greekgeek
Mycenaean Fresco
© 2005 E. Brundige
Mycenae Museum
Illustration for Ancient Greece Odyssey: Part V
Fragmentary fresco from the temple area of the citadel of Mycenae, destroyed around the 13th century BCE.
I'm very intrigued by this fresco. It's in a building next to what seems to be the temple or shrine for the citadel of Mycenae (the home of King Agammemnon, legendary leader of the Greeks fighting at Troy). Mylonos, the excavator, guesses it might be the home of the high priest.
The main thing I notice is that it's using the colors and many stylistic details from Minoan art (the Mycenaeans conquered the Minoans). Some of these details include the tapered columns, women depicted in white and men in red, the "horns of consecration" along the eaves of buildings (those are the U-shaped decorations), and the rightmost female figure wearing a flounced skirt like Minoan ladies -- although Mycenaean women tend to cover their breasts. Other details, like the fringed skirt or cloak of the woman facing her, are more Mycenaean, appear in other early Greek art.
Who are these people?
Is the female figure on the lower lefthand wall a worshipper or priestess? Is she holding up stylized ears of grain, or feathers -- could this be the "priestess of the winds" listed in Mycenaean inscriptions on the island of Crete? The size of the two female figures on the other wall suggests they are goddesses, and the tiny figures between them male worshippers. It appears that one goddess holds a sword point-downward, the other a staff (or spear). I wish we'd turn up some cache of writings explaining them -- "Demeter of the golden sword" shows up in a Homeric Hymn about half a millennium later, and a famous spear-wielding goddess became patron of Athens in the classical period, but that's so much later that it may be coincidence.
Mycenaean Fresco
© 2005 E. Brundige
Mycenae Museum
Illustration for Ancient Greece Odyssey: Part V
Fragmentary fresco from the temple area of the citadel of Mycenae, destroyed around the 13th century BCE.
I'm very intrigued by this fresco. It's in a building next to what seems to be the temple or shrine for the citadel of Mycenae (the home of King Agammemnon, legendary leader of the Greeks fighting at Troy). Mylonos, the excavator, guesses it might be the home of the high priest.
The main thing I notice is that it's using the colors and many stylistic details from Minoan art (the Mycenaeans conquered the Minoans). Some of these details include the tapered columns, women depicted in white and men in red, the "horns of consecration" along the eaves of buildings (those are the U-shaped decorations), and the rightmost female figure wearing a flounced skirt like Minoan ladies -- although Mycenaean women tend to cover their breasts. Other details, like the fringed skirt or cloak of the woman facing her, are more Mycenaean, appear in other early Greek art.
Who are these people?
Is the female figure on the lower lefthand wall a worshipper or priestess? Is she holding up stylized ears of grain, or feathers -- could this be the "priestess of the winds" listed in Mycenaean inscriptions on the island of Crete? The size of the two female figures on the other wall suggests they are goddesses, and the tiny figures between them male worshippers. It appears that one goddess holds a sword point-downward, the other a staff (or spear). I wish we'd turn up some cache of writings explaining them -- "Demeter of the golden sword" shows up in a Homeric Hymn about half a millennium later, and a famous spear-wielding goddess became patron of Athens in the classical period, but that's so much later that it may be coincidence.