This volume, which concerns war, violence, and conflict, grew out of forces in opposition to these notions – friendship and cooperative relationships that existed prior to its conception and developed further as the book came together. When we began our own collaboration at the Petsas House excavations (Shelton as director and Kvapil as trench supervisor) around 2007, neither of us envisioned that we would work together on the topic of warfare. Battles and fighting seemed outside the purview of two researchers whose work was centered on Mycenaean ceramics, mortuary and landscape archaeology, settlements, and agriculture. And yet, the subject is difficult to avoid in Bronze Age archaeology even in these seemingly peaceful areas of research. How can one conduct archaeological work in the shadow of Mycenae’s fortification walls and not consider their necessity, their function, and their impact? What is the Lion Gate if not a beautifully adorned vulnerability to attack? How can the treacherous climb down the steps of the underground cistern in the northeast extension not raise the specter of siege warfare?
The field of Aegean prehistory has long drawn on war as an etiology for social and political change, from the Trojan War to the Mycenaean conquest of Knossos to the catastrophic collapse of Bronze Age society. Our education and training in the critical assessment of these fundamental questions necessitated contemplation of war and conflict along with the objects of war both practical and symbolic. When we were approached by the series editor about compiling this volume, we knew the process might push us outside our comfort zone but not leave us in wholly unfamiliar territory. This volume did, in fact, push our work in new directions. The influence of this volume is perceptible in other aspects of our research, including the reconsideration of settlement and palace relationships at Mycenae through the lens of conflicting social and political elements, the mapping of regional dynamics beyond the palaces in the northeast Peloponnese, and the changing role of weapons and warriors in Mycenaean life and death.
We are grateful to Lee L. Brice for encouraging us to take on this project for a series that, under his direction, centers innovative approaches to military history. One of the innovations of this volume is an expansive view of Greek and Roman History that sees Aegean prehistory as fundamental to the Ancient Mediterranean World rather than liminal to it. There was history in the Aegean before Homer and hoplites, but connections across the Bronze Age into the Early Iron Age have been obscured in scholarly frameworks of Dark Ages and discontinuity. Reparative work is rebuilding those connections while reminding historians of later periods of the significance of the Aegean’s entire Bronze Age past. We hope this volume will contribute to this endeavor.
The outstanding contributors whose work is collected here have also greatly expanded the ways of viewing what might be considered well-worn material. We thank them all for their perspective, their excellent work, and their abundant patience as we compiled this book amidst major life changes and a global pandemic. To these thanks, we must add the generous external readers whose comments significantly improved the text. We are grateful to Vasso Pliatsika, Kostas Paschalidis and others from the National Archaeological Museum of Athens; Sharon Stocker and Carol Hershenson of the University of Cincinnati; Barry Molloy and Fritz Blakolmer for assistance in the acquisition of images and permissions for their use. We are indebted to Gypsy Price for constructing our beautiful maps and to Lilly Hinckley, who provided editorial and bibliographic help for several of the chapters. Giulia Moriconi was instrumental in providing plans of the major Mycenaean citadels. We thank her and the rest of the team at Brill for their support and assistance along the way.
Lynne A. Kvapil
Kim Shelton
April 2023