The Bronze Age in Myth

Crete

• Theseus & the Minotaur
• "Thalassocracy" of King Minos
• Labyrinth ~ Minoan palaces?
• Bull imagery ~ minotaur myth

• Mycenae (Agamemnon)
• Pylos (Nestor)

• Excavations at Hissarlik (Schliemann; later Blegen)
• Troy VI (hit by earthquake c. 1300)
• Troy VIIa (sacked & burned c. 1240)
• Mycenaean influence in Asia Minor (Hittite references to "Akhkhijawa" = Homer’s "Akhaians"?)

Bronze Age elements

• Bronze main material for weapons
• Armor types: e.g. "bronze-greaved Greeks," boar’s tooth helmet
• Chariots (but not their purpose)
• Mycenaean place-names (esp. in "Catalogue of Ships" in Iliad 2)
• Terminology, e.g. (w)anax ("warlord") = wa-na-ka on Linear B tablets
• Lions in similes

Dark Age elements

• Contacts w/ Phoenicians (Odyssey)
• No writing (except in Iliad 6?)
• Social organization (esp. in Odyssey)
• Cremation, not burial