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The surprise discovery of the mysterious Griffin Warrior at Pylos promises to reveal fresh insights into that crucial point in European history when the Minoan customs of island Crete gave way to the emergent culture on mainland Greece. Jack Davis and Sharon Stocker reveal this treasureladen tomb from the dawn of Mycenaean civilisation. he tomb of the Griffin Warrior is one of the richest found on mainland Greece in recent years. This Bronze Age burial belongs to the Ttransitional period in European prehistory when the Minoan culture of island Crete gave way to that of the Mycenaeans on the mainland, and its lavish grave goods are not only some of the most spectacular to have been recovered in the last few years, but are also providing important new information about the emergence of mainland Europe's earliest civilisation. The grave sits on a hilltop in Messenia, near the village of Chora, overlooking the south-west coast of the Peloponnese. It was here, in 1939, that Carl Blegen of the University of Cincinnati and Konstantinos Kourouniotis, director of the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, discovered a Bronze Age palace - and though they were not to know it at the time, the palace turned out to be one of 16 (URRENTWORLDARCHAEOLOGY lssue82
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PELOPONNESE Tripoli• the finest and best-preserved examples of such a site in the whole of Greece. They were searching for the palace of the legendary king Nestor, a wise old counsellor mentioned in both Homer's Odyssey and his Iliad. However, the eve of the Second World War was not a good time to start an archaeological project, and as Europe erupted into conflict, investigations at the Palace of Nestor were suspended. Finally, in 1952, Blegen returned, and over the following 15 years, he and his team uncovered the fabulous remains of one of the most magnificent Mycenaean palaces on the Greek mainland. Destroyed by fire and abandoned in about 1200 BC, it had lain undisturbed for three millennia beneath an olive grove. Nestor at Pylos. RIGHT In 1939, Carl Blegen discovered clay tablets inscribed with Linear B script that refer to the wanax, or king, at Pylos. Blegen knew he had found the palace he was looking for on the first day of excavation, when he uncovered a collection of clay tablets baked - and thus preserved - in the final conflagration. The tablets were inscribed with Linear B script, the earliest form of written Greek, which descends from the as-yet undeciphered Linear A script famously found by Arthur Evans at the Minoan site of Knossos on Crete. Some of these tablets refer to the palace as belonging to the wanax (king) of Pylos, who controlled the surrounding region. Though what we see at Pylos today reflects only the final phase of the palace's existence, subsequent study of the stratigraphy uncovered by Blegen and his team revealed an unbroken sequence of deposits dating back to about 1900 BC. But, significantly, the results also provided evidence of strong influences from the ~ LEFT Drone's eye-view showing the location of the warrior's grave (white circle) near Tholos IV, adjacent to the Palace of Nestor. BELOW Tholos IV was the communal tomb for the elite of the Mycenaean palatial community. www.world-archaeology.com CuRRENTWORLDARCHAEOLOGY 17

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The surprise discovery of the mysterious Griffin Warrior at Pylos promises to reveal fresh insights into that crucial point in European history when the Minoan customs of island Crete gave way to the emergent culture on mainland Greece. Jack Davis and Sharon Stocker reveal this treasureladen tomb from the dawn of Mycenaean civilisation.

he tomb of the Griffin Warrior is one of the richest found on mainland Greece in recent years. This Bronze Age burial belongs to the

Ttransitional period in European prehistory when the Minoan culture of island Crete gave way to that of the Mycenaeans on the mainland, and its lavish grave goods are not only some of the most spectacular to have been recovered in the last few years, but are also providing important new information about the emergence of mainland Europe's earliest civilisation.

The grave sits on a hilltop in Messenia, near the village of Chora, overlooking the south-west coast of the Peloponnese. It was here, in 1939, that Carl Blegen of the University of Cincinnati and Konstantinos Kourouniotis, director of the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, discovered a Bronze Age palace - and though they were not to know it at the time, the palace turned out to be one of

16 (URRENTWORLDARCHAEOLOGY

lssue82

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