URBANIZATION IN THE MYCENAEAN CULTURE: FOREIGN INFLUENCES OR INDIGENOUSDEVELOPMENT?
Channel: European Association of Archaeologists
Date: 2020-12-19

Urbanization, as the social process can be defined in a systematic and relational way, in which it occurs within a closed system, and focuses on development of functional and structural differences between various settlements. Urbanization understood in this way undoubtedly took place in the Mycenaean culture, developing in the Aegean in the second millennium BC (ca. 1700 – 1050 BC), as it faced a gradual centralization of administration and economy around the palaces, which led to distinction of their role in the settlement network and development of lower towns. Palace together with the settlement surrounding it, creates an entity that can be called a palatial town, with internal structural, functional and social divisions and playing a key role in the regional settlement network. Within the broad study of contacts between the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean in the Late Bronze Age it was not yet determined if the urbanization in the Mycenaean culture was directly influenced or even inspired by those relations. By analyzing data from five known and researched Mycenaean lower towns (Dimini, Thebes, Mycenae, Tiryns and Pylos) and comparing it with selected archaeological contexts in meso (Crete and Western Anatolia, where urban character of Mycenaeanised settlements results from their older origins - Minoan in case of Knossos and Anatolian in case of Miletus) and macro-scale (Hatti Empire, Syro-Palestine, Egypt, all in direct or indirect cultural and/or political contact with the Mycenaean citadels) the question stated in the title will be addressed. The presented project, aimed at creating models of Mycenaean lower towns and their entanglements, is at initial stage, thus only its goals and theoretical frameworks will be presented, together with summary of known archaeological and historical data

and some preliminary thoughts on question of external influences in the process of formation of Mycenaean lower towns.


Author(s): Zeman, Piotr (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Institute of Prehistory)