3500-year-old Greek tomb filled with treasures discovered

It is the discovery of a lifetime: A fully intact Bronze Age shaft tomb—dating from the 15th century BCE—has been discovered by a team from the University of Cincinnati in Pylos, Greece, near the famed Palace of Nestor.

The tomb contains the body of 30- to 35- year-old man who is informally known as the Griffin Warrior, along with a literal treasure trove. The body was stretched out on its back, with weapons on the left and jewelry on the right. Near the head rested a bronze sword, hilted in ivory, with a dagger underneath. Resting on the chest: a perfectly preserved gold necklace with two pendants. And between the legs, his namesake: An ivory plaque depicting a griffon with enormous wings.

One heck of a treasure trove

Other objects likewise were found inside the stone-lined tomb, all made of gold, silver, bronze, ivory, or semiprecious stones—not a single piece of pottery was found inside.

“It is truly amazing that no ceramic vessels were included among the grave gifts. All the cups, pitchers and basins we found were of metal: bronze, silver and gold. He clearly could afford to hold regular pots of ceramic in disdain,” said Shari Stocker, senior research associate in the Department of Classics, McMicken College of Arts and Sciences, in a statement.

“You can count of one hand the number of tombs as wealthy as this one,” Thomas M. Brogan, the director of the Institute for Aegean Prehistory Study Center for East Crete, told the New York Times.

Pylos, the location of the find, is renowned for other archaeologist-electrifying moments. Here, the first example of Linear B was discovered in 1939—a tablet holding the earliest known Greek writing. Pylos also is home to a famed Mycenaean palace, known as the Palace of Nestor. (For those of you who remember the Iliad, Nestor was one of the Greeks who waged war against the Trojans—a former Argonaut who served more as an advisor to younger warriors during the war.)

“This latest find is not the grave of the legendary King Nestor, who headed a contingent of Greek forces at Troy in Homer’s ‘Iliad,’” explained Stocker. “Nor is it the grave of his father, Neleus. This find may be even more important because the warrior pre-dates the time of Nestor and Neleus by, perhaps, 200 or 300 years. That means he was likely an important figure at a time when this part of Greece was being indelibly shaped by close contact with Crete, Europe’s first advanced civilization.”

In fact, the age of the tomb places it smack within this little-understood period. Before the rise of Greece, the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations ruled the Mediterranean. The Minoans came first, and were based off of Crete; the later Mycenaeans adapted many aspects of the Minoan civilization, but soon came to dominate them.

The tomb of the Griffon Warrior dates in the hazy period before the rise of Mycenae, which means it serves as a window into this previously obscured time. The warrior’s tomb is full of objects likely imported from the Minoans (as evidenced by the style of the craftsmanship) but it’s located in Mycenae, and thus serves to elucidate just how the two civilizations interacted before the Mycenaeans began their reign.

The man in the tomb himself may have been an important warrior, trader, raider, or king who personally helped lay the foundations of the Mycenaean civilization.

“Whoever he was, he seems to have been celebrated for his trading or fighting in nearby island of Crete and for his appreciation of the more-sophisticated and delicate are of the Minoan civilization (found on Crete), with which he was buried,” said Jack Davis, UC’s Carl W. Blegen Chair in Greek Archaeology.

Here’s a list of the goodies found:

GOLD

  • Four complete solid-gold seal rings (to be worn on the fingers)—more seal rings than found with any other single burial within Greece.
  • Two squashed gold cups, and a silver cup with a gold rim.
  • A necklace of square golden wires, more than 30 inches long, with two gold pendants decorated with ivy leaves.
  • Numerous gold beads (all in perfect condition).

gold necklace pylos

SILVER

  • Six silver cups.

BRONZE

  • One three foot-long sword, with an ivory hilt that was overlaid with gold (in a rare technique imitating embroidery!).
  • A smaller dagger with a gold hilt employing the same technique.
  • Other bronze weapons.
  • Bronze cups, bowls, amphora, jugs, and a basin, some with gold, some with silver trim.

pylos bronze mirror

SEAL STONES

  • More than 50 seal stones (probably used to imprint designs on cloth), with intricate carvings in Minoan style. They show goddesses, altars, reeds, lions, and bulls (some with bull-jumpers leaping over the bulls’ horns). These were likely made in Crete.

greek seal stone

IVORY

  • Several pieces of carved ivory, one with a griffon with large wings and another depicting a lion attacking a griffon.
  • Six decorated ivory combs.

pylos ivory comb

PRECIOUS STONE BEADS

  • Over 1000 semiprecious stone beads, most with drill holes for stringing together. The beads are of carnelian, amethyst, jasper, and agate. Some beads appear to be decorations from a burial shroud of woven fabric, suggested by several square inches of cross woven threads which survived in the grave for 3,500 years.

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Feature Image: Department of Classics/University of Cincinnati

Story Images: Department of Classics/University of Cincinnati