Mythology: Archaeological discoveries

Shidonna Raven

3 hours ago

2 min read

By A.W.H. Adkins &

Britannica Editors

Source: Britanica

Photo Source: Unsplash,

Archaeological discoveries

The discovery of the Mycenaean civilization by Heinrich Schliemann, a 19th-century German amateur archaeologist, and the discovery of the Minoan civilization in Crete (from which the Mycenaean ultimately derived) by Sir Arthur Evans, a 20th-century English archaeologist, are essential to the 21st-century understanding of the development of myth and ritual in the Greek world. Such discoveries illuminated aspects of Minoan culture from about 2200 to 1450 bce and Mycenaean culture from about 1600 to 1200 bce; those eras were followed by a Dark Age that lasted until about 800 bce. Much of the evidence about myth and ritual at Mycenaean and Minoan sites is derived from the surviving architecture and monuments, because the Linear B script (an ancient form of Greek found in both Crete and Greece) was mainly used to record inventories.

Geometric designs on pottery of the 8th century bce depict scenes from the Trojan cycle, as well as the adventures of Heracles. The extreme formality of the style, however, renders much of the identification difficult, and there is no inscriptional evidence accompanying the designs to assist scholars in identification and interpretation. In the succeeding Archaic (c. 750–c. 500 bce), Classical (c. 480–323 bce), and Hellenistic periods, Homeric and various other mythological scenes appear to supplement the existing literary evidence.