Helladic Greece
(Second millenium, B.C.)

Pylos

	1. The Nelied dynasty established the city-state of Pylos as a center to dominate and unify Messena's war chiefs against their neighbors. The aim was to rustle their neighbors' cattle and eventually to engage in coastal piracy. In c. 1200 B.C. the Nelied fell victim to other pirates and the so-called "palace" was burnt (being the offenders, the Nelieds never thought to build walls). Here in the palace, off the central megaron, are the royal quarters, left and right, with the stairway leading to the secluded women's quarters on the second floor.
	2. Liquor closet of the Nelied palace at Pylos. Central to palace life was wining and dining the warrior aristocracy to win them over for the next raid. The megaron was a little one-room building with a large hearth for these feasts and for the religious cult associated with the head of the household and king. At first, tree-trunk columns supported a wooden roof. Women were excluded, for, like other loot, they were hoarded as a means of jpgt exchange.
	3. Gold drinking cups from tholos tombs near Pylos (Pylos Museum). The Helladic social order was based on the redistribution of women, alcohol and loot.
	4. Oil-tribute jar from the archives rooms of the Nelied palace (Pylos Museum). These rooms are so called because of the large number of Linear B tablets found there needed to account for the oil tribute. While all land was owned by the political community consisting of king, priests and aristocracy, because both tenants and owners paid an oil surplus to the king, it was a tribute rather than a rent.
	5. The two larger pottery vessels were probably for storing perfumed or herbal oils (Pylos Museum). The large quantity of pottery found at Pylos suggests that pottery and oil may have been an important export (commerce and piracy always go hand in hand).
	6. Tripod tablet (Ta 641) (Pylos Museum). This Linear B tablet establishes that the spoken language at Pylos was an early form of Greek (the Greek written language was later adopted Phoenician script).

Tiryns

	1. The packed-earth approach ramp along the east side of the acropolis citadel. The Tiryns citadel was one of the first bronze age acropolises to have stone walls. They served as a defense against other Greek war chiefs, but eventually Tiryns became tributary to Mykene, twelve miles away. Here the cyclopean wall, which consists of hugh crude piled-up limestone rocks imported from Mykene quaries, gives way to an ashlar wall consisting of stone blocks cut into rectangles.
	2. This was the original main road and the old gate of the Tiryns citadel. The original cyclopean wall is to the left. In the foreground are the massive gateposts of the new gate into the citatel, with the bolt hole still visible in the left post.
	3. The Tiryns lower citadel was a place of refuge for cattle and ordinary people and a place to store water and food. If the outer gate gave way, the lower citadel would trap the invaders. A pair of massive gates open to the upper citadel of the palace. The access corridor and one of its gates is seen. The peculiar Greek obsession for mutual slaughter was limited by these invincible defenses, but they were as much a prison as protection, and it was not difficult for an enemy king to starve the inhibitants into submission. Such, indeed, was the fate of Tiryns at the end of the Helladic period.
	4. Since the Helladic kings were always at war, a major concern was the source of food and water in the surrounding countryside. At Tiryns the citadel walls had corbel apertures which gave access to food or treasure storage rooms that were originally hidden. This view is from within one of the rooms toward its corbel entrance with its undressed ashlar stones.

Mykene

	1. Eastern view of Mykene (Mycenæ in Latin) citadel with Mt. Sara to right. At the top of the acropolis is the royal palace. Below it and within the citadel walls were aristocratic homes, the early royal cult center, and a cistern for water. Most people lived outside this political commonwealth. Cut off from the elite familia when the walls were built, these producers lost their relation of production and therefore became slaves, in a process similar to that taking place in Hindustan at the time. Mykene became the most powerful of the royal citadels, most of which were located in Argolis, over which her Myceanaen kings gained hegemony.
	2. The Lion's Gate entry to Mykene's citadel. The triangular stone above the lintel that relieved it of weight shows a pair of Helladic lions flanking a Cretan sacred column. This is the oldest full scale sculpture from Greece. The original lion heads may have been cast in bronze and pegged into the stone. The Gate was an important meeting point for the network of chariot roads by means of which the kings of Mykene dominated Argolis.
	3. Below the royal palace, but still within the citadel walls, were the cistern water supply and the homes of aristocratic familia, consisting of a biological family and skilled captives. The homes were of timber-framed rubble construction with cement finish, and two or three stories, the first being underground. These aristocratic houses had a courtyard, megaron and side rooms in which the skilled members of the famlia produced pottery, cut gemstones, worked gold, and otherwise supplied the needs of the familia. With development of the citadel as a political commonwealth rather than merely a neolithic wooden stockade, unskilled members of the aristocratic familia, were removed from the protection of the familia and the citadel walls to live as slaves in huts scattered in the fields they worked.
	4. A sacred grave circle near the citadel and enclosed within it. Here was carried out the cult of early royal heros (Urfathers). Memory of their extraordinary feats and rich burial goods would create a sense in the present that it is possible for the political community to struggle against the force of circumstance. The graves were in royal family groups. Graves for the aristocratic familia were located in an outer grave circle beyond the walls. As the sense of aristocratic commonwealth developed, the royal tholos tombs were moved outside the commonwealth's walls.
	5. The so-called Agamemnon's Tomb, which is one of nine royal tholos tombs. Long walls buttress its entrance. The design derives from the earlier royal grave circles. Under the mound of dirt is an unsupported 60-foot chamber. Since the arch was unknown, a triangular corbel over the entrance lintel relieved it of weight. Originally there was a decorative facade, including the columns below.
	6. Half columns from the facade of "Agamemnon's Tomb.", which are based on West Asian (Anatolian ?) inverted treetrunk prototypes. A spiral motif decorates diagonal banding. The use of stone for columns marks the growing wealth of royal families.

Miscellaneous

1. Greek pottery in the Geneva Museum. At the top are Helladic utility pots. Those below are geometic wares from the post-Helladic Dark Ages. Pottery styles and other evidence show that the Helladic kings did not fall as a result of outside attack, such as from so called "Dorians," but from deepening internal contradictions as the kings turned on one another to acquire loot and and women (such as the famous commodity, Helen).