Conversations: The Things They Found in Tombs, Bronze Age Mycenae w/ Dr Kim Shelton

Published Apr 12, 2024, 7:00 AM

Liv is joined by Dr Kim Shelton to dive deeper into the real world of Bronze Age Mycenae and all we've learned from what they left behind. Learn more about Dr Shelton's work here.

Help keep LTAMB going by subscribing to Liv's Patreon for bonus content!

CW/TW: far too many Greek myths involve assault. Given it's fiction, and typically involves gods and/or monsters, I'm not as deferential as I would be were I referencing the real thing.

Attributions and licensing information for music used in the podcast can be found here: mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions.

Hi, Hello, and welcome. This is Let's talk about mits Baby, and I am your host live here with the first Conversation episode of our Bronze Age and its Collapse series, and I am so excited. So I spoke with doctor Kim Shelton, who is a professor at UC Berkeley but also but also the director of the NIMEA Center for Classical Archaeology, which is it's all just so Greek. Oh my god. Kim has worked on so many incredible sites in ancient Greece, but the main one being my Scenie. We had such an incredible conversation about Bronze Age, Mycenie and just everything in between, so many of the pieces that are going to be expanded upon from the episode that I released on Tuesday, so many questions answered, so many additional details and like just littlest things that you just you do not get without just straight up speaking to somebody who was actively worked. I'm pretty sure she said at one point that that she'd lived there working at myceni for twelve years. Like that is what we are at here, the level of Mycenie. I'm just so thrilled to have had her on the show and Also, it was just such a joyfully fun conversation and I got to ask all of my little nerdy questions about the goddesses. Oh oh, we had fun. Just one more note though, before we dive right in. Unfortunately we did lose about like five minutes of the beginning of our conversation due to some technical difficulties. We cover for it very well. I don't really think anyone misses out on anything. But you know, you'll just notice at the very beginning I kind of recap what exactly was going on at the conversation and then ask Doctor Shelton to dive right back in. Also, just because I noticed when I was listening back to back, I had to record this conversation before I had been able to write the episode that came out on Tuesday. So I asked questions that I should have known the answer to, and now do know the answers to. And I'm going to just explain that right now. I promise, other than sometimes having to record before I'm able to do a thing, I do know what I'm talking about. Oh, You're gonna love this one so much. Bronze Age, Mycecenie. Not only bronze Age, but Bronze Age where we can read the writing. And one thing that I was not expecting is just how much we do know about religious aspects through that writing, through palace records. We know so much. I can't wait for y'all to hear it. Conversations things they found in the tombs, Bronze Age, Mycenie with doctor Kim Shelton. Okay, so I don't want to make you, you know, repeat the little bit said we lost, but you know, just to sort of general kind of catch up for the listeners because we unfortunately lost just a couple of minutes. Thankfully. We're talking about the prepalatial period and how it was just sort of a collection of elites kind of all vying for for this, you know, kind of elite status and rulership before there was a wan Ax. And I'm I'm really interested in what you were talking about the burial sites, because yeah, you maybe maybe a little just reiterate some of that, unfortunately, but I'm really curious in how they might connect to the wider Mediterranean because it sounds a lot like like what the Egyptians did kind of thing.

Yes, yes, so it seems as if the in the whole mortuary sphere was an area of sort of peer competition and maybe even room for mobility upward and downward mobility within the social classes. And many of the elites spent a tremendous amount of time on their burials. So even while before they died, there were there were large tombs that were being constructed that would take you know, many many years to construct. And then there was this strong tradition of multiple burials that is a way to transfer power from one generation to the next. So you are, on the one hand, maybe you're vine for power, but you want to make sure that power lasts into the next generation. And one way you do that is by creating like a power structure among your family or your clan that by being buried with someone that was powerful before that shows a kind of endorsement. And then also the display the funeral, the gifts, the honors that are given to the dead by the living gives sort of is a transfer of power to those living individuals. So we think that's one reason that there's you know, unlike the Egyptians who luckily tell us and texts what they believed that they had, this you know, what you take in your tomb you need because you're going to need it in the afterlife. Yeah, and there we you know, sometimes we assume that's the case with the Mycenians, but we knowing from later Greek mythology and religion, we know that they had a very different sense of what the afterlife was like, and that may have already been the case in this early period, which suggests to us that the elaborate display of goods at the time of the funeral and that were then put into the burial with the dead had more to do with the living than it had to do with the dead, that it showed their status, their ability to, you know, have more of this. We always call it conspicuous consumption. You take all this valuable material and you bury it in the ground, and you don't give it to the next generation. So they're transferring status. But the message is I have this wealth, I don't need to keep it for myself. I can emphasize the power and wealth of my father, ancestor whatever by actually giving all these things as part of a display that all of you folks see that I'm doing this, and that means all of that is transferred onto me at the same time that I have enough. I don't need that. I have enough to keep going and be even better. So it's this really weird thing. It's hard for us, I think, to conceive that the arena of death and burial can be so important to social hierarchy and the succession of power and status. But it really seems to be hugely important. And that's one reason they expended so much energy and labor and resources on their tombs, first of all, but then also on their funerals and their burials, and for generations they came back to these tombs, they would move around the dead, they would do all kinds of different interesting traditions with those that are already dead, and then new burials would go into that same location. So this emphasis on multi generational tombs translates into that that sort of uh handing down, handing on power and status through the dead back to the living.

That is that is so interesting. Now, are these are these like the beehive tombs that we know of from the region or do those come later?

No, those are exactly the beehive tombs. Now, when you were there, you probably saw a couple of them, but you may not have seen the earliest because at myceni. We have nine of them, yea, and six of them belonged to the pre palatial period.

Oh wow.

And honestly, I would say the last group of three, the first two of those three were probably built, one right before there were palaces, maybe was started to be built, and the other one was right at the start. So even the last the ones that were built later are still quite early in the whole sequence of things, because then they keep being used. And so we think we have as many as six or seven families, very high elite families that have the resources to build these beehive tombs out of these giant stones. And you know, an architectural and engineering miracle that they are, that they could, you know, redible, yeah, with the beehive shape and the corbl vaulting and the fact that several of them survived till today. You know, that kind of thing. But beyond that, we also have what we often refer to as the middle class tooms, but it's actually a wide range than that, what we call chamber tombs, and the main differences they are carved out of the bedrock and not lined with masonry the way the beehive tombs are, and they can be in all different shapes. They can be circular, oval, square, rectangular. There are a number of them from around the time that the beehive tombs or what we call the Foloi the Fulloes tubs when they were built, that are circular, so they're they're imitating in some ways the shape of these ones, these very very highly ones, and many of them not only at Mycen but in other sites around in the area that we think was under my CD's control, have some spectacular chamber tunes. They are huge. You could drive a bus under them. They're just really really big, and and many of them, unfortunately, of course, have been looted, like the Fullest tubes, but we have some that were excavated early in the in the late nineteenth century that have material we think equal to what may well have been in some of the Fulloes tumbes. Wow, so it's like maybe the next tier, or maybe it's a choice to do one type rather than another. And we see that. You know, over time, more and more tombs are built, and by the time you get to the palatial period, you'll have in one group of tombs, because they exist in all of these different cemeteries, you'll have ones that are big giant early ones, and then you'll have sort of regular sized later ones, and you'll have some that are used over five hundred years and some that are newly used after the palacial period start. So it's a whole mishmash of what we think probably a whole clan would have been like over all of these many generations. And they keep returning back to the same tombs, and if not the same cemetery, they build new tombs in the same cemetery.

Wow, they're just so big, Like I'm just so. I mean when I stepped in one of those Solos tombs, like I nearly lost my mind, Like I have not been that excited in many other places, Like and they sound in them. Yeah, the acoustics, Oh my god, I dream about it. But I'm just so I'm impressed that they are early. And like what kind of time period, like what in like.

In round like in round numbers, celdarymembers, what are we talking about For the early Mycenean period, It probably starts as early as seventeen hundred sixteen hundred BCE, and then the palaces start sometime after fourteen hundred BC, So we have two hundred and fifty three hundred years that which they're going from. Already they're in the country, they're what we call the Middle Holadic Period or the Middle Bronze Age, and then they begin to develop this more social structure, more hierarchy, and that goes over these generations the Beehive tunes themselves. The first six we think date to between fifteen hundred and fourteen hundred BC, and then the last three dates somewhere between probably fourteen hundred and maybe twelve fifty right somewhere.

Pretty soon before the like.

Yeah, they start right at the start of the Palace period, and then there's one that seems to be kind of the last one that's constructed was probably very much in the height of the Palace like during that during that period.

Yeah, it's so interesting, especially now that I have, you know, spoken with people about the collapse itself, just time period wise, and like imagining you know, the last one being you know, like less than a century I gather like kind of or before the sort of end in whatever way that they did end, Yeah, you know, during the Bronze Age colap So it's it's interesting to I'm just start of imagining the idea that like you know, things went so badly that they weren't able to continue using the tombs, even for those who died, you know, around right around the collapse. It was like they weren't going to be able to prioritize, you know, doing the big show.

And we think that, we think that potentially the reason why we have fewer later of the of the ones, the Folos ones with the masonry, is that people didn't have the access to the labor or to the resources to expend on that they were their focus was elsewhere, and it was there were a lot of things going on in that in that thirteenth century that suggest to us that all through that century there were things were starting. You know, the collapse doesn't happen for another one hundred and hundred and fifty years, depending where you are, but the palace itself is struggling and that it's not going to it's not going to make it into the next century. As as a political structure, that things are going to change so radically after that. But it's clear that the mortuary sphere once, once power is really consolidated into one group, they don't need that same kind of competitive display that was so important for hundreds of years before them.

Oh, it's just I love this so much. So I'm really interested in how because you know, I'm I'm really familiar with the statuary and stuff that comes out of like the Minoan period or like, you know, the Minoans are earlier than this, and the Cycladic people and everything, and you know, basically I want to talk about all the goddess figurines that they have, which I don't know if we so, like did the Mycenians have a kind of equivalent? Do we know much about like those sort of more religious aspects like we do of the Cycladic and Minoans.

We do. It develops in the early Palatial period. It seems to be developing as a combination of long established belief systems and apparently the pantheon of gods that we know later came with them to Greece. But they must not have done much i icnographically, they didn't think whether they didn't think of their gods as humans, or they didn't or in a human form, or they didn't feel like they needed to just show them that way. So when they come into contact act and very strong and sustained contact with the Minoans, they begin to adopt their iconography that they use, and a lot of it is even through small fines, gold rings, ivory statuary, some small scale stuff primarily sealstones that for the most part were likely produced by Minoan artists anyway they made. Many of them were probably produced for myceny and consumers, but by initially by Minoan artists. So they produced the same kind of iconography that they did before. What we see happen during the Palatial period is a let's say, a mobilization of religious rituals to once again kind of keep power and to distribute their status, the love life of their status to the more general population. It was a it was a way, and of course it's true throughout time and history their religion can be used as a tool to control the masses. Right, So, I know, shocking, shocking, So we today on Easter, I know, good Friday and all that. It's interesting that you know, we know from later on later on being twelve hundred, right, the documents and linear be that we have surviving from Pelos to twelve hundred, we know that there was a Zeus, and there was a Poseidon, and we know all these male gods. Right, we still don't really have any images of anyone on the mainland that we can point to. Ah, there's a god, we don't. It's still predominantly the female deities, but there are a huge plethora of them in the documents as well, so it's not like they brought them in from somewhere else. Now they have plenty. They just kind of said, oh, look, these people put them in pictures.

We can do that.

We can show show some of these pictures. But it's right very at the start of the palatial period when it looks like the idea of a palace was actually transported to the mainland from crete. Yeah, and they're like, you know, we could have one of these large centralized architectural features. Doesn't look like it does on crete. But that's okay, because we have our own preferences in architecture. That they develop one object that is for consumption and libation. So they develop a standard drinking vessel that's very simple, very easy to make. Actually they don't. They make thousands, tens of thousands of them, not very well, but it's fine, and we see them suddenly start to be used in all kinds of ritual activities in life and death and the houses and you know, all over and then at the same time we have the development of terracotta figurines, and you may have seen some of these before. There are a whole bunch of types, but there are two general categories. One of them is a female, predominantly female figurines, and the other predominantly bovine figurines. So maybe bulls. They have horns, but they don't have genital yet, so you know, we have to say, well, we don't know, because cows can have horns, but I suspect they're probably meant to be viewed as the male animal, so the female human the male animal, very likely representing fertility among humans and animals. Yeah, absolutely, But these are things that the Manolans who had terra kind of figurines exclusively really in sanctuary sights. These are very different in the way they're made, the way they're decorated, and the fact that we find them everywhere. I would say the modern equivalent, although my students don't seem to know what this is, so they must not be doing it anymore. But my modern equivalent was always a rabbit's foot, Oh, the kind of thing that people would have on their keychain and you carried around with you, and it meant luck. It meant that it was some kind of talisman. And it may be that these figurines are good luck, good luck in your family, good luck for your children, good luck for your fertility, good luck for you, for your crops and your animals and everything that you needed to survive. And we do find them in some religious context, but again, and they very likely mean there's something symbolic there, But we find them all over houses and all over trash pits. When they got broken, they weren't kept or repaired, they were thrown away, so they just become ubiquitous. They're kind of everywhere. And again, between these two objects, they seem to have a kind of standardized ritual practice that everyone can participate in. But they're probably being made in large scale at places like the palaces for distribution to enfranchise people in the religion, to sort of bring them in and have them participate in at least a symbolic way with the stuff that the upper echelon are doing, and that's a way to crery favor. And we know also from the Linear b tablets that the palace would help supply important religious festivals that they would provide beef, you know, large on the hoof beef for sacrifice, and then for the feast itself they would they would give wine and oil and metal vessels and you know, these sort of splashy, showy things that they could send to the side of a festival, even if the you know, we don't know people wise who was there, but they're showing a village full of their subjects, as it were, the people they rely on to pay their taxes and provide food and all those kinds of things, providing them a sort of symbolic status by here's the here's the palace making this happen. Our food's better, our wines better. We have enough for all these people. And here they're going to give us this really crappy cup, no no offense Starbucks for your not crabby cup. But that you know this if some of them are even kind of have holes in them, like they probably didn't even work, right, But the fact that you were given one, and you probably made a toast, and you probably drank, and you probably poured out the liquid for some of the liquid for the gods, and you probably took it home with you. Yeah, that was just this really powerful successful way that for more about two hundred years, the palace kept people engaged in what was going on, and I think they felt behold and then to turn around and say, oh, yeah, I will pay my taxes, I will send you know, fifteen percent of my wool that I produce on my farm to the palace. And what do I get back for it? While I get protection if needed, I get to participate in this fun religious stuff. I get some good meat and some good wine. You know. So it was a it was obviously a barter economy anyway, but it was it was an interesting way to use again standard across time and space, to use religion in a way to create to keep a kind of standard culture. Yeah, and keep people in line at the same time to make them feel like they're worthwhile. And you know, whether they were or not, that's another question. But it fostered that feeling that you belonged to this kingdom and to this culture. And so therefore, I mean theoretically, if then the Wannuchs turn around and said, okay, I need all of you to be in an army and go, you know, possibly die, you were prepared more prepared to do that because of this. You know, all your life, generational relationship that was fostered with the central place and the central authorities.

Oh, so many questions based on all of that. Also, you're like guiding me through the questions I already had, like all on your own.

So that's I.

Kneel, Okay, I can You're going through my list. It's perfect. But I'm so curious a little bit more about the religion, unsurprisingly, because you know, I think a lot about the mythology. I think a lot generally about I mean, lately, because it's March and I've been doing a lot of episodes on ancient women, I think a lot about you know, the the kind of evidence we have that might suggest that women used to be more worshiped than they were, you know, in the later period, more important than they were later. Do we have a lot of that from myceni? Do we have any evidence that the that they did have any kind of like, you know, just higher worship of like a mother goddess than say that people of archaic and classical.

Well they have, you know, this interesting group of goddesses that go under this general term potnia, and potnia seems to be like if we took if we took what we think was the pre Greek mother goddess, right, who becomes Gaya, But she's basically the pre she's pre Greek. She's already in the Agene when they get there. Yeah, and the Manolans seem to be that seems to be versions of her anyway, seem to be their primary interests. It seems as if they fragmented her up in a way so that she all of her different things that she did and ends up in different people, which is how we end up with Demeter and Heira and Artemis and Aphrodite and Athena. Right, That's how we end up with these goddesses who in fact almost all exist already the Bronze Age. Is that they represent all of these different aspects of life and fertility and animal life and the earth and nature, all of these things. But instead of being in one goddess who might be overpowerful, right, you divide them up into individual ones. And then so the Mycenians seem to have they had all of these goddesses that we know from later, but they also have this group of potnias. And the best way to translate that is how you might think of it as as our lady of so, our lady of the animals, our lady of the fresh water, our lady of the special grains, and they have and we see them as potnia, and then they usually get a qualifier and adjective that tells you what they are the lady of. And so there were those either get merged with our Olympian goddesses or they just sort of die out altogether. They feel like they're redundant. Maybe I feel like probably merging is more likely the case, since we know that later from the Iron Age we have a lot of merging of local gods and Paneltic gods anyway, so it feels like this is where the potneas went. But it's amazing that we have so many in the tablets that point to you know, like like the potnia of the wheat, like the wheat potnia or the grain potnya. That's great. I mean, later on she's Demeter, but there's already a Demeter too. So they must come together, they must merge together. And some of them may be local and went back way way far and they just kept you know, being worshiped over time. My sceny. What's it's specifically, what's super interesting is that we have a cult center. We have an area of the fortified citadel. Later it becomes in the walls. It exists before the walls though, and it's a group of five buildings that each one have some kind of cult function, and in all of them where we do have of some iconography to indicate who might be the deity or rather deities that existed in this, for lack of a better term, a sanctuary with multiple deities. They're all female, and the bulk of them, not all of them, but the bulk of them are connected with weaponry and other kinds of military paraphernalia. So we have a goddess wearing a helmet, a bores teth helmet. We have a goddess with a long sword, which is also a late painting, but an early kind of sword, so again probably sort of heirloomy in the way that iconography is used. We have another one with possibly with the spear, you know. So it's all of this female. Oh, and one that has the body of a shield, who might be a theme. I mean, a lot of these we think might be sort of early versions of Athena. Yeah, and the shield, it's like, is it is it her body or is she standing behind the shield, Like it's hard to tell you a figure of a shield and there's like white arms and in a white head. And this was on a was on a little plaque of plaster painted plaque that's about yo big. So it's kind of like an icon. It's something that's movable and could be probably taken out in certain rituals and then brought back into the inside of the more holy of holies of the of the sanctuary building.

Yeah, I mean, I have so many like theories that live in my mind about the you know, the way that a big mother goddess eventually did become like slowly more and more subjugated into the Olympians that I know, and I just that's so interesting to hear. Yeah, the way that they were so broadly worshiped.

And I don't and I don't know why they never really came around to the idea that they could pick sure they're male gods when they clearly had them.

M hmm.

But why would that not have been important to illustrate in your wall paintings, on your decorated weapons, on your you know whatever. So we do think there may be in some of the iconography, some of the scenes in wall painting and in seal stones and some other things where we think we see men fighting that may be a story, that may be a myth of Bronze Age era heroes or demigods or you know, even gods, and we just don't we don't know the story. So to us, we just say, well, here's a bunch of guys fighting with each other. That is not the way that they usually do it. But you know, I suspect whereas the women are less likely to be shown in a narrative, because I mean that's true in the Iron Age as well, that's true all the way through Homer, right. The women are these, like, you know, important characters that help move the story along, but they're usually not in the main action the way the stories are about about the men. So for whatever reason, I think we may have more than we realize we have, but there's no way to prove it.

Yeah, yeah, of course, I mean that's the interesting and infuriating part of working with stuff you know as old. But it makes me think of how I like to conceptualize Hestia, which is that like because she just is in no stories, like you know, compared to the others, it's like like she might as well not be there. And I think of it as like, you know, she was so important to regular daily life, like real life, that she just it didn't matter that she didn't end up in the stories because everyone in their daily lives was so aware of her. Yeah that it, yeah, she didn't need to be there. But then to us she feels like this missing figure right in a way that she, yeah, she was distinctly not back then. So it kind of reminds me of that this idea that maybe they're not of narratives because they're too busy being you know, the thing that everyone thinks of all the time.

Right. And I think Hestia may be very important in the Bronze Age, not necessarily is the named goddess that we know of later. I mean, she may have been a named goddess, but she didn't show up even then in the in the nomenclature in the same way. But of course, her name literally means the hearth, the center of domesticity, and not only in the center of every living space, but even in the palace and even in these religious buildings in Mycenese cult center have a hearth in the center of them, which which is not something that we have later on. That's something we lose in the Iron Age that in cret it keeps going that those there's all the way into the Archaic period. There are temples that have a hearth right in the center of the building, but we lose that on the mainland, but in the Bronze Age we definitely do so the center of life, probably symbolically in the center of the throne room of the palace, we have this giant hearth, and then we do in all of these buildings. We have different kinds. Some are open fire, a lot of them are not open fire, but are probably for different kinds of offerings, but still considered the center right the hearth, the place of worship, the place of dedication. So I think she's there and really important and everything is kind of centered around her. And of course the house is always the place where we look for the women in the Bronze Age, and that's you know, when you're looking. When you're looking, sometimes you can find them, but they don't always leave as much of a footprint as we as we would like. But some of that is also scholarly biased, so we're trying to improve on that all the time.

Yeah, yeah, I mean I'm not in that side of it, but that's the entire purpose of my show, right, Let's talk about the women who tended to be forgotten or misrepresented. But yeah, that's so interesting. I mean it sounds like Hestia you know later right where she just yeah, she's just there, but we don't hear much about her because her fire is just always burning and everyone knew that, right.

Being foundational means she not always you don't always get to be flashy and have terrible stories told about you. Maybe that's a blessing.

I mean, it feels like and maybe I'm just so deep in my women's history months episodes as well, but like it just feels also just sort of as the way that women are so commonly represented even today. Right, this idea that like the role of and I mean this is not an idea that I personally love as somebody who will never be a bother, but like this idea that a that a woman is a mother and she you know, is in the home and therefore like leaves less of a mark. Like obviously that's changing now, but I mean fifty years ago is very accurate, right, This idea. Yeah, that that that women don't leave a mark, because there mark really is like the children and the home. But it's like not, you know, it's more that they are the nurturers versus being you know, yeah, something that sort of is remembered in the same way.

It's yeah, And you know, I would add to that, and I would say that it's also again the difficulty of preservation. So if you are working predominantly with organic materials and ephemeral foods, textiles, you know, all of that, Yeah, you you are not going to leave the mark that survives for us in the same way as weapons do.

Yeah.

So, and that's you know, that's our fault for for prioritizing something and also though having the assumption that all tools mean that it's a man, which is really yeah, I mean, we have to to realize that women are using all kinds of tools, and that we find them all the time, including in burial contexts, and we can't assume that those our male identifying objects because they're not even the weapons. Even the weapons in fact are not always male identifying, but they are in the bronzeys. They do tend to be more skewed that way when you're talking about large scale swords, daggers. You know, when we get down to the knives and the stilettos and the butchering knives and all those types of things, all bets are off could be could be male or female because those are those are really tools rather than weapons, and women are using them in all kinds of contact.

Yeah. Well, and I think to clarify my because I think that's what I that's more of what I mean. You're just saying about it, like just this idea that, yeah, like the stuff that women touch either yeah, doesn't get attributed to them because of bios of past you know, interpretations or you know, or the stuff that they do just doesn't last. And so we get this idea that, yeah, that they didn't leave a mark, but what it was is yet Yeah, like you're saying, their mark was an organic material, both in terms of yeah, the stuff that they create, the physical items, but even also in the people that they created, right, Like, yeah, everything that women work to create traditionally just doesn't last, and so we get this skewed idea. It's just yeah, it's it's very interesting. Meanwhile, of course, what they were creating was invaluable. And the most important stuff to every civilization, every culture exactly. Oh, it's so interesting.

Now.

One thing that that came up earlier when we were talking about when you were talking about the linear B tablets and things like that that we have. I'm really curious about the god that god and goddess names that we know that they do appear in linear B and you know, I know they're in different forms obviously, I mean, but who do we know, you know, was existing as as a god and goddess like during that time like from the you know, the the later like the Olympians.

Yeah, we really have the whole pantheon, do we Okay, yeah, some of them do have slightly different names, but we know that those names are associated with them later on and include I mean, Athena is atana in the linear BE tablets, so we we definitely even have have her name. Apollo has it. He's usually like Palace and or you know, he has a slightly different name and we know aries from Analuon is this weird early name. And we actually have a sanctuary to him that dates to their kick period at Myceni in a different part of the site, but but there that he remains being called that linear B name even there, but we know it's Aries. And you can see the stuff everyone gives him shields and swords and helmets and stuff is his voted voting gifts. So there's no you know, and there's things that say Aries, but all over it the voters are inscribed with the linear B name. So that's that's kind of cool, that kind of continuity that survives.

So like, are they writing in linear b or is it like transliterated?

No, No, it's just it's written in Greek alphabet, Okay, but it's it's the name that we know from near by tablets. And then one of my favorite things is that in addition to let's say Hira, who we have a hero, we also have who I call a lady Zeus, and we also have a lady Poseidon. And what I mean by that is that we have the feminine version of their names as different additional deities. Really, so there's a man Zeus and a lady Zeus, and a man Poseidon and a lady Poseidon. So I don't know what. They definitely do not survive the Bronze Age in any way that we know, if we can't really connect them at all. But it's interesting that you have the d Woes and the da and the Possidonius and Polsidonia, so you know, it's literally the feminine. They've changed the name into a feminine version of the name.

That's so interesting. That makes me so happy.

Yeah, and of course we only know them from the from the tablets. If we it's surviving, we wouldn't know that they had existed at all. Yeah, and again that trajectory, like what, you know, what happens to them? Are they just considered irrelevant? Do they you know, subsume to one of the other goddesses. It's it's not clear, but it's very interesting that earlier there were more there were more deities, the more female deities than we have later on.

Those particular gods to having having feminine versions feels very very interesting. And and this is very much my you know, feminist mythology obsessed like theorizing, but it feels to me like like those two gods so specifically represent almost a like, like a visualized like and you can see the the intent to make women less powerful in those two gods more than in any others, you know, like they are the ones perpetually you know, subjugating women, Like, I mean, them all these different things that are you know, storytelling, sure, but are so intentionally meant to make clear that men are more powerful than women and that women need to do what men want, and so having them as as female forms is it's sad to have lost them. But also yeah, like you can like really see kind of what's what's going on.

Yes, absolutely absolutely, and how important that sort of an early Iron Age period must have been for the changes in all of these stories. And some of that is because we have less social stratification and we have a bit of a nostalgia it feels like back towards the palatial period. But yet lots of places are able to blossom in ways that they wouldn't have been able to if they were still under the palacial control.

Mm hmm.

Yeah. Yeah, and a byproduct of that seems to be how the religion starts to change.

Yeah, liniar B is just so interesting. I mean, I I love that we have so many, so many gods. Oh, actually, I'm curious about Aphrodite because of course she has like such distinct Eastern origins compared to the other gods. You know, she's coming from Cyprus, and probably from the Phoenicians. So do we have any kind of evidence of that in whatever form she takes in in mycenie, I know.

I'm trying to think. I feel like we think we have her, but with a different name. Okay, but she's not as prevalent.

Right because she would say them later.

But I think that she is very much made up of many of the patnias that we have, that many of those will end up being the essence that is Aphrodite, right, And it is interesting. I mean a lot of the gods that were later on are assumed to be of Eastern origin, including Dionysus and Apollo. In fact, we have in the Bronze Age, so I think we probably had more of Aphrodite. And I think we have more evidence for someone like her on crete actually than we do from the tablets at Pilos.

Right, I mean that makes sense, yeah, which would also make sense yeah yeah, yeah, well, and it would make sense if if these gods like like her end and Dionysus, because I was going to ask about him as well, Yeah, you know, have these origins in the Bronze Age and then also are going to be subsumed with this idea coming from the East and just become the gods that we know of, you know, from the later periods, is kind of combining, yes, but that's yeah, that's really interesting. Yeah, so Dionysus does appear as well, so it really is like in Hades, I imagine he's like the one we haven't mentioned, but.

We don't really. But then that would be weird too, because usually you don't mention him, right like even later traditions, and you don't say his name. You know, he's the one who shall not be named, And so the fact that he would be missing doesn't surprise me because they aren't sanctuaries to him either. And where we get the names and the tablets is because the Palace is provisioning sanctuaries, giving things to particular sanctuaries. So we either have mentioned of those gods or they don't make it into the cut if it's not one of the things that they're provisioning.

Yeah, that makes sense. Yes, it's all palse records. I'm not gonna be like, well, we're sending this stuff to Pace. Yeah, yeah, that's yeah. So you know, they're obviously having all these contacts with the Minoans, and everything. You know, the Minoans are worse quite a bit earlier than the Mysonians in terms of, yeah, their whole structure. So do we kind of do we get a sense that that Myceni was inspired a lot? I guess you did mention already that they, you know, the palatial structures were inspired by them. But this is I should have looked this up before I say this loud. But the Mycenians end up taking over the Minoans, right or do they not?

They?

What do they do?

Well? It's debatable. It's debatable. What we can say for certain is that during the sort of last couple of generations of the Palace of Knosos on Crete in which it was existed in many of the other palaces did not. There were people writing in linear b right, right, So the administration in that palace we're speaking in writing Greek. And we see spread out through the island mostly through mortuary stuff, mostly through the introduction of certain kinds of tombs and certain practices that there may have been some desire to emulate things that we see earlier on the mainland. So there's a you know, and there's a bit of a material culture whereas you know, fifteen hundred to fourteen hundred, Minoan material culture is influencing and inspiring what's being made on the mainland, and then from fourteen hundred to thirteen hundred we have a flip and we start to see quite a bit of you know, mainland inspired things then inspiring material culture on crete, which suggests there's a stronger emphasis on feasting and group dining and sharing, especially of drinks, and so the cups are different, with multiple handles for passing and larger capacity, and you know, there's little things like that. Even some of the iconography starts to change a little bit. But there's no evidence that the people just like that they destroy the island and take it over. It's not that it's it's I would say the markets, the economy on crete is probably very reliant on the Myceneans once, you know, in the fourteenth century, once they start really taking over the trade routes, which we can see in Egypt, which we can see in the eastern Mediterranean, that there's this change of what seemed to be predominantly Minoans showing up with their wares to predominantly Mycenians showing up with their wares, and so that seems to be where we might say the Mycenians took over. They took over the sort of economic roots and the economic successes, which likely tied into the bureaucracy of the administration at the palace of Kenosos. But I think your general rank and file still were very much how they had always been, and we still see that in most of the settlements and the sanctuaries, and their particular preferences for things that have always been the preferences on crete, that very much stays the same, so that when in the Iron Age, once the palace is the mainland palaces are destroyed, crete always is a little different from everywhere else. And there are things that you can point to in the early Iron Age and say that is so Minoan. And that includes the material culture, and it includes the goddess worshiping, and it includes all kinds of interesting things. And you know, you were you're interested in the this battle between the patriarchy and the and the mother and mother Earth. Right, it's so fascinating that where that survives in Greek myth, like the fact that Zeus is hidden and then reborn on crete, right from a cave, which is literally, according to the Minoans, the womb of the goddess.

Yeah.

Right, every time you have a god like Apalla taking over the sanctuary at Delphi, he has to fight the python on the mother goddess, right, because that's her spot. And so we literally have that just baked into all of these these traditions. Did we know that this was probably probably going on all around? Yeah? Yeah, it creates such a fascinating place to watch that, to watch that happen and how actually the goddesses remain being so significant to the point where they kind of have to almost legislate to make sure that the male gods are the predominant the predominant gods because traditionally for hundreds and hundreds of years that hadn't been the case on Cree well exactly.

I mean, I think of out it the Zeus in the cave. I'd never thought about the cave imagery. That's wonderful, thank you. It also times in I mean, I love I've been learning a lot of these things lately. Were like, you know, these things I've always associated with some kind of patriarchal structure alongside the goddesses, but hadn't quite conceptualized. Just how like visceral it is. Like I released an episode today where I spoke with somebody who pointed out that Caribdis is like just like this hungry hole is how we phrased it, and it's just like the cave makes me.

Think of that too, like yes, the hungry that yes, right, it's so good.

I just I love.

That afraid of women's sexuality much.

For real, Like I mean, I've always considered her as this like obvious notion of male fear, but I never had like really dug that deep. I love it.

Yes, a female dog, right, yeah, she's on the one side, and then and then you know, sucking up hole on the other. Yeah, I know, it's crazy.

It's so good.

No, and this is why this is why you love my absolutely.

And then you know, I've been doing this for seven years and still somebody can come and be like, well, you know, for all the Kryptis's male fear, she's really just a gaping hole. And I'm like, oh my god, oh yeah, okay, but but on create, you know, there's the cave. And then I think of too, the you know, the whole Europa myth. It's like, oh, well, no, but a man brought her there, Like that's why create had all these goddesses to begin with, but they didn't start there, you know, a Zeus had to bring her. And I think that's yeah, such an interesting kind of like way of rewriting this mythological history that already existed. And then the people coming in, the men coming in rather like want to emphasize, you know, they're they're maintaining something that they know was already there, but they are also finding this way of you know, making it about them.

Yes, yeah, but also the later Greeks too, connecting with what they they must have heard about Crete. So whether that's whether that Zeus is the bull bringing Europa or it's the minuitar right Pacife and Dadless and the fake cow and the whole you know, printing bull marathon bowl, and then obviously the minuitar is ultimate you know, expression of that those have I mean that has to be stories, some that you know, at the seat of it are misunderstood stories coming out of the Minoan belief system.

Yeah.

Well yeah, I mean I can like you could see it, you know in the museum in Heracliome where you're like, well, okay, there's women, paintings of women everywhere, goddess figurines everywhere, and then bulls everywhere, and so you can just yeah, see where these later people who you know, can't read linear a like we can't, and they're like looking at these things and they're like, okay, like put the two together and you know, make it this story. Worry. Yeah, I mean, it's just it's clearly so fascinating. I love this part of my job so much. You touched on the interactions, you know, beyond the Minoans, So I'd love to hear more about the ways that that Mycene did. You know, the Mycenaeans broadly did interact with the wider Mediterranean.

Sure, and we know from quite early on that they were interacting, especially with the eastern Mediterranean, and we see that really amplify in the historical and the palatial period, where their economy is very much based on the import of raw materials that are coming from outside the Greek world. They're creating of crafts with these materials and then selling them back to those same cultures that supplied the raw materials in the first place. Ivory is a good example of that. But then also the fact that they, you know, undeniably had the best wine and olive oil and the honestly the best ceramic containers for them that were in production during that time meant that there was this whole other sort of industry too, where they're selling their own resources and trading them with the Eastern Mediterranean and the and then luckily for this, this pottery leaves its footprint everywhere, So we can find them in Egypt, and we can find them in the Levine, we can find them in Asia Minor, and also to the west because they begin to expand also to the west into Italy and Sicily and Spain, and I think we even have some stuff as far as Portugal now.

And I suspects age.

Yeah yeah, Myceny and Mycenian pottery, wow. Yeah. And the Mycenians themselves seem to have had some probably not one on one, but probably chain trade going on with more Central Europe, because we have all this amber that's Baltic air that ends up in Greece and then it seems to come out of Greece and go to other parts of the Mediterranean as a trade item. But it looks like something that the Greeks are bringing from further north into the Greek Peninsula and then are distributing from there. Wow wow, so you know, so yeah, gold, gold is coming from from the Eastern med ivories coming from the Eastern med A lot of the sort of precious stones are coming from there. But then we have silver that the Greeks have themselves, the amber that's coming from the north. Maybe also copper to the west. We know they were getting copper from Cyprus, but looks like they were also getting some copper from from Eblin and other places as well.

Wow. They didn't really work much with marble all the way back then, then, did they.

No, they didn't, they didn't. They weren't really mining the marble. They were using lime stone that they had and they were carving with and they were actually trying to make sculpture with it. But we think this is one of the reasons that Mycenians didn't really have large scale sculpture. Everything was relatively small, small scale, the exception being the Lion Gate, which is made out of the local limestone.

Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting, and it's it's interesting just because like the palaces were so monumental, Like the palaces were enormous and made of these enormous stones. But yeah, they weren't, you know, they weren't making art out of them in the same way that people.

They would use some colored stones were ending up as decorative elements, but they tend to be softer so that I think they worried about their stability, which is why they would use them as accents rather than, you know, rather than using the limestone or the conglomerate limestone for what you know, it was sturdy and holding up the buildings and the tombs and all of that, and those were locally familiar with them. We don't really have a huge amount of marble in the Peloponnese, right, that makes sense, you know, and so much of the later like marble sculpture and stuff actually comes from the islands.

Yeah, yeah, And do they have a lot of DoD They do much with the the the other islands. What's there a lot? I mean, I know, obviously the Cladic cultures were going on, so yeah, were they were they all? So?

Yes, they were. The late late Cicladic culture is very much entwined with the Myceonine world, and in part because you can't sail anywhere without hitting an island. So if you're going to be doing any international exchange, you have to mobilize the islands and use them to go through. And we see that reflected in the Cycladic Machell culture.

Right, yeah. Oh, I love this the Cladic island so much, and there are there art was so different, Like do we see the sharing of any of that art with the Myceonianes, Like I just think of you know, the big head kind of figuring.

No, in part because that was so early, right, so that all of those figurings were from the early Bronze Age. Yeah, and we have a few that made it to the mainland, but it was well pre Greeks on the mainland. It was possibly even people from the Seclides that had, you know, settled in Attica for instance, where we have some of the Cycladic figurines.

I think it's so just so easy to forget just how widespread this was, just like across the whole of the region. And I visited Samilthraki a couple of years ago and learned that they found linear a there and I like that kind of thing. It's just I just love it so much, this idea that like they were really just traveling all over the place, and yeah, it it feels like such long distance is like so much water. Like I'm just so impressed. I know, it's yeah, it's I feel like I should get used to it, but it's just it's so interesting.

It is. Yeah.

So I mean, I would be, you know, missing out on a major thing if I didn't ask about what we know about their interactions with like the hit tights and the whole the troy of it all.

Well, we definitely know that they were interacting with the Hitit tights, both because of the Hittite documents that seemed to record thea ones that we think are the myceny in Greeks, but also through some technology that they shared. For instance, there's a colleague of mine, Nick Blackwell, has done a lot of research on the kinds of tools that they used to carve the lion gate and to carve other things. They used this pendulum saw that was that was a hit tight tool, and whether these were Hittite artists or they were you know, sculptors who were trained in the hit tight way of doing it, that's really strong evidence that they were in introduction, you know, they were in some exchange with them whereas we kind of knew it already, we had some material culture that also suggested it. And then yeah, I teach a whole class about the Trochy War. So it's hard to say in a nutshell, but I mean, I think that the point you made about Samothrace Samothraki is that that both of the Minoans and the Medicineans were traveling all around the Mediterranean, and the idea of expanding into the Black Sea, which is what, of course, Jason the Argonauts is all about the Mycenians expanding into the Black Sea. Is you have this very powerful place that's right there in the doorway into the Black Sea that you have to deal with. And I think that it's more likely that that if there was a war, which I think there were probably multiple wars, and not just one that was immortalized in the story, but there were in fact multiple wars, that it was really about trade rights and access more than it was about a beautiful woman, as romantic as that is really, I know, I know, go figure, go figure.

I felt the way to blame a woman, I know, I know.

But that's I think that we actually have evidence from lots of places in sort of off off the west coast of Turkey that shows similar kinds of things that there was lots of interest in access to those areas, in those resources, tin being one of them ten and gold coming from those areas, not to mention horses and textiles and all kinds of other things that came from that part of the world. And for whatever reason, Trey got immortalized. It's the one that that kept being told and retold. But I think there were probably lots of little Trojan wars like that.

Yeah, so I love these connections to mythology. So they got gold from that area, like that's where the golden fleece. That's why the golden fleece. I'd never even thought.

Yeah, the gold that you know, the golden fleece comes from the way that you used to in pre industrial times. They used to collect the alluvial gold. So the gold is in the river like here in California, and you would put the fleece, the wool it's the landlin the sticky stuff on it. You put it. You put it as like a dam across the thing and it would catch the gold. It was like pamming the river for gold. So when you picked up these fleeces. They would look all gold and shimmery because they would catch all the gold. So that's what a golden fleece is. That's where that comes from.

Why have I never looked that up before?

I loved Okay, great, but it's it's a totally actual, real thing that people would have known, but they mostly did it in that part of the world, sort of the northwestern part of Anatolia, but also up in the east part of the Black Sie where col Kisses, where that that part of the world was very much where where all that was going on, where that kind of gold recovery was happening.

A couple of years ago, it finally occurred to me that the reason Medea lives out there and is the daughter of the Sun is because the sun.

Rises, and that they could imagine that they had discovered or knew about. Yeah.

Yeah, so this is just adding to my little like okay, I got my little collection of like just it's I mean, it adds so much to the mythology. And I think that so often people find Greek mythology just because it's fun stories, and you know, I am so fascinated in where it's all coming from and why it's all being told like so much more than the stories themselves.

Yeah, don't get me started on Heracles.

Oh my god, we have to have a whole.

Other podcast on Heracles and all of his archaeological reasons why he's doing all these labors and where they're where they're located everywhere. Well, you know, because because of Nemea's my other site, we do have a special connection with of course Heracles.

Are you familiar with the the I think it's the school of Paleontology in Athens, like the Greek school. They did this big exhibit a couple of years ago where they they created this very large scale interactive display knowing how a lot of his labor, specifically in the Peloponnese, align with like geological formations and things. Yeah, I got to I got to get They were so sweet and like emailed me to give me a private English tour of this thing that is like all entirely Greek. But yeah, it reminds me of that it looked at all of these ways, like the learning and hydraug you know, aligns with some geological things happening in the earth.

And multiple rivers, multiple reverse come out of that spot.

Yeah, exactly, and they were you know, noxious in some way, and so fire was involved and just yeah, and then there was the river's it Aklos, Yeah, where he has to like split it because anyway, it's just I it makes me. Now now I want to know about all the archaeological connections because I've got all the geological ones in my head. Oh well, you know, I don't want to keep you too long, but I might try to get a Heracles episode out of you some time.

Of sure, any one of my He's one of my favorites. Although don't tell Perseus because that's you, of course found in myceni, so I have to have a specially true, of course special relationship with with Perseus.

But I'm currently working on a section of a book on Medusa and looking at all of those kind of origins as well. So I'm walked into that realm myself. Yeah, because she is my she is my obsession. I'm dying. But yeah, before you know, before I let you go, because this has been incredible. I so much better than I expected, which always happens. It's such a joy. But is there anything you know do you have like a favorite fun fact or thing about Mycenie. That's your just kind of love that you want to share before we sign off.

I mean, there's lots of cool things about about me in general, and and I've been, you know, working there and excavating there for a very long time, so it's it's a very special relationship that I have with it. But I would say to sort of circle back to we were talking about the monumental tombs, and one of the tombs that I know you visited was what we call the Treasury of Atreus, or locally they called the Tube of Agamemnon, which was which was the largest one not only at Mycening, but on the mainland that we have, And of course it has survived, still standing today. And what very few people realize is that in the fall and spring equinoxes, because that tune face is directly east, the sun comes in at when it pops over the mountain opposite, the sun comes in the triangle and it refracts off the back curved wall and rebounds into the triangle of the little side chamber and lights it up like daylight. It's very cool it happens. It happens at like seven o'clock in the morning. So the site's not open, so you have to sort of know about it. So I used to when I lived there. I lived in Greece at my city for twelve years. I would pop up there and it would be me and the guards with our coffee, you know, waiting for the sun to pop up over the mountain. But it's really amazing, and I would love to say that it was all done intentionally, but I don't think it. I mean, maybe a little bit, but we know that, for instance, the triangle was covered with sculpture, so it wouldn't have been open in the ancient period anyway. All the rest of the fuloid don't face directly east, so this one just happens to face. So at the same time, I feel like this can be a coincidence either. There's such good engineers. They must have navigated with the stars and known all about the sun and the moon courses and all that, so I feel like they were able to do this, it was possible for them to do this, that that was the full intent of this burial monument. No, I don't think so. But I'm super happy that it worked out that way, and that it's a fun thing for those of us who work there and you know, are able to be there at seven o'clock in the morning on the falls bring equinox.

I like maybe I like to imagine maybe like the architect who just made that one just kind of ad it, like was joking himself. You know, it was more of like a personal decision, and that's why it's like just in that one. I love that though. I'm going back in June and I'm very glad to have that fact. You did make me think, though, do you really quickly do you have any are there is there any evidence in my scening that links to the the later curse of the.

Curse of the House of Atrius.

Yeah, because it's my favorite thing in the whole world, that line of curses.

Yeah, I mean, I jokingly always say that we still live under the Curse of the House of Atreus at Myceni because what will go wrong will go wrong, Like we just we just know it's a big, complicated, expensive site that everyone feels like they have their own stake in, so everyone's like not cooperating the way they should, which is really what the site needs. So I was I jokingly but not jokingly say that we're still under that curse for a lot of ways. But I've never seen seen anything from the Bronze Age itself to suggest that we don't even know. I mean, we have cursed tablets later as part of a Greek tradition, that you actually could ask for people to be cursed and things like that, but we don't have anything in the evidence and the archaeological evidence. I do think though, that a lot of these stories go back very early, and that some of these names may well have been attached to people very early on. There may have been an atreus, there may have been a Pelops for that matter. Yeah, So the fact that you have this this horribly tragic curse filled family generation after generation after generation may be an overblowing of, you know, some weird things that happen to this family who you know, they couldn't keep it in their pants, they couldn't, you know, do the things they shouldn't do.

Lat Yeah, and making into kids soups like you know, I just couldn't help themselves.

I mean, yeah, so they're they're weird. We're a weird, weird, complicated group and problematic group to be your sort of people that you are working with. But I always hope that the stuff that we find and the narratives that we create will will be a better choice. You'll find that in fact, it wasn't It wasn't all that tragic and bad. It just makes for a good story.

Yeah, you know, they've always interested me because I mean, one, they're just some of the most entertaining stories from this sure. But two, yeah, that what you mentioned, this idea that like they are like the biggest and best kings still, like even when you are a child of one of them, Like they're so openly proud of who they come from. They're like, yes, I am a tantalid. Did he try to eat my grandfather? Sure, I still am proud that I'm a tantalid? Like Yeah, It's I just I find that to be such an interesting kind of you know, it feels like a I don't know the wordy want, but just feels weird.

I guess, And it's a lesson, And it's a lesson in the sort of Greek Uh, I guess, acceptance of things like arrogance and hubris and things that you know, they did retell these things and celebrate them, And I guess it's supposed to be a moral lesson at the same time, they keep missing the message, so you know, what are you gonna do?

It makes for great content for me, So I'm not there yet.

That's it makes good content for me too, teaching, you know, touring in archaeological site, all of those things. It's good.

Yeah, yeah, I thought a lot in the Tomb of Clytemnestra, you know, quote unquote Tomb of Clytemnestra.

There, it's just.

Yeah, those those tombs. I'll never forget them. I can't wait to go back. Well, this has been utterly incredible. Thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate you making the time and absolutely on my.

End, absolutely well, I will be. I will be around in the area in June, so if you are there, send me and Emil and I will. I'll tell you how to get in touch with me by own once you're in Greece, because I will be. I'll be working both at NIMEA and at my CD in June, so I'll be around.

I would I would love to do that. Thank you so much, absolutely well, thank you so much for speaking with me. Is there anything you want to share with my listeners reading more from you or anything like that?

Not yet we will have I mean, I but most of the stuff that I work on is pretty uh you know, scholarly based and all that. But they they're welcome to go to my website, which is NMEA Center dot Berkeley dot e d U and see all of the exciting projects we have going on. All three of them have a Bronze Age element, but also a later classical element too, And I will say that and this is in part thanks to Eric Klein, who I know recommended me, uh my colleague Linkvoppola and I are going to are actually going to be producing a book for his series that he's doing, in which we're looking at very much the every day my city ends, so flipping the scrupt, not talking about just the kings and the elite, but actually looking at everyday life and the other context that we know, and from the perspective of two women field archaeologists, which actually are relatively rare in our part of the world as well. So we're putting a you know, how how does one excavate with a you know, while they're breastfeeding, right, you know, they don't talk about those things very much, but we're going to very much infuse this book about you know, women excavating women sort of the idea.

So okay, well, whenever that exists you can expect.

Hopefully sometime last year, hopefully.

Sometimes I've been very lucky. I think most of the archaeologists I've ever had on this show have been women, mostly just because of my own circles. But it makes it seem like there's a higher representation, which I know they're it's not, but I'm lucky to speak to so many.

So yeah, that's great, that's great, and thanks thanks for giving us the platform to speak.

Oh my god, it's my favorite thing in the entire world. If you haven't been able to tell from my like enormous mile throat this entire conversation, Oh nerds, that episode was so much fun. Oh my god, Like, I just you know, this is such a thrill for my job. I just truly love so much when people can come on and share all of this stuff with me. It's just such a joy. I met a loss for how to describe just so much of the joy, so instead I will just again say joy. I hope you enjoyed it. I'm sure you learned a lot. I know that I did, and I am just so excited for this conversation and everything that I have to come for this series because we have another three conversations coming in addition to another two scripted episodes detailing so much more about the Bronze Age Mediterranean and its collapse. Thank you all so much for listening. As always, it means the world to me. If you've just found the show through this series. Hi, welcome. Normally I talk about mythology, It's usually more storytelling. Still always fun though, That's why I'm here. I have some of the most incredible guests on my show.

I am so lucky. It is such a joy.

Welcome, Welcome, Let's talk about myths Maybe is written and produced by me Live Albert. Mikayla Smith is the hermes to my Olympians, and during this Bronze Age series, she is also the writer. Let's be perfectly honest, the writer of the episode is not this one, because it's just a conversation. That'd be weird. But Mikayla and the Bronze Age are closely tied, is au Imn saying. Laura Smith is the production assistant and audio engineer, and she worked her wonders on this conversation. Everyone has their hands in all the different pieces, because somehow my show has grown to be three people and.

Aren't we fun.

The podcast is part of the iHeart Podcast Network. Listen on Spotify or Apple or wherever you get your podcasts. Help me continue bringing you the world of the ancient Mediterranean by becoming patron, where you'll get access to past bonus episodes, hopefully more new ones, and you know, generally, just contribute to the free show that I give you all twice a week. That's patreon dot com slash mits. Baby, I feel like I am slightly losing my mind again. Apologies. We're living on the edge. We're living on the edge. I am live and I love this shit.