page_title: Lion Gate
section_title: Construction
hierarchical_section_title: Lion Gate / Construction
caption_attribution_description: English: Detail of the goddess. Mighty mistress of animals (Potnia theron) and nature. Pithos with relief, from the years 625-600 BC. National Archaeological Museum of Athens, NAMA 355.Čeština: Detail bohyně. Mocná paní zvířat (Potnia theron) a přirozenosti. Pithos s reliéfem, z let 625 až 600 před n. l. Národní archeologické muzeum v Athénách, NAMA 355.
context_page_description: The Lion Gate was the main entrance of the Bronze Age citadel of Mycenae, southern Greece. It was erected during the 13th century BC, around 1250 BC in the northwest side of the acropolis and is named after the relief sculpture of two lionesses or lions in a heraldic pose that stands above the entrance.
  The Lion Gate is the sole surviving monumental piece of Mycenaean sculpture, as well as the largest sculpture in the prehistoric Aegean. It is the only monument of Bronze Age Greece to bear an iconographic motif that survived without being buried underground, and the only relief image which was described in the literature of classical antiquity, such that it was well known prior to modern archaeology.
context_section_description: The Lion Gate is a massive and imposing construction, standing 3.10 m (10 ft) wide and 2.95 m (10 ft) high at the threshold. It narrows as it rises, measuring 2.78 m (9 ft) below the lintel. The opening was closed by a double door mortised to a vertical beam that acted as a pivot around which the door revolved.
  The gate itself consists of two great monoliths capped with a huge lintel that measures 4.5×2.0×0.8 m (15×7×3 ft). Above the lintel, the masonry courses form a corbelled arch, leaving an opening that lightens the weight carried by the lintel. This relieving triangle is a great limestone slab on which two confronted lionesses or lions carved in high relief stand on either sides of a central pillar. The heads of the animals were fashioned separately and are missing, but their necks are present. The pillar, specifically, is a Minoan-type column that is placed on top of an altar-like platform upon which the lionesses rest their front feet. It has been suggested that lions were not present in Greece at the time showing some sort of hierarchy in power with them fashioned on this monumental gate.
  Early imagery of a deity that was found at Knossos presents a goddess flanked clearly by two lionesses, establishing a continuity in religious imagery when later, a deity is represented abstractly by a column. It clearly identifies the species of feline, because of the characteristic tuft at the end of the tail, not present in any other feline species.  
  Speculation also exists that the animal figures are male lions. One author believes that the Mycenaean artist did not indicate the sex of lions by the genital organs on any artifact known to have been recovered from an excavation. Neither were teats indicated on the body of the lions to indicate they were female. Furthermore, he asserts that on the Lion Gate relief, cuttings on the side of the neck of the lion to the left of the spectator indicate that the animal represented is male, for the cuttings were where the ends of the mane of the animal were fitted to provide additional support to the block, perhaps of steatite, on which the head, face, and mane of the animal were carved. He asserts that the same section of the lion to the right fails to show the same characteristic because it has weathered badly, but that he detects remnants of one cutting which indicate to him that a similar provision was made for the head of that lion. Consequently, he presumes that both animals can be considered lions and not lionesses. Griffins or sphinxes have also been depicted on opposite sides of a column on gems and gold rings but always with wings. The absence of wings also indicates that the animals were probably lions.
  The imposing gate of the citadel with the representation of the lionesses or lions was an emblem of the Mycenaean kings and a symbol of their power to both subjects and foreigners. It also has been argued that the lionesses (assuming they are not male lions) are a symbol of the goddess Hera. The Lion Gate may be compared to the gates of the Hittite Bronze Age citadel of Hattusa, in Asia Minor. Since the heads of the animals were of a different material from their bodies and originally were fashioned to look toward those approaching below, a number of scholars have suggested that they were composite beasts, probably sphinxes, in the typical Middle Eastern tradition. On the top of the pillar is a row of four discs, apparently representing rafters supporting a further piece of sculpture that has since been lost. Another view is as follows: above the head of the column and what is probably a slab supporting an architrave is a row of discs (ends of transverse beams) and another slab the same size as the slab on top of the column.  The beams and the block above them represent a more extended superstructure shortened here because of the diminishing space in the triangle. Thus, no further piece of sculpture has been lost.
  The design of the gate had precedents in other surviving artworks of the time; a similar design was depicted on fifteenth-century Minoan seals and a gem found at My
caption: Goddess flanked by two lionesses on a pithos from Knossos
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