, I

THE SECOND LATE HELLADIC PERIOD

by CLARK HOPKINS

When in 1956 Ventris successfully deciphered the Pylos tablets and showed that the Linear B script was Greek, the accepted roles of Greece and Knossos in the fifteenth century B.C. had been completely reversed. Sir Arthur Evans, publishing the fourth volume of his monumental Palace of Minos in 1935, had pointed to the Throne Room (fig. 1) as the culminating element in the palace, a symbol of the supreme rule of KnOSs.os in the Second Late Minoan Period.1 The Throne Room complex on the west side of the court marked a 'revolutionary intrusion' of new elements in this section of the old palace. It was, he declared, especially designed to meet the needs of the ceremonial functions of the Priest Kings, and signalized the full establishment of the authority of the new dynasty.2

The frescoes of the Throne Room were found preserved to within centimeters of the soil surface when Sir Arthur Evans excavated them. The clay tablets in Linear B script were baked in the conflagration which destroyed the palace. The final stages of Knossian ceramic art were distinguished on large amphoras and short-stemmed Ephyraean goblets by the Palace Style (fig. 2), a formalized representation of plants or straightforward abstract designs; a style which seems to be echoed in the frescoes of the Throne Room itself. At the end of the Second Late Minoan Period, the curtain came down on the last great days of Crete.

This view of Cretan supremacy is supported by the great Greek historian Thucydides, who records it unequivocally as an historical fact. Summarizing the early history, he states (I, 4): «The first person known to us by tradition as having established a navy is Minos. He made himself master of what is now called the Hellenic sea, and ruled over the Cyclades, into most of which

1 P of M N 2, 1935, 901-2. 2 Ibid. 902. For the place of Ephyraean goblets in the LM II/LH II Periods see

A.J.B. Wace, RSA 51, 1956, 123-128.

The Second Late HeUadic Period 59

he sent the first colonies, expelling the Carians and appointing his own sons governors; and thus did his best to put down piracy in those waters, a neces­sary step to secure the revenues for his own use.» Such was the situation in the Aegean before the rise of Greece.

The beginning of the Late Minoan Period Evans equated with the beginning of the great eighteenth dynasty in Egypt about 1580 B.C. This was the time when commercial relations with Egypt became closer, and the Egyptian evidence provides the basis for Cretan chronology. At the same time, that is the beginning of the Late Minoan Period, the advanced culture of Crete manifests itself in Greece and marks the beginning of the First Late Helladic Period. The dawn of the Second Late Minoan Period, Sir Arthur placed at 1500 B.c. The destruction of the palace at Knossos occurred about 1400 B.C. and was contemporary with the rise of the great power in Greece, symbolized by the Lion's Gate at Mycenae. This great period in Crete estab­lished not only a control of the sea but also supremacy over Greece, a hegemony recalled in the tribute of Athenian youths and maidens exacted every ninth year by Minos for the Minotaur. A strange feature in Crete was the absence of the Palace Style vases and the Linear B tablets in palaces outside of Knossos, namely Phais.tos and Aghia Triadha. Evans explained this by asserting the supremacy of Knossos in this period. Not only did Minos control the sea, but he exerted a monopoly in Crete, no longer brookirig the rivalry of other princes and potentates. .

Pendlebury, publishing his short survey of the archaeological history of Crete in 1939\ followed in general the broad lines of archaeological history mapped out by Sir Arthur Evans. An excellent s.cholar, thoroughly versed in Cretan archaeology, assistant and successor to Sir Arthur Evans at Knossos, and especially interested in Cretan connections with Egypt, Pendlebury was able to define a little more closely the dates of the First and Second Late Minoan Periods in Crete. Automatically, from this Cretan point of view, the dates of the First and Second Late Helladic Periods in Greece were more precisely determined.

In Crete itself, Pendlebury found that all the palaces had been destroyed at the same time. This meant that the end of the Second Late Minoan Period at Knossos was equated with the end of the First Late Minoan Period, that is LM Ib, elsewhere on the island. «The catastrophe which overtook the Cretan cities at the end of LM Ib (or LM II at Knossos), » he declares,4 «was practically universal, Knossos, Phaistos, Aghia Triadha, Gournia, Mocklos, Mallia and Zakros all show traces of violent destruction accompanied by burning. At Palaikastro, Pseira, Nirou Khani, Tylissos and Plate, there is a distinct break in the habitation, though no trace of burning was found. »

3 ].D.S. Pendlebury, The Archaeology of Crete, an Introduction, London, 1939. 4 Pendlebury, op. cit., 228.

60 Clark Hoplcins

The crucial date for the destruction was supplied by a circular seal of Queen Tiy, wife of Amenhotep III found in a chamber tomb at Aghia Triadha with LM Ib pottery. This was the last dateable object to be found in a stratum before the final catastrophe,s and the earliest dateable object found with the Third Late Helladic pottery was a scarab of the same queen. Pendle­bury, therefore, is convinced that the destruction of the Minoan cities « took place in the reign of Amenhotep Ill, i.e. between 1414 and 1378 B.C. »6

If, however, all the palaces were destroyed at one and the same time, what was the cause of the catastrophe? Everything points, Pendlebury believes/ to a deliberate sacking on the part of enemies of the most powerful cities in Crete. It must have been a highly organized expedition with the aim not to colonize but destroy completely the political power, that is the monopoly of trade in the Agean area. There is no whisper, however, of any such overthrow in the Greek tradition.

One difficulty to this theory of Knossian dominance in the Second Late Minoan and Helladic periods, of which Pendlebury was acutely aware, was that all the vases found in Egypt belonging to the Second Late Minoanj Helladic periods were of mainland rather than Cretan origin. Be had an explanation and supported his claim for Minoan supremacy with the legend of Theseus, who did not overthrow Minos, but merely who did not overthrow Minos, but merely freed the Athenians from the Cretan power.

«One of the reasons no doubt,» he states,S «for the presence of Mainland rather than Minoan vases [in Egyptian tombs] is due to the fact that these squat alabastra were ideal shapes for travelling. The lordly vases of LM II were too big and clumsy to be transported, and were not of a shape which would hold anything safely at sea. Something, too, might be said for the nice taste of the Egyptians. »

«But since LH I,» he sums up succintly,9 «seems to be absolutely parallel of LM la; and LH II to LMlb and LM II these vases are equally good evidence for dating purposes. We can safely, then, take LM la as ending about the date of the accession of Thothmoses IIl, i.e. circa 1510 B.C. and LM Ib as lasting at Knossos till about 1450, and in the rest of the island continuing parallel with LM II until the final disaster which occurred prob­ably in the earlier years of the reign of Amenhotep Ill, say between 1410 and 1405 B.c. »

5 Pendlebury, op. cit., 222. 6 Pendlebury, op. cit., 222. 7 Pendlebury, op. cit., 229. 8 Pendlebury, op. cit., 224. 9 Pendlebury,' op. cit., 224.

The Second Late Hell:adic Period 61

Since Knossos was the only place in Crete in which the Second Late Minoan features occur, the extent of the period becomes one of fifty years or less and it is confined to the last half of the fifteenth century.

Opponents of this view of Cretan supremacy, were the two outstanding archaeologists of prehistoric Greece, A.J.B. Wace and C.W. Blegen, who in 1939 published a joint article in the German periodical Klio.10 They pointed to the great spread 11 of Mycenaean influence down the coast of Syria and Palestine to Egypt during and after the Amarna period, that is the second quarter of the 14th century; and suggested that the Mainland was also in touch with those regions before 1400 B.C. In the opinion of Wace and Blegen the Palace Style of the Second Late Minoan Period originated in Greece. The conclusion, therefore, that Crete dominated the Mainland in the Second Late Minoan Period should be given Up.12 It was true that about 1600 B.c., at the beginning of the First Late Minoan Period, Greece was strongly influenced by Crete, and this influence lasted through the First and Second Late Helladic Periods, but with the downfall of Crete about 1400 B.c. the Mainland elements came to the front and the Late Helladic IIl, the so-called Mycenaean style resulted.

Wace had already called attention to the non-Cretan character of the tholos tombs, of which he had published a special study in 1923.13 He points out 14 that the Mycenaean tholoi in Greece were not related to the early tholoi in southern Crete, and that the royal tomb at Isopata near Knossos is rect­angular in plan rather than round. As there are no beehive tombs in Middle Helladic Greece, Wace suspected the origins might be found in Asia Minor, though the appropriate antecedents have not yet been discovered.

Since the tholoi at Mycenae were employed for royal burials, not to mention those at Vaphio, Dendra and Orchomenos such a change at Mycenae should be a significant one. Wace's study showed the first tholos tombs at Mycenae reached back into the First Late Helladic Period. The last of his first group and those of the second group, including the Vaphio tomb and the tomb at Dendra, belonged to the Second Late Helladic Period and the third group starting with the so-called Treasury of Atreus belonged to Late Helladic Ill.

The next step in the reversal of roles between Greece and Crete was provided by Helene Kantor whose long article in the American Journal of Archaeology in 1947 showed quite conclusively not only that the chief com­merce in the Aegean area in the 15th century was not Cretan but Mainland;

10 A.J.B. Wace and C.W. Blegen, « Pottery as Evidence for Trade and Colonization in the Aegean Bronze Age,» Klio, 14, 1939, 131-147.

11 Ibid., 136-7. 12 Ibid., 140. 13 A.J.B. Wace, « The Tholos Tombs, » BSA 25, 1921-23, 283-295. 14 Wace. op. cit., 395.

62 Clark Hopkins

but also that ev~dence for Cretan commerce not to speak of extensive Cretan commerce did not exist. IS Her very extensive and detailed study of pottery and designs made it clear 16 that Pendlebury's explanation for the sudden destruction of Cretan Palaces in order to break an economic blockade no longer held good. «The aging Minoan culture,» she says, «had already lost the control over the seas to the waxing states of the mainland before the end of LM Ib/I!.» She concludes,I7 «Crete may have exerted some influence upon the cultures of Western Asia in the 19th and 18th centuries B.c., notwithstanding our inability to demonstrate its existence with cer­tainty. In the latter part of the Second Millennium B.c., however, [and this starts with the very beginning of the Second Late Minoan/Period] Western Asia fails to display tokens of either Cretan traders or of refugees who may have fled from the catastrophe closing the LM I! Period... After the close of the MM I! Period, and throughout the latter part of the Second Millennium, only the sailors, merchants and craftsmen of Mycenaean Greece can justifiably lay claim to the honor of forming the links connecting the Aegean with the Orient. »

The discovery of Ventris in 1956 was, therefore, the last link in the chain of evidence which disclosed Greece as an independent and reigning power in the Aegean during the Second Late Helladic Period; and it was the extension of Greek authority to Knossos which brought about the construction of the Throne Room, the writing of the Linear B tablets and the introduction of the Palace Style in Knossos.

These revolutionary intrusions, as Sir Arthur Evans called them in Knossos, have far reaching implications for the Second Late Helladic Period in Greece. If the Throne Room was built by Greeks, and the Palace Style in pottery as well as the Linear B writing came from Greece, then their development lay in the Mainland and the distinctive characteristics of the period must be earlier in Greece than in Knossos. Futhermore, if the Second Late Minoan Period stopped suddenly in Knossos with the burning of the palace, the Second Late Helladic Period in Greece had no such catastrophe at that moment and there was no reason for a sudden demise in Greece when Knossos perished. The Second Late Helladic Period would, therefore, begin earlier and last longer than its counterpart, the Second Late Minoan Period in Crete.

Equally interesting is the probability that in the Second Late Helladic Period, the whole feudal, martial way of life in Anatolia had already been transported into Greece. Homer records at Troy the massive walls, the heavy-armed warriors, the chariot-borne princes, the individual combat; and

IS AJA 51, 1947, 1-103. 16 Ibid., 54. 17 Ibid., 103.

The Second Late Helladic Period 63

in the Greek camp the semi- independent chieftains. Surely this social organiza­tion in Greece goes back to the first construction of the circuit walls at Mycenae in the 14th century. Wace believes that all the walls in Mycenae were constructed about the same time, that is the third quarter of the 14th century.lS Mylonas more justly, I believe, sees several periods in the walls, and places the earliest section, that is the Cyclopean wall on the north, about the middle of the fourteenth century B.c. (fig. 3) .19 Palace construction on a large scale belongs both at Mycenae and Tiryns to about the year 1330,20 but there is good reason to believe that this war-loving society went back well into the previous century.

The shaft graves at Mycenae, belonging to the Second Late Helladic Period contained some of the long Mycenaean swords; and the so-called Warrior Graves at Knossos belonging to the Second Late Minoan Period yielded long swords, spear heads, and the helmet of the Mycenaean warrior.21 The Linear B tablets in Knossos bear eloquent testimony to the use of both horses and chariots (fig. 4). The concentration of wealth is amply attested in both shaft and tholos graves.

Palmer 22 suggests that a Greek-speaking people established itself in the Trojan area at the beginning of the second millennium B.C. and that from this area the invasion of Greece was launched which brought the Middle Helladic culture and the Greek speech. One may say with some confidence, I believe, that in the first half of the second millennium Indo-European speaking tribes were coming down into the Greek and Italian peninsulas.23 Very probably communications across the northern Aegean were close. The Middle Helladics in Greece were, however, a long stage away from the Mycenaean society of feudal princes, concentrated wealth and chariot-borne warriors. It was a new and quite different wave of influence which brought the warrior prince and the fortified citadel to Greece in the Late Helladic Period.

The recognition of Greek supremacy in Knossos in the Second Late Helladic Period throws quite a different light on the interpretation of the arrangements in the Throne Room and its frescoes. In Knossos the Royal Seat, the stone throne still stands in the middle of the north wall, the wall on the right as one enters. (fig. 1). Since the room itself with lustral basin and entrance to an inner shrine seemed characteristically Cretan, the throne and the arrangement were considered Cretan also. When, in the later Mycenaean palaces, the throne or Royal Seat was discovered to be in the

18 A.J.B. Wace, Mycenae, an Archaeological History and Guide, Princeton, 1949, 50. 19 G.E. Mylonas, Mycenae and the Mycenaean Age, Princeton, 1966, 20. 20 Mylonas, op. cit., 236. 21 BSA 47, 1952, 263 H., and fig. 50,a,b,c.; 51, 1956, 69, and figs. 8e,£ and 14c. 22 L.R. palmer, Mycenaeans and Minoans, London 1961, 226-8. . 23 C. Hopkins, « The Mystery of Indo-European Expansion, » Henry Ford Hospital

Symposium, Blood Platelets, Boston, 1961, 463-474.

'I , .

64 Clark Hopkins

middle of the wall on the right as one enters, this arrangement was considered to be due to the Cretan influence.

There is, however, in the royal palaces at Mycenae, Tiryns, and Pylos a very striking conformity indeed. They all have the two-column porch, the megaron room with four columns and central hearth, and in all the Royal Seat is in the center of the wall on the right as one enters.24 One scarcely expects that all of Knossos became Greek, but since the new rulers with the warrior prince were indubitably Greek, it seems reasonable to suppose that the throne arrangement at Knossos was Greek also. This would be parti­cularly true if there were evidence for Mycenaean palaces of this type in the Second Late Helladic Period.

There is evidence for one palace belonging to the Second Late Helladic Period but unfortunately the plan has not been recovered. This is the palace at Thebes from which fragments of frescoes have been recovered and allocated by Rodenwaldt to the Second Late Helladic Period.25 To this same period he assigns the early palaces at Tiryns and Mycenae. The tombs outside Thebes contained some pottery of the Palace Style and the vases in the debris seemed to belong to the early Third Late Helladic Period. The great period in Thebes according to Greek tradition came of course two and three generations before the siege of Troy. The frescoes were still on the wall when the building was destroyed.26

There is, however, at Thebes a very special connection with the Throne Room at Knossos since in both frescoes the background is rendered by broad, wavy, horizontal, lines of color (fig. 5). This stylized treatment of the old Cretan rocky background is particularly striking at Knossos since it is due to a misunderstanding of the original purpose, the portrayal of a rocky land­scape. In Thebes it is used with a procession of women dressed in the elaborately flounced dresses of the Cretans. In neither case is a rocky background particularly appropriate.

In the Throne Room against the wavy lines of color the papyrus plants are stylized in the Palace Style TI but are separated one from another in a form resembling the early Third Late Minoan style when, as Mrs. Vermeule remarks, the plant forms were 'spaced out' and 'conventional.' 28

The bird-headed griffons on either side of the throne are, according to Mr. Popham, wingless.29 They should be winged since they flank the throne

24 C. Hopkins, «The Megaron of the Mycenaean Palace,» Studi Micenei ed Egeo-Anatolici, Pasc. 6, Rome 1968, 45-53.

25 G. Rodenwaldt, Tiryns II, Berlin, 1912, 201. 26 E. Vermeule, Greece in the Bronze Age, Chicago, 1964, 189-193. Zf Rodenwaldt, op. cit., 199 calls attention to the ',simplified, lifeless' character of

the representation. 28 AlA 67, 1963, 195. 29 AlA 68, 1964, 352-3. I had suggested the griffons might be winged: AlA 67,

1. The Throne Room, L.R . Palm er, Mycenaeans and Minoans, London, 1961, fig. 11.

I

2. The Palace Style, L.R. Palmer, Mycenaeans and Minoans, London, 1961 , fig . 15.

3. Cyclopean Wall at Mycenae, G.E. Mylonas, Mycenae and the Mycenaean Age, Princeton, 1966, fig. 10.

4. Linear B Tablet from Knossos, P of M IV 2, fig. 763a.

'.'

5 fresco from Thebes, E. Vermeule, Greece in the Bronze Age, Chicago, 1964, pI. XXVII.

6. The Throne at Knossos, P of M IV 2,

fig . 889, page 915.

D

7. Ivory Griffon from Megiddo, E. Vermeule, Greece in the Bronze Age, Chicago, 1964, pI. XXXVII, D.

IIIIIlIU ..... "MIf' Jtr. 0 yl ..... m .... 8. Detail of Griffon, P of M IV 2, fig . 884, page 911.

The Second Late Hel1adic Period 65

fronted with the oriental symbol of the sun and crescent moon. (fig. 6). They come, moreover, from Syria and retain the lifted neck, the spiral plumes and the peacock crest (fig. 7). The artist has misunderstood the design, however, and all that remains of the wings are the cross-hatching and shadow lines along the lower belly (fig. 8).

Very recently an astonishing find in Thebes of seven Linear B tablets and thirty six cylinder seals, fourteen of which had cuneiform inscriptions, recall the old legend that Cadmus first brought writing and letters to Greece at Thebes. One of the seals belonged to an official of Burrabassiash II, a Kassite king of Babylonia (1367-1346 RC.). 30 None of the cylinder seals were dated later than 1300 RC., and the tablets belonged to the last years of the older Cadmean palace about 1300 RC.

Mrs. Vermeule in her searching article in the American Journal of Archaeology 31 believes that the fall of Knossos may have occurred after, rather than before 1400 RC. and Mr. Popham of the British School in Athens goes farther 32 in suggesting tentatively that the palace at Knossos fell at the beginning of the Third Late Minoan A2 Period. This would bring the date well into the second quarter of the century. So the dates of the Throne Room at Knossos and those of the Old Palace at Thebes are not far apart.

There is another startling piece of evidence bearing upon the history of Crete in the fifteenth century RC. which has just recently been brought to light. This is the great volcanic eruption on the island of Thera, the modern Santorini 120 kms. from Crete, about the year 1400 B.C. In a most interest­ing article Ninkovich and Heezen 33 published their belief that the great volcanic eruption made it impossible for the Minoans to remain on Crete because the fall of volcanic ash would stifle agriculture for some years. By the carbon method of dating they suggested 1420 RC. as the most likely date for the catastrophe. Mr. Luce 34 agrees with Marinatos and M. S. E. Hood in pushing the date back to 1470 RC.

Such a catastrophe to end the Cretan power at this period agrees extraor­dinarily well with the legend of the Praisians, reported by Herodotus, (7, 170-1). The Praisians dwelt in the middle of East Crete and their account

1963, 416-17, and that bulls flanking the throne would be more appropriate if the throne belonged to a Cretan Minos rather than to a Mycenaean Prince.

30 N. Platon and E. Stassinopoulou-Touloupa, «Oriental Seals from the Palace of Cadmus, » ILN Nov. 28, 1964, 859-61; and Dec. 5, 1964, « Ivories and inear B Tablets from Thebes, » 896-7: cf. M.T. Larson, « A Datable Kassite Seal from Thebes, » Nestor, July 1, 1964, 335-6.

31 E. Vermeule, « The Fall of Knossos and the Palace Style, » AlA 67, 1963, 195-99. 32 AlA 68, 1964, 349-54. 33 D. Ninkovich and B.c. Heezen, «Santorini Tephra,» Submarine Geology and

Geophysics, Colston Papers vo!. 17, Bristol, 1965; and more recently, B.C. Heezen, Saturday Review, Dec. 6, 1969, 87-90.

34 J.V. Luce, Lost Atlantis, New York, 1969, 9.

66 Clark Hopkins

stated that Minos went in search of Daedalus to Sicania, later called Sicily and never returned. «In Crete itself, » Herodotus concludes, « bereft of its inhabitants, as the Praisians say, other people settled and especially the Greeks. The Troan war occurred in the third generation after the death of Minos. »

If such an abandonment occurred before the coming of the Greeks, as the legend suggests, then the building of the Throne Room would have fallen in the period after the catastrophe. It seems strange that no mention should be made of the volcanic eruption with the ash, the earthquakes and the tidal waves usually accompanying such a cataclysm. One may remember, however, that the legend is the account of the Greeks who, presumably, found the leaders departed and much of the land desolate. One must suppose also that a second catastrophe, somewhat later, burned the Throne Room and baked the Linear B tablets.

A date after 1400 RC. for the Throne Room is strongly supported by the tablets themselves which are closely related to those from Thebes of about 1300 B.C. and the Pylos tablets of the late thirteenth century. Furthermore the frescoes of the Theban palace share with the Throne Room the same distinctive background. Finally the occupation of Knossos fits into the Greek expansion to the East in the fourteenth century and the bird-headed griffons reflect this influence:

The sequence of events might be reconstructed, therefore, as follows; The Second Late Helladic Period begins in Greece, according to the Egyptian evidence in the middle of the fifteenth century ca. 1450 B.C. The First Late Minoan Period, however, continues on in Crete to include the circular seal of Queen Tiy from Aghia Triadha, that is close to the end of the fifteenth century. The Throne room represents the occupation of the Greeks not long after the volcanic cataclysm around 1400 RC. The early palace at Thebes belongs to the Second Late Helladic Period and the cuneiform seals date the building in the fourteenth century. The destruction of the Throne Room occurs about the middle of the 14th century. The period of ceramic LM HI a1-2. The style and characteristic features of the Second Late Helladic Period continue in Greece. A good terminus might be the destruction of the Theban palace, i.e. the last quarter of the fourteenth century, just as the Cyclopean walls rise at Mycenae.

It is the fourteenth century rather than the fifteenth which then becomes the period of the Throne Room and the chief part of the Late Helladic Period in Greece. It is that magnificent period in early history when Greece for the first time was closely linked with the Orient, particularly Asia Minor and Syria. From this commerce, come the stories of Pelops and Perseus on one side, the Theban kings and Cadmus on the other. In this period the palace at Thebes was built and Knossos was occupied by Greek princes. Fittingly, then, I believe one might call the Second Late Helladic Period,

The Second Late Helladic Pel'iod 67

especially the fourteenth century when the Throne Room was erected, the Theban period and assign to it the great epic cycle of Oedipus, his father king Laius, and the sons of Oedipus who fought for possession of Thebes in the generations before Troy. Still farther back belong the legends of Knossos under its Cretan Minos whose Minotaur and Labyrinth so awed and terrified the Greeks. These stories belong to the First Late Minoan Period of the 16th and 15th centuries. To the thirteenth century would belong the real Mycenaean Period, the time of the larger palaces at Mycenae and Tiryns and the famous expedition to Troy.

The Linear B tablets added to Homer and modern archaeology have made the Mycenaean period of the Trojan war a part of history. The tablets of Knossos and Thebes help to bring the fourteenth century also from the mists and legends of pre-history into the realms of written record and it promises to be one of the most exciting and glorious centuries in Greek history.