Speaker 1: Hi, Hello, and welcome. This is Let's talk about mits Baby,
Speaker 1: and I am your host live here with the first
Speaker 1: Conversation episode of our Bronze Age and its Collapse series,
Speaker 1: and I am so excited. So I spoke with doctor
Speaker 1: Kim Shelton, who is a professor at UC Berkeley but
Speaker 1: also but also the director of the NEMEA Center for
Speaker 1: Classical Archaeology, which is it's all just so Greek. Oh
Speaker 1: my god. Kim has worked on so many incredible sites
Speaker 1: in ancient Greece, but the main one being my Scenie.
Speaker 1: We had such an incredible conversation about Bronze Age, Mycenie
Speaker 1: and just everything in between, so many of the pieces
Speaker 1: that are going to be expanded upon from the episode
Speaker 1: that I released on Tuesday, so many questions answered, so
Speaker 1: many additional details and like just littlest things that you
Speaker 1: just you do not get without just straight up speaking
Speaker 1: to somebody who was actively worked. I'm pretty sure she'
Speaker 1: said at one point that that she'd lived there working
Speaker 1: at Mycenie for twelve years. Like that is what we
Speaker 1: are at here, the level of Mycenie. I'm just so
Speaker 1: thrilled to have had her on the show. And also
Speaker 1: it was just such a joyfully fun conversation and I
Speaker 1: got to ask all of my little nerdy questions about
Speaker 1: the goddesses. Oh oh, we had fun. Just one more
Speaker 1: note though, before we dive right in. Unfortunately we did
Speaker 1: lose about like five minutes of the beginning of our
Speaker 1: conversation due to some technical difficulties. We cover for it
Speaker 1: very well. I don't really think anyone misses out on anything,
Speaker 1: but you know, you'll just notice at the very beginning
Speaker 1: I kind of recap what exactly was going on at
Speaker 1: the conversation and then ask Doctor Shelton to dive right
Speaker 1: back in. Also, just because I noticed when I was
Speaker 1: listening back to back, I had to record this conversation
Speaker 1: before I had been able to write the episode that
Speaker 1: came out on Tuesday. So I asked questions that I
Speaker 1: should have known the answer to, and now do know
Speaker 1: the answers to. And I'm going to just explain that
Speaker 1: right now. I promise, other than sometimes having to record
Speaker 1: before I'm able to do a thing, I do know
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about. Oh, You're gonna love this one
Speaker 1: so much. Bronze Age, Mycenie. Not only Bronze Age, but
Speaker 1: Bronze Age where we can read the writing. And one
Speaker 1: thing that I was not expecting is just how much
Speaker 1: we do know about the religious aspects through that writing,
Speaker 1: through palace records. We know so much. I can't wait
Speaker 1: for y'all to hear it. Conversations things they found in
Speaker 1: the tombs, Bronze Age, Mycecenie with doctor Kim Shelton. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I don't want to make you, you know, repeat the
Speaker 1: little bit said we lost, but you know, just to
Speaker 1: sort of general kind of catch up for the listeners
Speaker 1: because we unfortunately lost just a couple of minutes. Thankfully.
Speaker 1: We're talking about the pre palatial period and how it
Speaker 1: was just sort of a collection of elites kind of
Speaker 1: all vying for for this, you know, kind of elite
Speaker 1: status and rulership before there was a wan Ax. And
Speaker 1: I'm I'm really interested in what you were talking about
Speaker 1: the burial sites because yeah, you maybe maybe a little
Speaker 1: just reiterate some of that, unfortunately, but I'm really curious
Speaker 1: in how they might connect to the wider Mediterranean because
Speaker 1: it sounds a lot like like what the Egyptians did
Speaker 1: kind of thing.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, so it seems as if the in the
Speaker 2: whole mortuary sphere was an area of sort of peer
Speaker 2: competition and maybe even room for mobility upward and downward
Speaker 2: mobility within the social classes.
Speaker 3: And many of the.
Speaker 2: Elites spent a tremendous amount of time on their burials.
Speaker 3: So even while before they died.
Speaker 2: There were there were large tombs that were being constructed
Speaker 2: that would take you know, many many years to construct.
Speaker 3: And then there was this.
Speaker 2: Strong tradition of multiple burials that is a way to
Speaker 2: transfer power from one generation to the next. So you are,
Speaker 2: on the one hand, maybe you're vine for power, but
Speaker 2: you want to make sure that power lasts into the
Speaker 2: next generation. And one way you do that is by
Speaker 2: creating like a power structure among your family or your
Speaker 2: clan that by being buried with someone that was powerful
Speaker 2: before that shows a kind of endorsement. And then also
Speaker 2: the display the funeral, the gifts, the honors that are
Speaker 2: given to the dead by the living gives sort of
Speaker 2: is a transfer of power to those living individuals. So
Speaker 2: we think that's one reason that there's you know, unlike
Speaker 2: the Egyptians who luckily tell us and texts what they
Speaker 2: believed that they had, this you know, what you take
Speaker 2: in your tomb you need because you're going to need
Speaker 2: it in the afterlife. Yeah, and there we you know,
Speaker 2: sometimes we assume that's the case with the Mycenians, but
Speaker 2: we knowing from later Greek mythology and religion, we know
Speaker 2: that they had a very different sense of what the
Speaker 2: afterlife was like, and that may have already been the
Speaker 2: case in this early period, which suggests to us that
Speaker 2: the elaborate display of goods at the time of the
Speaker 2: funeral and that were then put into the burial with
Speaker 2: the dead had more to do with the living than
Speaker 2: it had to do with the dead, that it showed
Speaker 2: their status, their ability to you know, have more of this.
Speaker 2: We always call it conspicuous consumption because you take all
Speaker 2: this valuable material and you bury it in the ground
Speaker 2: and you don't give it to the next generation.
Speaker 3: So they're transferring status.
Speaker 2: But the messages I have this wealth, I don't need
Speaker 2: to keep it for myself. I can emphasize the power
Speaker 2: and wealth of my father, ancestor whatever.
Speaker 3: By actually giving all these things as part of a
Speaker 3: display that all of you folks.
Speaker 2: See that I'm doing this, and that means all of
Speaker 2: that is transferred onto me at the same time that
Speaker 2: I have enough.
Speaker 3: I don't need that I have enough to keep going
Speaker 3: and be even better. So it's this really weird thing.
Speaker 2: It's hard for us, I think, to conceive ev that
Speaker 2: the arena of death and burial can be so important
Speaker 2: to social hierarchy and the succession of power and status.
Speaker 2: But it really seems to be hugely important. And that's
Speaker 2: one reason they expended so much energy and labor and
Speaker 2: resources on their tombs, first of all, but then also
Speaker 2: on their funerals and their burials, and for generations they
Speaker 2: came back to these tombs, they would move around the dead,
Speaker 2: they would do all kinds of different interesting traditions with
Speaker 2: those that are already dead, and then new burials would
Speaker 2: go into that same location. So this emphasis on multi
Speaker 2: generational tombs translates into that sort of uh, handing down,
Speaker 2: handing on power and status through the dead back to
Speaker 2: the living.
Speaker 1: Is that is so interesting? Now? Are these are these
Speaker 1: like the beehive tombs that we know of from the
Speaker 1: region or do those come later?
Speaker 2: No, those are exactly the beehive tumbs. Now, when you
Speaker 2: were there, you probably saw a couple of them, but
Speaker 2: you may not have seen the earliest because at my Ceni,
Speaker 2: we have nine of them, y and six of them
Speaker 2: belonged to the pre palatial period.
Speaker 1: Oh wow.
Speaker 2: And honestly, I would say the last group of three,
Speaker 2: the first two two of those three were probably built,
Speaker 2: one right before there were palaces, maybe was started to
Speaker 2: be built, and the other one was right at the start.
Speaker 2: So even the last the ones that were built later
Speaker 2: are still quite early in the whole sequence of things,
Speaker 2: because then they keep being used. And so we think
Speaker 2: we have as many as six or seven families, very
Speaker 2: high elite families that have the resources to build these
Speaker 2: beehive tombs out of these giant stones.
Speaker 3: And you know, an architectural and engineering miracle that they.
Speaker 2: Are, that they could, you know, redible, Yeah, with the
Speaker 2: beehive shape and the corbal vaulting and the fact that
Speaker 2: several of them survived till today. You know, that kind
Speaker 2: of thing. But beyond that, we also have what we
Speaker 2: often refer to as the middle class tooms. But it's
Speaker 2: actually a wide range than that, what we call chamber tombs,
Speaker 2: and the main differences. They are carved out of the
Speaker 2: bedrock and not lined with masonry the way the behive
Speaker 2: tombs are, and they can be in all different shapes.
Speaker 2: They can be circular, oval, square, rectangular. There are a
Speaker 2: number of them from around the time that the beehive
Speaker 2: tombs or what we call the Foloi the Fullo tubes
Speaker 2: when they were built, that are circular, so they're they're
Speaker 2: imitating in some ways the shape of these ones, these
Speaker 2: very very highly ones, and many of them not only
Speaker 2: at Mycen but in other sites around in the area
Speaker 2: that we think was under my CD's control, have some
Speaker 2: spectacular chamber tunes.
Speaker 3: They are huge.
Speaker 2: You could drive a bus under them. They're just really
Speaker 2: really big, and and many of them, unfortunately, of course,
Speaker 2: have been looted like the Fullest tubes. But we have
Speaker 2: some that were excavated early in the in the late
Speaker 2: nineteenth century that have material we think equal to what
Speaker 2: may well have been in some of.
Speaker 3: The Fullest tumbs. Wow. So it's like maybe the next tier,
Speaker 3: or maybe it's.
Speaker 2: A choice to do one type rout than another. And
Speaker 2: we see that. You know, over time, more and more
Speaker 2: tombs are built, and by the time you get to
Speaker 2: the palatial period, you'll have in one group of tombs,
Speaker 2: because they exist in all of these different cemeteries, you'll
Speaker 2: have ones that are big giant early ones, and then
Speaker 2: you'll have sort of regular sized later ones that you'll
Speaker 2: have some that are used over five hundred years and
Speaker 2: some that are newly used after the placial period start.
Speaker 2: So it's a whole mishmash of what we think probably
Speaker 2: a whole clan would have been like over all of
Speaker 2: these many generations.
Speaker 3: And they keep returning.
Speaker 2: Back to the same tombs, and if not the same cemetery,
Speaker 2: they build new tombs in the same cemetery.
Speaker 1: Wow, they're just so big, Like I'm just so I
Speaker 1: mean when I stepped in one of those Solo's tombs,
Speaker 1: like I nearly lost my mind, Like I have not
Speaker 1: been that excited in many other places, Like and they
Speaker 1: sound in them. Yeah, the acoustics, Oh my god, I
Speaker 1: dream about it. But I'm just so so I'm impressed
Speaker 1: that they are early. And like what kind of time period,
Speaker 1: like what.
Speaker 2: In like in round like in round numbers cellary, So
Speaker 2: what are we talking about For the early Mycenaean period,
Speaker 2: It probably starts as early as seventeen hundred sixteen hundred BCE,
Speaker 2: and then the palaces start sometime after fourteen hundred BC,
Speaker 2: So we have two hundred and fifty three hundred years
Speaker 2: that which they're going from. Already they're in the country,
Speaker 2: they're what we call the Middle Holadic Period or the
Speaker 2: Middle Bronze Age, and then they begin to develop this
Speaker 2: more social structure, more hierarchy, and that goes over these
Speaker 2: generations the behigunes themselves. The first six we think date
Speaker 2: to between fifteen hundred and fourteen hundred BCE, and then
Speaker 2: the last three dates somewhere between probably fourteen hundred and
Speaker 2: maybe twelve fifty right somewhere pretty soon before the like, yeah,
Speaker 2: they start right at the start of the Palace period,
Speaker 2: and then there's one that seems to be kind of
Speaker 2: the last one that's constructed was probably very much in
Speaker 2: the height of the.
Speaker 3: Palace like during that during that period.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so interesting, especially now that I have, you know,
Speaker 1: spoken with people about the collapse itself, just time period wise,
Speaker 1: and like imagining you know, the last one being you know,
Speaker 1: like less than a century I gather like kind of
Speaker 1: or before the sort of end in whatever way that
Speaker 1: they did end, Yeah, you know, during the Bronze Age
Speaker 1: colap So it's it's interesting to I just started imagining
Speaker 1: the idea that like you know, things went so badly
Speaker 1: that they weren't able to continue using the tombs, even
Speaker 1: for those who died, you know, around right around the collapse.
Speaker 1: It was like they weren't going to be able to prioritize,
Speaker 1: you know, doing the big show.
Speaker 2: And we think that we think that potentially the reason
Speaker 2: why we have fewer later of the of the ones,
Speaker 2: the Folos ones with the masonry, is that people didn't
Speaker 2: have the access to the labor or to the resources
Speaker 2: to expend on that they were their focus was elsewhere,
Speaker 2: and it was there were a lot of things going
Speaker 2: on in that in that thirteenth century that suggest to
Speaker 2: us that all through that century there were things were starting.
Speaker 2: You know, the collapse doesn't happen for another one hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty years, depending where you are, but the palace
Speaker 2: itself is struggling and that it's not going to it's
Speaker 2: not going to make it into the next century. As
Speaker 2: as a political structure, that things are going to change
Speaker 2: so radically after that. But it's clear that the mortuary
Speaker 2: sphere once, once power is really consolidated into one group,
Speaker 2: they don't need that same kind of competitive display that
Speaker 2: was so important for hundreds of years before then.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's just I love this so much, so I'm
Speaker 1: really interested in how because you know, I'm I'm really
Speaker 1: familiar with the statuary and stuff that comes out of
Speaker 1: like the Minoan period or like, you know, the Minoans
Speaker 1: are earlier than this, and the Cycladic people and everything,
Speaker 1: and you know, basically I want to talk about all
Speaker 1: the goddess figurines that they have, which I don't know
Speaker 1: if we so, like did the Mycenians have a kind
Speaker 1: of equivalent? Do we know much about like those sort
Speaker 1: of more religious aspects like we do of the Cycladic
Speaker 1: and Minoans.
Speaker 3: We do.
Speaker 2: It develops in the early Palatial period. It seems to
Speaker 2: be developing as a combination of long established belief systems
Speaker 2: and apparently the pantheon of gods that we know later
Speaker 2: came with them to Greece. But they must not have
Speaker 2: done much i kinographically, they didn't think whether they didn't
Speaker 2: think of their gods as humans, or they didn't or
Speaker 2: in a human form, or they didn't feel like they
Speaker 2: needed to show them that way.
Speaker 3: So when they come into contact.
Speaker 2: And very strong and sustained contact with the Minoans, they
Speaker 2: begin to adopt their iconography that they use, and a
Speaker 2: lot of it is even through.
Speaker 3: Small fines, gold rings.
Speaker 2: Ivory statuary, some small scale stuff primarily sealstones that for
Speaker 2: the most part were likely produced by.
Speaker 3: Minoan artists anyway they made.
Speaker 2: Many of them were probably produced for myceny and consumers,
Speaker 2: but by initially by Minoan artists, so they produced the
Speaker 2: same kind of iconography that they did before.
Speaker 3: What we see happen during the Palatial period is a
Speaker 3: let's say, a mobilization of religious rituals.
Speaker 2: To once again kind of keep power and to distribute
Speaker 2: their status, the love life of their status to the
Speaker 2: more general population. It was a it was a way,
Speaker 2: and of course this is true throughout time and history.
Speaker 2: Their religion can be used as a tool to control
Speaker 2: the masses. Right, So, I know, shocking, shocking, So we
Speaker 2: today on Easter, I Good Friday and all that. It's
Speaker 2: interesting that you know, we know from later on later
Speaker 2: on being twelve hundred, right, the documents and linear be
Speaker 2: that we have surviving from Pelos and twelve hundred, we
Speaker 2: know that there was a Zeus, and there was a Poseidon,
Speaker 2: and we know all these male gods. Right, we still
Speaker 2: don't really have any images of anyone on the mainland
Speaker 2: that we can point to. Ah, there's a god, we don't.
Speaker 2: It's still predominantly the female deities, but there are a
Speaker 2: huge plethora of them in the documents as well, so
Speaker 2: it's not like they brought them in from somewhere else.
Speaker 3: Now they have plenty.
Speaker 2: They just kind of said, oh, look, these people put
Speaker 2: them in pictures.
Speaker 3: We could do that, we could show show some of
Speaker 3: these pictures.
Speaker 2: But it's right very at the start of the palatial
Speaker 2: period when it looks like the idea of a palace
Speaker 2: was actually transported to the mainland from crete. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: they're like, you know, we could have one of these
Speaker 2: large centralized architectural features. Doesn't look like it does on crete.
Speaker 2: But that's okay because we have our own preferences in architecture.
Speaker 2: That they develop one object that is for consumption and libation.
Speaker 2: So they develop a standard drinking vessel that's very simple,
Speaker 2: very easy to make.
Speaker 3: Actually they don't.
Speaker 2: They make thousands, tens of thousands of them, not very well,
Speaker 2: but it's fine. And we see them suddenly start to
Speaker 2: be used in all kinds of ritual activities in life
Speaker 2: and death and the houses and you know, all over
Speaker 2: and then at the same time, we have the development
Speaker 2: of terracotta figurines, and you may have seen some of
Speaker 2: these before. There are a whole bunch of types, but
Speaker 2: there are two general categories. One of them is a
Speaker 2: female predominantly female figurines, and the other predominantly bovine figurines.
Speaker 3: So maybe bulls. They have horns, but they don't have
Speaker 3: genital yet.
Speaker 2: So you know, we have to say, well, we don't know,
Speaker 2: because cows can have horns, but I suspect they're probably
Speaker 2: meant to be viewed as the male animal.
Speaker 3: So the female human the male animal.
Speaker 2: Very likely representing fertility among humans and animals.
Speaker 3: Strong.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, But these are things that the Manolans who
Speaker 2: had terra kind of figurines exclusively really in sanctuary sights.
Speaker 2: These are very different in the way they're made, the
Speaker 2: way they're decorated, and the fact that we find them everywhere.
Speaker 2: I would say the modern equivalent, although my students don't
Speaker 2: seem to know what this is, so they must not
Speaker 2: be doing it anymore.
Speaker 3: But my modern equivalent was always a rabbit's foot. Oh,
Speaker 3: the kind of thing.
Speaker 2: That people would have on their keychain and you carried
Speaker 2: around with you and meant luck.
Speaker 3: It meant that it was some kind of talisman.
Speaker 2: And it may be that these figurines are good luck,
Speaker 2: good luck in your family, good luck for your children,
Speaker 2: good luck for your fertility, good luck for your crops
Speaker 2: and your animals.
Speaker 3: And everything that you needed to survive.
Speaker 2: And we do find them in some religious context, but again,
Speaker 2: and they very likely mean there's something symbolic there, But
Speaker 2: we find them all over houses and all over trash pits.
Speaker 2: When they got broken, they weren't kept or repaired, they
Speaker 2: were thrown away, so they just become ubiquitous. They're kind
Speaker 2: of everywhere. And again, between these two objects, they seem
Speaker 2: to have a kind of standardized ritual practice that everyone
Speaker 2: can participate in. But they're probably being made in large
Speaker 2: scale at places like the palaces for distribution, to enfranchise
Speaker 2: people in the religion, to sort of bring them in
Speaker 2: and have them participate in at least a symbolic way
Speaker 2: with the stuff that the upper echelon are doing, and
Speaker 2: that's a way to crey favor. And we know also
Speaker 2: from the Linear b tablets that the palace would help
Speaker 2: supply important religious festivals, that they would provide beef, you know,
Speaker 2: large on the hoof beef for sacrifice, and then for
Speaker 2: the feast itself they would they would give wine and
Speaker 2: oil and metal vessels and you know, these sort of splashy,
Speaker 2: showy things that they could send to the side of
Speaker 2: a festival, even if the you know, we don't know
Speaker 2: people wise who was there, but they're showing a village
Speaker 2: full of their subjects, as it were, the people they
Speaker 2: rely on to pay their taxes and provide food and
Speaker 2: all those kinds of things, providing them a sort of
Speaker 2: symbolic status by here's the here's the palace making this happen.
Speaker 2: Our food's better, our wine's better. We have enough for
Speaker 2: all these people. And here they're going to give us
Speaker 2: this really crappy cup, no no offense Starbucks for your
Speaker 2: not crabby cup. But that you know this, if some
Speaker 2: of them are even kind of have holes in them,
Speaker 2: like they probably didn't even work, right. But the fact
Speaker 2: that you were given one and you probably made a toast,
Speaker 2: and you probably drank, and you probably poured out the
Speaker 2: liquid for some of the liquid for the gods, and
Speaker 2: you probably took it home with you. Yeah, that was
Speaker 2: just this really powerful successful way that for more than
Speaker 2: about two hundred years, the palace kept people engaged in
Speaker 2: what was going on, and I think they felt behold
Speaker 2: and then to turn around and say, oh, yeah, I
Speaker 2: will pay my taxes. I will send you know, fifteen
Speaker 2: percent of my wool that I produce on my farm
Speaker 2: to the palace.
Speaker 3: And what do I get back for it?
Speaker 2: While I get protection if needed, I get to participate
Speaker 2: in this fun religious stuff.
Speaker 3: I get some good meat and some good wine. You know.
Speaker 2: So it was a it was obviously a barber economy anyway,
Speaker 2: but it was it was an interesting way to use
Speaker 2: again standard across time and space, to use religion in
Speaker 2: a way to create to keep a kind of standard culture. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and keep people in line at the same time to
Speaker 2: make them feel like they're worthwhile. And you know, whether
Speaker 2: they were or not, that's another question. But it fostered
Speaker 2: that feeling that you belonged to this kingdom and to
Speaker 2: this culture. And so therefore, I mean theoretically, if then
Speaker 2: the Wannucks turn around and said, okay, I need all
Speaker 2: of you to be in an army and go, you know,
Speaker 2: possibly die, you were prepared more prepared to do that
Speaker 2: because of this, you know, all your life generational relationship
Speaker 2: that was fostered with the central place and the central authorities.
Speaker 1: Oh, so many questions based on all of that. Also,
Speaker 1: you're like guiding me through the questions I already had,
Speaker 1: like all on your own. So that's I feel, okay,
Speaker 1: I can think you're going through my list. It's perfect.
Speaker 1: But I'm so curious a little bit more about the religion, unsurprisingly,
Speaker 1: because you know, I think a lot about the mythology.
Speaker 1: I think a lot generally about I mean, lately, because
Speaker 1: it's March and I've been doing a lot of episodes
Speaker 1: on ancient women, I think a lot about, you know,
Speaker 1: the the kind of evidence we have that might suggest
Speaker 1: that women used to be more worshiped than they were,
Speaker 1: you know, in the later period, more important than they
Speaker 1: were later. Do we have a lot of that from mycenae?
Speaker 1: Do we have any evidence that that the that they
Speaker 1: did have any kind of like, you know, just higher
Speaker 1: worship of like a mother goddess than say that people
Speaker 1: of archaic and classical.
Speaker 2: Well they have, you know, this interesting group of goddesses
Speaker 2: that go under this general term potnia, and Potnia seems
Speaker 2: to be like if we took if we took what
Speaker 2: we think was the pre Greek mother goddess, right, who
Speaker 2: becomes Gaya, But she's basically the pre she's pre Greek,
Speaker 2: she's already in the age when they get there. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and the Manilans seem to be that seems to be
Speaker 2: versions of her anyway, seem to be their primary interests.
Speaker 2: It seems as if they fragmented her up in a
Speaker 2: way so that she all of her different things that
Speaker 2: she did and ends up in different people, which is
Speaker 2: how we end up with Demeter and Heira and Artemis
Speaker 2: and Aphrodite and Athena. Right, That's how we end up
Speaker 2: with these goddesses who in fact almost all exist already
Speaker 2: in the Bronze Age, is that they represent all of
Speaker 2: these different aspects of life and fertility and animal life
Speaker 2: and the earth and nature, all of these things. But
Speaker 2: instead of being in one goddess who might be overpowerful, right,
Speaker 2: you divide them up into individual ones. And then so
Speaker 2: the Mycenians seem to have they had all of these
Speaker 2: goddesses that we know from later, but they also have
Speaker 2: this group of potnias. And the best way to translate
Speaker 2: that is how you might think of it as as
Speaker 2: our lady of so, our lady of the animals, our
Speaker 2: lady of the freshwater, our lady of the special grains,
Speaker 2: and they have and we see them as potnya and
Speaker 2: then they usually get a qualifier and adjective that tells
Speaker 2: you what they are the lady of. And so there
Speaker 2: were those either get merged with our Olympian goddesses or
Speaker 2: they just sort of die out altogether. They feel like
Speaker 2: they're redundant. Maybe I feel like probably merging is more
Speaker 2: likely the case, since we know that later from the
Speaker 2: Iron Age we have a lot of merging of local
Speaker 2: gods and sort of Paneltic gods anyway, so it feels
Speaker 2: like this is where the potneas went. But it's amazing
Speaker 2: that we have so many in the tablets that point
Speaker 2: to you know, like like the potnia of the wheat,
Speaker 2: like the wheat potnia or the grain potnia.
Speaker 3: That's great.
Speaker 2: I mean, later on she's Demeter, but there's already a
Speaker 2: Demeter too.
Speaker 3: So they must come together, they must merge together. And
Speaker 3: some of them may be.
Speaker 2: Local and went back way way far and they just
Speaker 2: kept you know, being worshiped over.
Speaker 3: Time my scening.
Speaker 2: What's it's specifically, what's super interesting is that we have
Speaker 2: a cult center. We have an area of the fortified citadel.
Speaker 3: Later it becomes in the walls.
Speaker 2: It exists before the walls, though, and it's a group
Speaker 2: of five buildings that each one have some kind of
Speaker 2: cult function, and in all of them where we do
Speaker 2: have have some iconography to indicate who might be the
Speaker 2: deity or rather deities that existed in this, for lack
Speaker 2: of a better term, a sanctuary with multiple deities. They're
Speaker 2: all female, and the bulk of them, not all of them,
Speaker 2: but the bulk of them are connected with weaponry and
Speaker 2: other kinds of.
Speaker 3: Military paraphernalia.
Speaker 2: So we have a goddess wearing a helmet, a bores
Speaker 2: tess helmet. We have a goddess with a long sword,
Speaker 2: which is also a late painting, but an early kind
Speaker 2: of sword, so again probably sort of heirloomy in the
Speaker 2: way that iconography is used. We have another one with
Speaker 2: possibly with the spear, you know, so it's all of
Speaker 2: this female. Oh, and one that has the body of
Speaker 2: a shield, who might be a theme. I mean, a
Speaker 2: lot of these we think might be sort of early
Speaker 2: versions of a female.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And the shield, it's like is it is it her
Speaker 2: body or is she standing behind the shield, like it's
Speaker 2: hard to tell you a figures shield.
Speaker 3: And there's like white arms and in a white head.
Speaker 2: And this was on a was on a little plaque
Speaker 2: of plaster painted plaque that's about yo big.
Speaker 3: So it's kind of like an icon.
Speaker 2: It's something that's movable and can be probably taken out
Speaker 2: in certain rituals then brought back into the inside of
Speaker 2: the more holy of holies of the of the sanctuary building.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I have so many like theories that
Speaker 1: live in my mind about the you know, the way
Speaker 1: that a big mother goddess eventually did become like slowly
Speaker 1: more and more subjugated into the Olympians that I know,
Speaker 1: and I just that's so interesting to hear. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: way that they were so broadly worshiped.
Speaker 3: And I don't and I don't know why.
Speaker 2: They never really came around to the idea that they
Speaker 2: could pick sure they're male gods when they clearly had them.
Speaker 1: M hmm.
Speaker 2: But why would that not have been important to illustrate
Speaker 2: in your wall paintings, on your decorated weapons, on your
Speaker 2: you know whatever. So we do think there may be
Speaker 2: in some of the iconography, some of the scenes in
Speaker 2: wall painting and in seal stones and some other things
Speaker 2: where we think we see men fighting that may be
Speaker 2: a story that may be a myth of Bronze Age
Speaker 2: era heroes or demigods or you know, even gods, and
Speaker 2: we just don't we don't know the story. So to us,
Speaker 2: we just say, well, here's a bunch of guys fighting
Speaker 2: with each other.
Speaker 3: That is not the way that they usually do it.
Speaker 2: But you know, I suspect whereas the women are less
Speaker 2: likely to be shown in a narrative, because I mean
Speaker 2: that's true in the Iron Age as well, that's true
Speaker 2: all the way through Homer.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: The women are are these like, you know, important characters
Speaker 2: that help move the story along, but they're usually not
Speaker 2: in the main action the way the stories are about
Speaker 2: about the men.
Speaker 3: So for whatever.
Speaker 2: Reason, I think we may have more than we realize
Speaker 2: we have, but there's no way to prove it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, of course, I mean that's the interesting and
Speaker 1: infuriating part of working with stuff you know, this old.
Speaker 1: But it makes me think of how I like to
Speaker 1: conceptualize Hestia, which is that like because she just is
Speaker 1: in no stories, like you know, compared to the others.
Speaker 1: It's like like she might as well not be there.
Speaker 1: And I think of it as like, you know, she
Speaker 1: was so important to regular daily life, like real life,
Speaker 1: that she just it didn't matter that she didn't end
Speaker 1: up in the stories because everyone in their daily lives
Speaker 1: was so aware of her. Yeah that it, yeah, she
Speaker 1: didn't need to be there. But then to us she
Speaker 1: feels like this missing figure right in a way that
Speaker 1: she yeah, she was distinctly not back then. So it
Speaker 1: kind of reminds me of that this idea that maybe
Speaker 1: they're not narratives because they're too busy being you know,
Speaker 1: the thing that everyone thinks of.
Speaker 3: All the time, right.
Speaker 2: And I think Castia may be very important in the
Speaker 2: Bronze Age, not necessarily is the named goddess that we
Speaker 2: know of later. I mean, she may have been a
Speaker 2: named goddess, but she didn't show up even then in
Speaker 2: the in the nomenclature in.
Speaker 3: The same way.
Speaker 2: But of course her name literally means the hearth, the
Speaker 2: center of domesticity, and not only in the center of
Speaker 2: every living space, but even in the palace and even
Speaker 2: in these religious buildings in in Mycenese cult center have
Speaker 2: a hearth in the center of them, which which is
Speaker 2: not something that we have later on. That's something we
Speaker 2: lose in the Iron Age that in crete it keeps
Speaker 2: going that those there's all the way into their cap period.
Speaker 2: There are temples that have a hearth right in the
Speaker 2: center of the building, but we lose that on the mainland,
Speaker 2: but in the Bronze Age we definitely do so the
Speaker 2: center of life probably symbolically in the center of the
Speaker 2: throne room of the palace, we have this giant heart,
Speaker 2: and then we do in all of these buildings we
Speaker 2: have different kinds. Some are open fire, a lot of
Speaker 2: them are not open fire, but are probably for different
Speaker 2: kinds of offerings, but still considered the center right, the hearth,
Speaker 2: the place of worship, the place of dedication.
Speaker 3: So I think she's there.
Speaker 2: And really important and everything is kind of centered around her.
Speaker 2: And of course the house is always the place where
Speaker 2: we look for the women in the Bronze Age, and
Speaker 2: that's you know, when you're looking. When you're looking, sometimes
Speaker 2: you can find them, but they don't always leave as
Speaker 2: much of a footprint as we as we would like.
Speaker 2: But some of that is also scholarly biased, so we're
Speaker 2: trying to improve on that all the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm not in that side of it.
Speaker 1: But that's the entire purpose of my show, right, Let's
Speaker 1: talk about the women who tended to be forgotten or misrepresented.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's so interesting. I mean it sounds like
Speaker 1: Hestia you know later, right where she just yeah, she's
Speaker 1: just there, but we don't hear much about her because
Speaker 1: her fire is just always burning and everyone knew that.
Speaker 2: Right, being foundational and she not always you don't always
Speaker 2: get to be flashy and have terrible stories told about you.
Speaker 3: Maybe that's a blessing.
Speaker 1: I mean, it feels like and maybe I'm just so
Speaker 1: deep in my women's history months episodes as well, but
Speaker 1: like it just feels also just sort of as the
Speaker 1: way that women are so commonly represented even today, right,
Speaker 1: this idea that like the role of and I mean
Speaker 1: this is not an idea that I personally love as
Speaker 1: somebody who will never be a bother, but like this
Speaker 1: idea that a that a woman is a mother and
Speaker 1: she you know, is in the home and therefore like
Speaker 1: leaves less of a mark. Like obviously that's changing now,
Speaker 1: but I mean fifty years ago, it's very accurate, right,
Speaker 1: this idea, Yeah, that that that women don't leave a mark.
Speaker 1: Because there mar really is like the children and the home,
Speaker 1: but it's like not you know, it's more that they
Speaker 1: are the nurturers versus being you know, yeah, something that
Speaker 1: sort of is remembered in the same way.
Speaker 2: It's yeah, and you know, I would add to that,
Speaker 2: and I would say that it's also again the difficulty
Speaker 2: of preservation. So if you are working predominantly with organic
Speaker 2: materials and ephemeral foods, textiles, you know, all of that, Yeah,
Speaker 2: you you are not going to leave the mark that
Speaker 2: survives for us in the same way as weapons do. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So and that's you know, that's our fault for for
Speaker 2: prioritizing something and also though having the assumption that all
Speaker 2: tools mean that it's a man, which is really yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, we have to to realize that women are
Speaker 2: using all kinds of tools, and that we find them
Speaker 2: all the time, including in burial contexts, and we can't
Speaker 2: assume that those are our male identifying objects because they're not.
Speaker 3: Even the weapons.
Speaker 2: Even the weapons in fact are not always male identifying,
Speaker 2: but but they are in the bronze as they do
Speaker 2: tend to be more skewed that way. When you're talking
Speaker 2: about large scale swords daggers. You know, when we get
Speaker 2: down to the knives and the stilettos and the butchering
Speaker 2: knives and all those types of things, all bets are
Speaker 2: off could be could be male or female.
Speaker 3: Because those are those are really tools.
Speaker 2: Rather than weapons, and women are using them in all
Speaker 2: kinds of contact.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, and I think to clarify my because I
Speaker 1: think that's what I that's more of what I mean,
Speaker 1: you're just saying about it, Like just this idea that, yeah,
Speaker 1: like the stuff that women touch either yeah, doesn't get
Speaker 1: attributed to them because of bios of past you know,
Speaker 1: interpretations or you know, or the stuff that they do
Speaker 1: just doesn't last. And so we get this idea that, yeah,
Speaker 1: that they didn't leave a mark, but what it was
Speaker 1: is yet Yeah, like you're saying, their mark was an
Speaker 1: organic material, both in terms of yeah, the stuff that
Speaker 1: they create, to the physical items, but even also in
Speaker 1: the people that they created, right, Like, yeah, everything that
Speaker 1: women work to create traditionally just doesn't last, and so
Speaker 1: we get this skewed idea. It's just yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: very interesting. Meanwhile, of course, what they were creating was
Speaker 1: invaluable and the most important stuff to every civilization.
Speaker 3: Every culture exactly.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's so interesting now. One thing that that came
Speaker 1: up earlier when you were talking about when you were talking
Speaker 1: about the linear B tablets and things like that that
Speaker 1: we have. I'm really curious about the god that god
Speaker 1: and goddess names that we know that they do appear
Speaker 1: in linear B and you know, I know they're in
Speaker 1: different forms obviously, I mean, but who do we know,
Speaker 1: you know, was existing as as a god and goddess
Speaker 1: like during that time like from the you know, the
Speaker 1: the later like the Olympians.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we really have the whole pantheon, do we Okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: some of them do have slightly different names, but we
Speaker 2: know that those names are associated with them later on
Speaker 2: and include I mean, Athena is Atana in the linear
Speaker 2: BE tablet, so we we definitely even have have her name.
Speaker 3: Apollo has it.
Speaker 2: He's usually like Palace and or you know, he has
Speaker 2: a slightly different name and we know aries from Analuyon
Speaker 2: is this weird early name and we actually have a
Speaker 2: sanctuary to him that dates to their kick period at
Speaker 2: Myceni in a different part of the site, but but
Speaker 2: there that he remains being called that linear B name
Speaker 2: even there, but.
Speaker 3: We know it's Aries.
Speaker 2: And you can see the stuff everyone gives him shields
Speaker 2: and swords.
Speaker 3: And helmets and stuff is his voted voting gifts.
Speaker 2: So there's no you know, and there's things that say Aries,
Speaker 2: but all over it the voters are inscribed with the
Speaker 2: linear B name. So that's that's kind of cool, that
Speaker 2: kind of continuity that survives.
Speaker 1: So like, are they writing in linear b or is
Speaker 1: it like Trent literated?
Speaker 3: No, No, it's just it's written in Greek alphabet, okay, but
Speaker 3: it's the name that we know from will near by tablets.
Speaker 2: And then one of my favorite things is that in
Speaker 2: addition to let's say Hira, who we have a hero,
Speaker 2: we also have who I call a lady Zeus, and
Speaker 2: we also have a lady Poseidon. And what I mean
Speaker 2: by that is that we have the feminine version of
Speaker 2: their names as different additional deities.
Speaker 3: Really, so there's a man Zeus and.
Speaker 2: A lady Zeus, and a man Poseidon and a lady Poseidon.
Speaker 3: So I don't know what. They definitely do not survive
Speaker 3: the Bronze Age in any way that we know, if
Speaker 3: we can't really connect them at all.
Speaker 2: But it's interesting that you have the d Woes and
Speaker 2: the da and the Possidonus and Polsidonia, so you know,
Speaker 2: it's literally the feminine.
Speaker 3: They've changed the name into a feminine version of the name.
Speaker 1: That's so interesting, that makes me so happy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and of course we only know them from the
Speaker 2: from the tablets. If we surviving, we wouldn't know that
Speaker 2: they had existed at all. Yeah, and again that trajectory,
Speaker 2: like what, you know, what happens to them? Are they
Speaker 2: just considered irrelevant? Do they you know, subsume to one
Speaker 2: of the other goddesses. It's it's not clear, but it's
Speaker 2: very interesting that earlier there were more there were more deities,
Speaker 2: the more female deities than we we have later.
Speaker 1: On those particular gods to having having feminine versions feels
Speaker 1: very very interesting and and this is very much my
Speaker 1: you know, feminist mythology obsessed like theorizing, but it feels
Speaker 1: to me like like those two gods so specifically represent
Speaker 1: almost a like like a visualized like and you can
Speaker 1: see the the intent to make women less powerful in
Speaker 1: those two gods more than in any others, you know,
Speaker 1: like they are the ones perpetually you know, subjugating women
Speaker 1: like I meant them all these different things that are
Speaker 1: you know, storytelling, sure, but are so intentionally meant to
Speaker 1: make clear that men are more powerful than women and
Speaker 1: that women need to do what men want. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: having them as female forms is it's sad to have
Speaker 1: lost them. But also yeah, like you can like really
Speaker 1: see kind of what's what's going on.
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely absolutely, and how important that sort of an
Speaker 2: early Iron Age period must have been.
Speaker 3: For the changes in all of these stories.
Speaker 2: And some of that is because we have less social
Speaker 2: stratification and we have a bit of a nostalgia it
Speaker 2: feels like back towards the palatial period. But yet lots
Speaker 2: of places are able to blossom in ways that they
Speaker 2: wouldn't have been able to if they were still under
Speaker 2: the palacial control.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, and a byproduct of that seems to be
Speaker 2: how the religion starts to change.
Speaker 1: Yeah, liniar B is just so interesting. I mean, I
Speaker 1: I love that we have so many, so many gods. Oh, actually,
Speaker 1: I'm curious about Aphrodite because of course she has like
Speaker 1: such distinct Eastern origins compared to the other gods. You know,
Speaker 1: she's coming from Cyprus and probably from the Phoenicians. So
Speaker 1: do we have any kind of evidence of that in
Speaker 1: whatever form she takes in In myceni.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to think.
Speaker 2: I feel like we think we have her, but with
Speaker 2: a different name.
Speaker 3: Okay, but she's not as prevalent.
Speaker 1: Right because she would come later.
Speaker 2: But I think that she is very much made up
Speaker 2: of many of the patnias that we have, that many
Speaker 2: of those will end.
Speaker 3: Up being the essence that is Aphrodite, right. And it
Speaker 3: is interesting.
Speaker 2: I mean a lot of the gods that were later
Speaker 2: on are assumed to be of Eastern origin, including Dionysus
Speaker 2: and Apollo. In fact, we have in the Bronze Age,
Speaker 2: so I think we probably had more of Aphrodite. And
Speaker 2: I think we have more evidence for someone like her
Speaker 2: on crete actually than we do from the tablets at Pilos.
Speaker 1: Right, I mean that makes sense, yeah, which would also
Speaker 1: make sense, yeah yeah, yeah, well, and it would make
Speaker 1: sense if if these gods like like her end and Dionysus,
Speaker 1: because I was going to ask about him as well, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, have these origins in the Bronze Age and
Speaker 1: then also are going to be subsumed with this idea
Speaker 1: coming from the East and just become the gods that
Speaker 1: we know of, you know, from the later periods is
Speaker 1: kind of combining. Yes, but that's yeah, that's really interesting.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Dit So Dionysus does appear as well, so it really
Speaker 1: is like in Hades, I imagine he's like the one
Speaker 1: we haven't mentioned, but.
Speaker 3: We don't really.
Speaker 2: But then that would be weird too, because usually you
Speaker 2: don't mention him right like even later traditions, and you
Speaker 2: don't say his name.
Speaker 3: You know, he's the one who shall not be named.
Speaker 2: And so the fact that he would be missing doesn't
Speaker 2: surprise me because they aren't sanctuaries to him either. And
Speaker 2: where we get the names and the tablets is because
Speaker 2: the Palace is provisioning sanctuaries, giving things to particular sanctuaries.
Speaker 2: So we either have mentioned of those gods or they
Speaker 2: don't make it into the cut if it's.
Speaker 3: Not one of the things that they're provisioning.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense. Yes, it's all palse records. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna be like, well, we're sending this stuff to
Speaker 1: toa yeah. Yeah, that's yeah. So you know they're obviously
Speaker 1: having all these contacts with the Minoans and everything. You know,
Speaker 1: the Minoans are worse quite a bit earlier than the
Speaker 1: Myceonians in terms of, yeah, their whole structure. So do
Speaker 1: we kind of do we get a sense that that
Speaker 1: Myceni was inspired a lot. I guess you did mention
Speaker 1: already that they, you know, the palatial structures were inspired
Speaker 1: by them. But this is I should have looked this
Speaker 1: up before I say this loud. But the Mycenians end
Speaker 1: up taking over the Minoans, right or do they not?
Speaker 3: They?
Speaker 1: What do they do well?
Speaker 3: It's debatable, it's debatable.
Speaker 2: What we can say for certain is that during the
Speaker 2: sort of last couple of generations of the Palace of
Speaker 2: Knosos on Crete in which it was existed and many
Speaker 2: of the other palaces did not, there were people writing
Speaker 2: in linear be right, right, So the administration in that
Speaker 2: palace we're speaking in writing Greek, and we see spread
Speaker 2: out through the island mostly through mortuary stuff, mostly through
Speaker 2: the introduction of certain kinds of tombs and certain practices
Speaker 2: that there may have been some desire to emulate things
Speaker 2: that we see earlier on the mainland.
Speaker 3: So there's a you know, and there's a bit of
Speaker 3: a material culture.
Speaker 2: Whereas you know, fifteen hundred to fourteen hundred, Minoan material
Speaker 2: culture is influencing and inspiring what's being.
Speaker 3: Made on the mainland.
Speaker 2: And then from fourteen hundred to thirteen hundred we have
Speaker 2: a flip and we start to see quite a bit
Speaker 2: of you know, mainland inspired things then inspiring material culture
Speaker 2: on crete, which suggests there's a stronger emphasis on feasting
Speaker 2: and group dining and sharing, especially of drinks, and so
Speaker 2: the cups are different, with multiple handles for passing and
Speaker 2: larger capacity, and you know, there's little things like that.
Speaker 2: Even some of the iconography starts to change a little bit.
Speaker 2: But there's no evidence that the people just like that
Speaker 2: they destroy the island and take it over. It's not
Speaker 2: that it's it's I would say the markets, the economy
Speaker 2: on crete is probably very reliant on the Myceneans. Once,
Speaker 2: you know, in the fourteenth century, once they start really
Speaker 2: taking over the trade routes, which we can see in Egypt,
Speaker 2: which we can see in the eastern Mediterranean, that there's
Speaker 2: this change of what seemed to be predominantly Minoans showing
Speaker 2: up with their wares to predominantly Mycenians.
Speaker 3: Showing up with their wares, and.
Speaker 2: So that seems to be where we might say that
Speaker 2: Mycenians took over. They took over the sort of economic
Speaker 2: roots and the economic successes, which likely tied into the
Speaker 2: bureaucracy of the administration at the palace of Kenosos. But
Speaker 2: I think your general rank and file still were very
Speaker 2: much how they had always been, and we still see
Speaker 2: that in most of the settlements and the sanctuaries and
Speaker 2: their particular preferences for things that had always been the
Speaker 2: preferences on crete, that very much stays the same, so
Speaker 2: that when in the Iron Age, once the palace is
Speaker 2: the mainland, palaces are destroyed, Crete always a little different
Speaker 2: from everywhere else. And there are things that you can
Speaker 2: point to in the early Iron Age and say that
Speaker 2: is so Minoan. And that includes the material culture, and
Speaker 2: it includes the goddess worshiping, and it includes all kinds
Speaker 2: of interesting things, and you know you.
Speaker 3: Were, you're interested in them.
Speaker 2: This battle between the patriarchy and the and the mother
Speaker 2: a mother Earth, right, it's so fascinating that where that
Speaker 2: survives in Greek myth, like the fact that Zoos is
Speaker 2: hidden and then reborn on crete right from a cave,
Speaker 2: which is literally according to the Minoans, the womb of
Speaker 2: the goddess.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: Every time you have a god like Apolla taking over
Speaker 2: the sanctuary at Delphi, he has to fight the python
Speaker 2: of the mother goddess, right, because that's her spot. And
Speaker 2: so we literally have that just baked into all of
Speaker 2: these these traditions. Did we know that this was probably
Speaker 2: probably going on all around?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it creates such a fascinating place to watch that,
Speaker 2: to watch that happen, and how actually the goddesses remain
Speaker 2: being so significant to the point where they kind of
Speaker 2: have to almost legislate to make sure that the male
Speaker 2: gods are the predominant the predominant gods because traditionally for
Speaker 2: hundreds and hundreds of years that hadn't been the case.
Speaker 1: On Creed well exactly. I mean, I think about it,
Speaker 1: the Zeus in the cave. I'd never thought about the
Speaker 1: cave imagery. That's wonderful. Thank you. It also times in
Speaker 1: You're welcome, I I mean, I love I've been learning
Speaker 1: a lot of these things lately. Were like, you know,
Speaker 1: these things I've always associated with some kind of patriarchal
Speaker 1: structure alongside the goddesses, but hadn't quite conceptualized just how
Speaker 1: like visceral. It is like I've released an episode today
Speaker 1: where I spoke with somebody who pointed out that Caribdis
Speaker 1: is like just like this hungry hole is how we
Speaker 1: phrased it, and it's just like the cave makes me
Speaker 1: think of that too, like.
Speaker 3: Yes, the hungry.
Speaker 1: Yes, right, yeah, it's so good. I just I love that.
Speaker 3: Afraid of women's sexuality much for.
Speaker 1: Real, Like I mean, I've always considered her as this
Speaker 1: like obvious notion of male fear, but I never had
Speaker 1: like really dug that deep. I love it.
Speaker 2: Yes, a female dog, right, yeah, she's a bit on
Speaker 2: one side and they and then you know, sucking up
Speaker 2: hole on the other.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know, it's crazy.
Speaker 1: It's so good. No, and this is why this is
Speaker 1: why you love my absolutely. And then you know, I've
Speaker 1: been doing this for seven years and still somebody can
Speaker 1: come and be like, well, you know, for all the
Speaker 1: chryptis male fear, she's really just a gaping hole, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh my god, oh yeah, okay, but but
Speaker 1: on create, you know, there's the cave. And then I
Speaker 1: think of too, the you know, the whole Europa myth.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh well no, but a man brought her there,
Speaker 1: like that's why create had all these goddesses to begin with,
Speaker 1: but they didn't start there, you know, a Zeus had
Speaker 1: to bring her And I think that's yeah, such an
Speaker 1: interesting kind of like way of rewriting this mythological history
Speaker 1: that already existed. And then the people coming in, the
Speaker 1: men coming in rather like want to emphasize, you know,
Speaker 1: they're they're maintaining something that they know was already there,
Speaker 1: but they are also finding this way of you know,
Speaker 1: making it about them.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, but also the later Greeks too, connecting with
Speaker 2: what they they must have heard about crete.
Speaker 3: So whether that's whether that Zeus.
Speaker 2: Is the bull bringing your ropa or it's the minu
Speaker 2: tar right Pacife and Dadless and the fake cow and
Speaker 2: the whole you know, Cretain Bull Marathon bowl, and then
Speaker 2: obviously the minuitar is ultimate you know expression of that
Speaker 2: those have I.
Speaker 3: Mean that has to be.
Speaker 2: Stories, some that you know, at the seat of it
Speaker 2: are misunderstood stories coming out of the Minoan belief system.
Speaker 1: Yeah that will yeah, see, I mean I can you
Speaker 1: could see it, you know in the museum in Heracliome
Speaker 1: where you're like, well, okay, there's women, paintings of women everywhere,
Speaker 1: goddess figurines everywhere, and then bulls everywhere, and so you
Speaker 1: can just yeah, see where these later people who you
Speaker 1: know can't read linear a like we can't, and they're
Speaker 1: like looking at these things and they're like, okay, like
Speaker 1: put the two together and you know, make it this story. Worry. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just it's clearly so fascinating. I love
Speaker 1: this part of my job so much. You touched on
Speaker 1: the interactions, you know, beyond the Minoans, So I'd love
Speaker 1: to hear more about the ways that that Mycenie did.
Speaker 1: You know, the Mycenaeans broadly did interact with the wider Mediterranean.
Speaker 2: Sure, and we know from quite early on that they
Speaker 2: were interacting, especially with the Eastern Mediterranean, and we see
Speaker 2: that really amplify in the historical in the Palatial period,
Speaker 2: where their economy is very much based on the import
Speaker 2: of raw materials that are coming from outside the Greek world.
Speaker 2: They're creating of crafts with these materials and then selling
Speaker 2: them back to those same cultures that supplied the raw
Speaker 2: materials in the first place.
Speaker 3: Ivory is a good example of that.
Speaker 2: But then also the fact that they you know, undeniably
Speaker 2: had the.
Speaker 3: Best wine and olive oil and.
Speaker 2: The honestly the best ceramic containers for them that were
Speaker 2: in production during that time. Meant that there was this
Speaker 2: whole other sort of industry too, where they're selling their
Speaker 2: own resources and training them with the Eastern Mediterranean and
Speaker 2: the and then luckily for this, this pottery leaves its
Speaker 2: footprint everywhere, So we can find them in Egypt, and
Speaker 2: we can find them in the Levine, we can find
Speaker 2: them in Asia Minor, and also to the west because
Speaker 2: they begin to expand also to the west into Italy
Speaker 2: and Sicily and Spain, and I think we even have.
Speaker 3: Some stuff as far as Portugal now and respect age.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, myceny and Mycenian pottery, wow.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And the Mycenians themselves seem to have had some probably
Speaker 2: not one on one, but probably chain trade going on
Speaker 2: with more central Europe, because we have all this amber
Speaker 2: that's Baltic a that ends up in Greece and then
Speaker 2: it seems to come out of Greece and go to
Speaker 2: other parts of the Mediterranean as a trade item. But
Speaker 2: it looks like something that the Greeks are bringing from
Speaker 2: further north into the Greek peninsula and then are distributing
Speaker 2: from there.
Speaker 4: Wow wow, so you know so yeah, gold, gold is
Speaker 4: coming from from the Eastern med ivories coming from the
Speaker 4: Eastern med A lot of the sort of precious.
Speaker 3: Stones are coming from there.
Speaker 2: But then we have silver that the Greeks have themselves,
Speaker 2: the amber that's coming from the north. Maybe also copper
Speaker 2: to the west. We know they were getting copper from Cyprus,
Speaker 2: but looks like they were also getting some copper from
Speaker 2: from Eblin and other places as well.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: They didn't really work much with marble all the way
Speaker 1: back then, then, did they.
Speaker 3: No, they didn't. They didn't. They weren't really mining the marble.
Speaker 3: They were using.
Speaker 2: Lime stone that they had and they were carving with
Speaker 2: and they were actually trying to make sculpture with it.
Speaker 3: But we think this is one of the reasons that
Speaker 3: Myceneans didn't.
Speaker 2: Really have large scale sculpture. Everything was relatively small, small scale,
Speaker 2: the exception being the Lion Gate, which is made out
Speaker 2: of the local limestone.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's interesting, and it's it's interesting just because like
Speaker 1: the palaces were so monumental, Like the palaces were enormous
Speaker 1: and made of these enormous stones. But yeah, they weren't.
Speaker 1: You know, they weren't making art out of them in
Speaker 1: the same way that people.
Speaker 2: They would use some colored stones were ending up as
Speaker 2: decorative elements, but they tend to be softer so that
Speaker 2: I think they worried about their stability, which is why
Speaker 2: they would use them as accents rather than, you know,
Speaker 2: rather than using the limestone or the conglomerate limestone for
Speaker 2: what you know, it was sturdy and holding up the
Speaker 2: buildings and the tombs and all of that, and those
Speaker 2: were locally familiar with them.
Speaker 3: We don't really have a huge amount of marble.
Speaker 1: In the Peloponnese, right, that makes sense.
Speaker 2: You know, and so much of the later like marble
Speaker 2: sculpture and stuff actually comes from the islands.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And did they have a lot of Did they
Speaker 1: do much with the the the other islands?
Speaker 3: What's there?
Speaker 1: A lot? I mean, I know, obviously the Cladic cultures
Speaker 1: were going on, so yeah, were they?
Speaker 3: Were they all?
Speaker 4: So?
Speaker 3: Yes, they were.
Speaker 2: The late late Cicladic culture is very much entwined with
Speaker 2: the Myceonine world, and in part because you can't sail
Speaker 2: anywhere without hitting an island, so if you're going to
Speaker 2: be doing any international exchange, you have to mobilize the
Speaker 2: islands and use them to go through. And we see
Speaker 2: that reflected in the Cycladic material culture, right yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh, I love this the Cladic island so much, and
Speaker 1: there are there art was so different, Like do we
Speaker 1: see the sharing of any of that art with the Myceonianes,
Speaker 1: Like I just think of you know, the big head
Speaker 1: kind of figuring.
Speaker 2: No, in part because that was so early, right, so
Speaker 2: that all of those figures were from the early Bronze Age.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we have a few that made it to.
Speaker 2: The mainland, but it was well pre Greeks on the mainland.
Speaker 2: It was possibly even people from the Seclides that had,
Speaker 2: you know, settled in Attica for instance, where we have
Speaker 2: some of the Cycladic figurines.
Speaker 1: I think it's so it's just so easy to forget
Speaker 1: just how widespread this was, just like across the whole
Speaker 1: of the region. And I visited Samithraki a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago and learned that they found linear a there
Speaker 1: and I like that kind of thing. It's just I
Speaker 1: just love it so much, this idea that like they
Speaker 1: were really just traveling all over the place and Yeah,
Speaker 1: it feels like such long distance is like so much water.
Speaker 1: Like I'm just so impressed. I know, it's yeah, it's
Speaker 1: I feel like I should get used to it, but
Speaker 1: it's just it's so interesting.
Speaker 3: It is. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I mean I would be, you know, missing out
Speaker 1: on a major thing if I didn't ask about what
Speaker 1: we know. But their interactions with like the hit Tights
Speaker 1: and the whole the troy of it all.
Speaker 2: Well, we definitely know that they were interacting with the
Speaker 2: hit Tights, both because of the Hittite documents that seemed
Speaker 2: to record the Ahia ones that we think are the
Speaker 2: Mycene and Greeks, but also through some technology that they shared.
Speaker 3: For instance, there's.
Speaker 2: A colleague of mine, Nick Blackwell, has done a lot
Speaker 2: of research on the kinds of tools that they used
Speaker 2: to carve the lion gate and to carve other things.
Speaker 2: They use this pendulum, saw that that was a hit
Speaker 2: tight tool, and whether these were Hittite artists or they
Speaker 2: were you know, sculptors who were trained in the hit
Speaker 2: tight way of doing it, that's really strong evidence that
Speaker 2: they were in introduction, you know, they were in some
Speaker 2: exchange with them. Whereas we kind of knew it already
Speaker 2: we had some Mitio culture that also suggested it.
Speaker 3: And then.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I teach a whole class about the trache and war.
Speaker 2: So it's hard to say in a nutshell, but I mean,
Speaker 2: I think that the point you made about Samothrace Samothraki
Speaker 2: is that that both the Minoans and the Medicineans were
Speaker 2: traveling all around the Mediterranean, and the idea of expanding
Speaker 2: into the Black Sea, which is what, of course, Jason
Speaker 2: the Argonauts is all about the Mycenians expanding into the
Speaker 2: Black Sea, is you have this very powerful place that's
Speaker 2: right there in the doorway into the Black Sea.
Speaker 3: That you have to deal with. And I think that.
Speaker 2: It's more likely that that if there was a war,
Speaker 2: which I think there were probably multiple wars, and not
Speaker 2: just one that was immortalized in the story, but there
Speaker 2: were in fact multiple wars, that it was really about
Speaker 2: trade rights and access more than it was about a
Speaker 2: beautiful woman, as romantic as that is really, I know,
Speaker 2: I know, go figure, go figure if that's.
Speaker 1: The way to blame a woman, I.
Speaker 2: Know, I know, but that's I think that we actually
Speaker 2: have evidence from lots of places in a sort of
Speaker 2: off off the west coast of Turkey that shows similar
Speaker 2: kinds of things, that there was lots of interest in
Speaker 2: access to those areas, in those resources, tin being one
Speaker 2: of them ten and gold coming from those areas, not
Speaker 2: to mention horses and textiles and all kinds of other
Speaker 2: things that came from that part.
Speaker 3: Of the world. And for whatever reason, Trey got immortalized.
Speaker 2: It's the one that kept being told and retold. But
Speaker 2: I think there were probably lots of little Trojan wars
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I love these connections to mythology. So they
Speaker 1: got gold from that area, like that's where the golden fleece.
Speaker 1: That's why the golden fleece. I'd never even thought.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the gold that you know, the golden fleece comes
Speaker 2: from the way that you used to in pre industrial times.
Speaker 2: They used to collect the alluvial gold. So the gold
Speaker 2: is in the river like here in California, and you
Speaker 2: would put the fleece, the wool with the landlin the
Speaker 2: sticky stuff on it, you put it. You put it
Speaker 2: as like a dam across the thing, and it would
Speaker 2: catch the gold. It was like plaming the river for gold.
Speaker 2: So when you picked up these fleeces, they would look
Speaker 2: all gold and shimmery because they would catch all the gold.
Speaker 3: So that's what a golden fleece is. That's where that
Speaker 3: comes from.
Speaker 1: Why have I never looked that up before?
Speaker 5: I loved okay, but it's it's a totally actual, real
Speaker 5: thing that people would have known, but they mostly did
Speaker 5: it in that part of the world, sort of.
Speaker 2: The northwestern part of Anatolia, but also up in the
Speaker 2: east part of the Black Sie whare col Kisses, where
Speaker 2: that that part of the world was very much where
Speaker 2: where all that was going on, where that kind of
Speaker 2: gold recovery was happening.
Speaker 1: A couple of years ago, it finally occurred to me
Speaker 1: that the reason Medea lives out there and is the
Speaker 1: daughter of the Sun is because the sun.
Speaker 2: Rises in the east, and that they can imagine that
Speaker 2: they had discovered or knew about.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So this is just adding to my little like okay,
Speaker 1: I got my little collection of like just it's I mean,
Speaker 1: it adds so much to the mythology. And I think
Speaker 1: that so often people find Greek mythology just because it's
Speaker 1: fun stories, and you know, I am so fascinated in
Speaker 1: where it's all coming from and why it's all being
Speaker 1: told like so much more than the stories themselves.
Speaker 3: Yeah, don't get me started on Heracles. Oh my god,
Speaker 3: we have to have a whole.
Speaker 2: Other podcast on Heracles and all of his archaeological reasons
Speaker 2: why he's doing all these labors and where they're where
Speaker 2: they're located everywhere. Well, you know, because because of Nemea's
Speaker 2: my other site, we do have a special connection with.
Speaker 3: Of course Heracles.
Speaker 1: Are you familiar with the the I think it's the
Speaker 1: school of Palaeontology in Athens, like the Greek school. They
Speaker 1: did this big exhibit a couple of years ago where
Speaker 1: they they created this very large scale interactive display knowing
Speaker 1: how a lot of his labor, specifically in the Peloponnese,
Speaker 1: align with like geological formations and things. Yeah, I got
Speaker 1: to I got to get They were so sweet and
Speaker 1: like emailed me to give me a private English tour
Speaker 1: of this thing that is like all entirely Greek. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it reminds me of that it looked at all of
Speaker 1: these ways, like the learning and hydraug you know, aligns
Speaker 1: with some geological things happening in the.
Speaker 2: Earth and multiple rivers, multiple rivers come out of that spot, Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 2: and they were you know, noxious in some way, and
Speaker 2: so fire was involved and.
Speaker 1: Just yeah, and then there was the river Akulos, Yeah,
Speaker 1: where he has to like split it because anyway, it's
Speaker 1: just I it makes me. Now now I want to
Speaker 1: know about all the archaeological connections because I've got all
Speaker 1: the geological ones in my head. Oh well, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't want to keep you too long, but I
Speaker 1: might try to get a Heracles episode.
Speaker 3: How do you so? Time? Of sure, any time one
Speaker 3: of my He's one of my favorites.
Speaker 2: Although don't tell Perseus because that's you, of course found
Speaker 2: in myceni. So I have to have a special true
Speaker 2: of course, special relationship with with Perseus.
Speaker 1: But I'm currently working on uh a section of a
Speaker 1: book on Medusa and looking at all of those kind
Speaker 1: of origins as well. So I'm walked into that realm myself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because she is my she is my obsession. I'm dying.
Speaker 1: But yeah, before you know, before I let you go,
Speaker 1: because this has been incredible. I so much better than
Speaker 1: I expected, which always happens. It's such a joy. But
Speaker 1: is there anything you know? Do you have like a
Speaker 1: favorite fun fact or thing about my scenie that's your
Speaker 1: just kind of love that you want to share before
Speaker 1: we sign off.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's lots of cool things about about my
Speaker 2: see in general, and I've been, you know, working there
Speaker 2: and excavating there for a very long time, so it's
Speaker 2: it's a very special relationship that I have with it.
Speaker 2: But I would say to sort of circle back to
Speaker 2: we were talking about the monumental tombs, and one of
Speaker 2: the tombs that I know you visited was what we
Speaker 2: call the Treasury of Atreus, or locally they called the
Speaker 2: Tube of Agamemnon, which was which was the largest one
Speaker 2: not only at mycening, but on the mainland that we have,
Speaker 2: and of course it has survived, still standing today. And
Speaker 2: what very few people realize is that in the fall
Speaker 2: and spring equinoxes, because that tune faces directly east, the
Speaker 2: sun comes in at when it pops over the mountain opposite,
Speaker 2: the sun comes in the triangle and it refracts off
Speaker 2: the back curved wall and rebounds into the triangle of
Speaker 2: the little side chamber and lights it up like daylight.
Speaker 2: It's very cool it happened. So it happens at like
Speaker 2: seven o'clock in the morning, so the site's not open,
Speaker 2: so you have to sort of know about it. So
Speaker 2: I used to when I lived there. I lived in
Speaker 2: Greece at my city for twelve years.
Speaker 3: I would pop up there and.
Speaker 2: It would be me and the guards with our coffee,
Speaker 2: you know, waiting for the sun to pop up over
Speaker 2: the mountain. But it's really amazing, and I would love
Speaker 2: to say that it was all done intentionally, but I
Speaker 2: don't think it. I mean, maybe a little bit, but
Speaker 2: we know that, for instance, the triangle was covered with sculpture,
Speaker 2: so it wouldn't have been open in the ancient period anyway.
Speaker 2: All the rest of the fuloid don't face directly east,
Speaker 2: so this one just happens to face.
Speaker 3: So at the same time, I feel like this can
Speaker 3: be a coincidence. Either. There's such good engineers. They must
Speaker 3: have navigated with the stars and known.
Speaker 2: All about the sun and the moon courses and all that,
Speaker 2: so I feel like they were able to do this,
Speaker 2: it was possible for them to do this, that that
Speaker 2: was the full intent of this burial monument.
Speaker 3: No, I don't think so.
Speaker 2: But I'm super happy that it worked out that way,
Speaker 2: and that it's a fun thing for those of us
Speaker 2: who work there and you know, are able to be
Speaker 2: there at seven o'clock in the morning on the followers
Speaker 2: bring equinox.
Speaker 1: I like maybe I like to imagine maybe like the
Speaker 1: architect who just made that one just kind of added
Speaker 1: like jacking himself. You know, it was more of like
Speaker 1: a personal decision, and that's why it's like just in
Speaker 1: that one. I love that though. I'm going back in
Speaker 1: June and I'm very glad to have that fact. You
Speaker 1: did make me think, though, do you really quickly do
Speaker 1: you have any are there is there any evidence in
Speaker 1: my scening that links to the later curse of the.
Speaker 3: Curse of the House of Atrius.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because it's my favorite thing in the whole world,
Speaker 1: that line of curses.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I jokingly always say that we still
Speaker 2: live under the curse of the House of Atreus at
Speaker 2: Myceni because what will go wrong will go wrong, Like
Speaker 2: we just we just know it's a it's a big, complicated,
Speaker 2: expensive site that everyone feels like they have their own
Speaker 2: stake in, so everyone's like not cooperating the way they should,
Speaker 2: which is really what the site needs. So I was
Speaker 2: I jokingly but not jokingly say that we're still under
Speaker 2: that curse for a lot of ways, but I've never
Speaker 2: seen seen anything from the Bronze Age itself to suggest
Speaker 2: that we don't even know. I mean, we have cursed
Speaker 2: tablets later as part of a Greek tradition, that you
Speaker 2: actually could ask for people to be cursed and things
Speaker 2: like that, but we don't have anything in the evidence
Speaker 2: and the archaeological evidence.
Speaker 3: I do think though.
Speaker 2: That a lot of these stories go back very early,
Speaker 2: and that some of these names may well have been
Speaker 2: attached to people very early on.
Speaker 3: There may have been an atreus, there may have been
Speaker 3: a pelops for that matter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the fact that you have this this horribly
Speaker 2: tragic curse filled family generation after generation after generation may
Speaker 2: be an overblowing of you know, some weird things that
Speaker 2: happened to this family who you know, they couldn't keep
Speaker 2: it in their pants, they couldn't, you.
Speaker 3: Know, do the things they shouldn't do. Child Yeah, and
Speaker 3: making into kids soups like you know, I.
Speaker 1: Just couldn't help themselves.
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, so they're they're weird.
Speaker 2: We're a weird, weird, complicated group and problematic group to
Speaker 2: be your sort of people that you are working with.
Speaker 2: But I always hope that the stuff that we find
Speaker 2: and the narratives that we create will will be a
Speaker 2: better choice. You'll find that in fact, it wasn't. It
Speaker 2: wasn't all that tragic and bad. It just makes for
Speaker 2: a good story.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, they've always interested me because I mean, one,
Speaker 1: they're just some of the most entertaining stories from this sure.
Speaker 1: But two, yeah, that what you mentioned, this idea that
Speaker 1: like they are like the biggest and best kings still,
Speaker 1: like even when you are a child of one of them,
Speaker 1: Like they're so openly proud of who they come from.
Speaker 1: They're like, yes, I am a tantalid. Did he try
Speaker 1: to eat my grandfather? Sure, I still am proud that
Speaker 1: I'm a tantalid. Like, yeah, it's I just I find
Speaker 1: that to be such an interesting kind of you know,
Speaker 1: it feels like a I don't know the wordy one,
Speaker 1: but just feels weird. I guess, And.
Speaker 2: It's the lesson, And it's a lesson in the sort
Speaker 2: of Greek h I guess, acceptance of things like arrogance
Speaker 2: and hubris and things that you know, they did retell
Speaker 2: these things and celebrate them, and I guess it's supposed.
Speaker 3: To be a moral lesson.
Speaker 2: And at the same time they keep missing the message,
Speaker 2: so you know, what are you gonna do?
Speaker 1: It makes for great content for me, so I'm.
Speaker 2: Not there yet that it makes good content for me too, Teaching,
Speaker 2: you know, touring an archaeological site.
Speaker 3: All of those things. It's good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I thought a lot in the Tomb of Clytemnestra,
Speaker 1: you know, quote unquote Tomb of Clytemnestra. There, it's just yeah,
Speaker 1: those those tombs. I'll never forget them. I can't wait
Speaker 1: to go back. Well, this has been utterly incredible. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for doing this. I really appreciate you
Speaker 1: making the time, and.
Speaker 3: I absolutely on my ends. Absolutely well. I will be.
Speaker 3: I will be around in the area in June, so
Speaker 3: if you are there, send me and Emil and I will.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you how to get in touch with me
Speaker 2: by phone once you're in Greece, because I will be.
Speaker 2: I'll be working both at NIMEA and at my CD
Speaker 2: in June, so I'll be around.
Speaker 1: I would I would love to do that. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much, absolutely well, Thank you so much for speaking
Speaker 1: with me. Is there anything you want to share with
Speaker 1: my listeners reading more from you or anything like that?
Speaker 2: Not yet, we will have I mean I but most
Speaker 2: of the stuff that I work on is pretty uh
Speaker 2: you know, scholarly based and all that. But they they're
Speaker 2: welcome to go to my website, which is NEMEA Center
Speaker 2: dot Berkeley dot e d U and see all of
Speaker 2: the exciting projects we have going on. All three of
Speaker 2: them have a Bronze Age element but also a later
Speaker 2: classical element too, And I will say that and this
Speaker 2: is in part thanks to Eric.
Speaker 3: Klein, who I know recommended me.
Speaker 2: Uh my colleague Linkvoppola and I are going to are
Speaker 2: actually going to be producing a book for his series
Speaker 2: that he's doing in which we're looking at very much
Speaker 2: the every day my sitting ends, so flipping the script,
Speaker 2: not talking about just the kings and the elite, but
Speaker 2: actually looking at everyday life and the other context that
Speaker 2: we know, and from the perspective of two women field archaeologists,
Speaker 2: which actually are relatively rare in our part of the
Speaker 2: world as well. So we're putting a you know, how
Speaker 2: does one excavate with a you know, while they're breastfeeding, right,
Speaker 2: you know, they don't talk about those things very much,
Speaker 2: but we're going to very much infuse this book about
Speaker 2: you know, women excavating women sort of the idea.
Speaker 1: So okay, well, whenever that exists, you can expect.
Speaker 2: Me to hopefully outside sometimes next year, hopefully sometimes twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five.
Speaker 1: I've been very lucky. I think most of the archaeologists
Speaker 1: I've ever had on this show have been women, mostly
Speaker 1: just because of my own circles. But it makes it
Speaker 1: seem like there's a higher representation.
Speaker 3: Which I know not.
Speaker 1: But I'm lucky to speak to so many.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great, that's great, and thanks thanks for giving
Speaker 2: us the platform to speak.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, it's my favorite thing in the entire world.
Speaker 1: If you haven't been able to tell from my like
Speaker 1: enormous mile throat this entire conversation, Oh nerds, that episode
Speaker 1: was so much fun. Oh my god, Like, I just
Speaker 1: you know, this is such a thrill for my job.
Speaker 1: I just truly love so much when people can come
Speaker 1: on and share all of this stuff with me. It's
Speaker 1: just such a joy. I met a loss for how
Speaker 1: to describe just so much of the joy, so instead
Speaker 1: I will just again say joy. I hope you enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you learned a lot. I know that I did,
Speaker 1: and I am just so excited for this conversation and
Speaker 1: everything that I have to come for this series because
Speaker 1: we have another three conversations coming in addition to another
Speaker 1: two scripted episodes detailing so much more about the Bronze
Speaker 1: Age Mediterranean and its collapse. Thank you all so much
Speaker 1: for listening. As always, it means the world to me.
Speaker 1: If you've just found the show through this series. Hi, welcome.
Speaker 1: Normally I talk about mythology, It's usually more storytelling. Still
Speaker 1: always fun though, That's why I'm here. I have some
Speaker 1: of the most incredible guests on my show. I am
Speaker 1: so lucky. It is such a joy. Welcome, Welcome, Let's
Speaker 1: talk about myths. Maybe is written and produced by me
Speaker 1: Live Albert. Mikayla Smith is the hermes to my Olympians,
Speaker 1: and during this Bronze Age series, she is also the writer.
Speaker 1: Let's be perfectly honest. The writer of the episode is
Speaker 1: not this one, because it's just a conversation that'd be weird.
Speaker 1: But Mikayla and the Bronze Age are closely tied, is
Speaker 1: a I'm saying. Laura Smith is the production assistant and
Speaker 1: audio engineer, and she worked her wonders on this conversation.
Speaker 1: Everyone has their hands in all the different pieces, because
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Speaker 1: losing my mind again. Apologies. We're living on the edge.
Speaker 1: We're living on the edge. I am live and I
Speaker 1: love this shit.