices.[8]
Priests
[edit]Footnotes
[edit]Explanatory notes
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Wright 1994, p. 38.
- ^ a b Pierattini 2022, p. 26.
- ^ Pierattini 2022, pp. 26–27.
- ^ a b Wright 1994, p. 37.
- ^ Schofield 2007, pp. 146, 158.
- ^ Pierattini 2022, p. 27.
- ^ French 2013, p. 133; Pliatsika 2015, p. 597.
- ^ Pliatsika 2015, pp. 598, 605–607.
Bibliography
[edit]- French, Elizabeth (2013) [2002]. Mycenae: Agamemnon's Capital. Stroud: The History Press. ISBN 978-0-7524-1951-0.
- Pierattini, Alessandro (2022). The Origins of Greek Temple Architecture. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781108583046. ISBN 978-1-108-60297-6.
- Pliatsika, Vassiliki (2015). "Tales of the Unexpected: Identifying Cult Practice in the House M Quarter of the Mycenae Citadel". In Schallin, Ann-Louise; Tournavitou, Iphiyenia (eds.). Mycenaeans up to Date: The Archaeology of the North-Eastern Peloponnese – Current Concepts and New Directions. Stockholm: Swedish Institute at Athens. pp. 597–612. ISBN 978-91-7916-063-0.
- Schofield, Louise (2007). The Mycenaeans. New York: J. Paul Getty Museum. ISBN 978-0-89236-867-9.
- Wright, James C. (1994). "The Spatial Configuration of Belief: The Archaeology of Mycenaean Religion". In Alcock, Susan E.; Osborne, Robin (eds.). Placing the Gods: Sanctuaries and Sacred Space in Ancient Greece. Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 37–78. ISBN 978-0-19-814947-7.