In Greek Olympian religion the place of Potnia disappeared. That is why Mycenaeans paid great attention to weapons, showing Potnia with a helmet or a sword, and it is not unusual that one adjective of Potnia on the tablet from Pylos was connected with bronze-smiths. Beside her primary function as the goddess of nature, vegetation, and fertility, she had to be powerful and warlike to protect Mycenaean palaces and their cities against their enemies. I think the position of Potnia and her attributes were changing in the harmony with the needs of the Mycenaean community. The lion hunt shown on the blade of a dirk from Shaft Grave IV at Mycenae. Nilson presumed that the role of Potnia in Greek classical religion was taken over by the goddesses Athena, Rhea and Hera. This warlike symbolism of hunting occurs in Mycenaean art from the very beginning. He supposes that this cult continued with a variety of names into the classical period. Chadwick believes that Potnia was connected with the cult of the Earth Mother, which dominated from Early Helladic time all Aegean religions. Armed with weapons, wearing a helmet, she is accompanied by a griffin.

During the Late Helladic III period (after 1400 BCE), Potnia is depicted more warlike. Potnia is the protector of nature, vegetation, fertility, and in this case she is closely related to the Minoan Mother of the Mountains. Sometimes standing alone, they indicate the presence of the goddess. On Mycenaean monuments, Potnia appears with many attributes: snakes, double axes, lions, doves, the griffin, as well as other kinds of animals and sacred features. Some of these adjectives are of local provenience, where others characterize the sphere of her influence. This stone relief of a chariot-borne warrior is from a 16th-century shaft-grave marker. She is mentioned on the tablets with Linear script B from Knossos and Pylos as PO-TI-NI-JA with many epithets. Mycenaean art shows them to have been a warlike people. 16001100 BC) in the Late Bronze Age is evident by the numerous weapons unearthed, warrior and combat representations in contemporary art, as well as by the. Due to additional evidence from Minoan artwork, researchers also conclude that women functioned in high-level roles in that society, perhaps even as priestesses, but there are no correlating artistic representations in Mycenaean material culture indicating a similarly elevated role for women.įinally, the two cultures also differed in their written language: Mycenaeans wrote in the deciphered form known as Linear B, and the Minoans wrote in the still unbroken script, Linear A.Potnia was the most important goddess in Greece in the Late Bronze Age, which is called Mycenaean (1600-1100 BCE). Minoan art frequently shows peaceful scenes of floral or marine subject matter, while the art of the Mycenaeans celebrates things such as chariots and combat. The differences between Minoan and Mycenaean artwork generally elaborate this theme even further. Additionally, while the Mycenaeans were discovered to have had a wide variety of weaponry suitable to battle, Minoan weapons were ceremonial and incapable of inflicting any real harm on a prospective opponent. Fortified citadels were developed, such as that of Mycenae itself, which was entered through the Lion Gate, about 1330 BC, so called because of the massive lion figures, carved from stone, that adorned it. Mycenaean palaces, on the other hand, were constructed with high stone walls and other clearly defensive attributes, signifying the perennial presence of danger. Mycenaean art reflects the warlike preoccupations of the mainland Mycenaean society, both in character and in the subjects portrayed. Minoan palaces, for example, had open designs and lavish courtyards. nomic causes, still the repute of mercenaries would have reinforced the warlike. One of the more important clues regarding this disposition to violence or otherwise lies in the architecture of the two civilizations. well as in religion and art however, the Mycenaean structure preserved.

Warlike mycenaean art