Archaeology Magazine - July/August 2012 - 39

courtyard, this may have been an administrative building used in the second period of Iklaina’s occupation, according to Cosmopoulos. It may also have been the residence of the mayor who is mentioned in the Linear B tablets from the Palace of Nestor archive. The 2011 season also marked the discovery of a pit that may be the ﬁrst known Mycenaean open-air shrine. These types of shrines are known from artistic representations, but none has been excavated to date. At Iklaina, the area contained evidence of ﬁre, including burned soil and ashes, along with oﬀering tables made of plaster, fragments of frescoes, numerous animal bones, and drinking vessels, as well as a rare sheet of lead. It is still being excavated, but if the area turns out to be an open-air shrine, this will provide new avenues for the study of Mycenaean religion. Further excavation in conjunction with analysis of the bones may determine the rituals practiced here. In references to the Iklaina site in the Linear B tablets from Pylos, there is mention of temple servants and temple bronze, suggesting the existence of a religious structure there. One tablet also mentions a man, Pythias, who is possibly named after a god, indicating some sort of religious belief and, indirectly, worship associated with the shrine. Perhaps the most remarkable and important ﬁnd at the site to date is also one of the smallest. In 2010, archaeologists found a suspicious artifact encrusted in soil inside a 3,400-year-old refuse pit. They then bagged it and sent it to the museum for study. Noticing what appeared to be inscriptions, the student who washed the artifact brought it to the attention of the project’s chief ceramicist and Linear B expert, Cynthia Shelmerdine of the University of Texas at Austin. She instantly recognized the markings of Linear B. Shelmerdine, who was the ﬁrst to read the fragment, believes it is part of a personnel record. On one side is what is likely a list of male names and numbers, and the other preserves part of the heading for what might have been a list of manufactured products. “Until now, tablets found in stratiﬁed contexts had been known only from a handful of major palaces, such as Pylos, Mycenae, Tiryns, Knossos, and Thebes,” says Cosmopoulos. Finding a tablet is evidence that the site at Iklaina had the scribes necessary to sustain a bureaucracy. It also suggests a high level of political organization and a need to keep track
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The Linear B tablet found at Iklaina is believed to be the earliest known example of a bureaucratic record in Europe. Side A (left) shows the ending of the participle of a verb which may mean “manufactured” or “assembled.” The top line of Side B (right) shows a male name followed by the number “1” and the second line preserves part of what appears to be a second male name.

of commodities. In addition, most tablets are dated to around 1200 B.C., and one from Mycenae dates to the late fourteenth century B.C. But the Iklaina tablet dates to between 1450 and 1350 B.C., making it the earliest known bureaucratic record found on the Greek mainland. “Because Linear B tablets were, as far as we know, used exclusively as state records, the discovery of the Iklaina tablet implies state structure and state bureaucracy. Its early date indicates that bureaucracy and literacy in Greece appeared earlier and were more widespread than we had thought until now,” says Cosmopoulos. He is conﬁdent the tablet will oﬀer insight into an area of history that is still little understood. “The discovery of the tablet is important because, according to what we had known until now, records were not kept in second-order settlements and all known tablets from the Greek mainland are dated later. This may change the way scholars understand how Mycenaean bureaucracy developed over time.” Cosmopoulos adds with obvious excitement, “In the grand scheme of things, Iklaina may shed new light on how Mycenaean states were formed.” The ﬁnds at Iklaina will keep Cosmopoulos and his team busy for years to come. He is working to purchase and excavate the land adjacent to the site in future seasons—where there is one Linear B tablet, there is always the hope of ﬁnding more. In the meantime, Iklaina’s uniquely stratiﬁed settlement makes it the ideal laboratory, and Cosmopoulos is eager for the opportunity it oﬀers not only to learn about life in the palaces and in the surrounding farmlands, but also to investigate for the ﬁrst time in one site how Mycenaean society developed on all levels in between. ■
Amanda Summer is an archaeologist and writer who lives in St. Louis, Missouri.
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Archaeology Magazine - July/August 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - July/August 2012