National Archaeology Museum 1/4

I'm back in Athens after the trips to the Argolid and Crete, so I've got a pretty big backlog of stuff to post. I'm going to date these posts on the days that I was there just to keep things straight.

We had another light day, with nothing to do but a lecture on prehistoric Greece and our first trip (of four) to the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.

There were three prehistoric civilizations which existed in the bronze age in and around Greece, but only two of these get very much attention. The older of the two are the Minoans, on Crete and a few of the islands, and the Myceneans on the mainland. The Minoans controlled the entire island of Crete for over a millenium from 2700 BC through until 1450 BC, though whether or not they were united under one authority is uncertain. Architecturally they're known for "palaces" which seem to have been both town centers and supply depots. They had a great navy and did a fair amount of trade around the eastern Mediterranean. Unlike the Myceneans, the Minoans weren't actually Greek, but did seem to contribute to the culture that would later become Greek.

The Myceneans were the first people in the area to speak a form of the Greek language, and are the Acheans described by Homer in the Iliad and Odyssey. They were warlike and known for building massive fortifications, and amassed most of their wealth from trading and pillaging. They conquered the Minoans around 1450 BC. The civilization collapsed at the end of the bronze age due to unknown events that devastated the entire eastern Mediterranean.

Now for some neat Mycenean stuff:
A stone relief of a charioteer. The Myceneans did have chariots, which is a bit odd since Greece is generally too mountanous to use them.
The "Mask of Agamemnon". Heinrich Schliemann, who was the first to excavate both Troy and Mycenae, had a habit of naming his finds after characters in the Iliad and myth. It's a solid gold funeral mask.
Swords and trinkets. The greenish greyish bit is 3000 year old bronze, and the yellow is gold. All of this stuff was pulled out of a pair of graveyards at Mycenae. The later and more impressive tombs probably had even more, but unlike the grave circles they were plainly visible and were robbed thousands of years ago.
Gold.
More gold.
A scabbard for a dagger. There's a gold inlay of lionesses.
Jewelry.

Minoan stuff:
A fresco of two boys boxing. The rougher looking bits are genuine, while the rest is a modern reconstruction. It's not as obvious in this room as it is at some other places.
Goats.
A landscape. The Minoans would have loved Dr. Seuss.
A pithos. The Minoan palaces dedicated a significant amount of space to storing these things, and had a written language for keeping track of what goods were in what pithoi.
A 4000 year old bed frame.