When Tradition proceeds with Innovation: Some reflections on the Mycenaean Warfare

The aim of this paper is to reconstruct the diachronic and historical development of the Mycenaean warfare as attested in the archaeological records (such as weapons and their context; iconographies of fighting scenes), as well as in the textual sources, throughout a comparison with the warfare of the Homeric epic. The study encompasses two specific researches in order to explain some general aspects of the Mycenaean warfare scarcely investigated. In the first part a specific attention is given to a bronze defensive weapon found in Tomb 15 at Mycenae. The object, probably a "hand-guard glove", introduces new, intriguing elements on the passage of Levantine warfare techniques into the Mycenaean world. In the second part the focus is on the multi-faced symbolic meanings of the bronze spear, in particular the close connection between this weapons and selected members of the palatial aristocracy. Finally, a particular attention is given to the analysis of transmission of the spear from father to son, staring from the reassessment of the archaeological evidence and from the comparison with the Homeric epics and some branches of the Indo-European culture.