There are links between the Thera paintings and such items as earrings, necklaces, and metal vessels found in the royal Shaft Graves at Mycenae. Thera itself, however, had few valuables like metal; apparently the inhabitants had taken prized objects away. The Shaft Graves, in contrast, were packed with gold, silver, and bronze—almost nomadic in the obvious preference for portable gold and weapons. Two groups of Shaft Graves were discovered at Mycenae in different parts of a large cemetery area. The burials in them seem to have ranged over a period of 150 years, from shortly before about 1600 to the middle of the 15th century. Each group was eventually surrounded by a circular enclosure wall. The circle designated B, with the earliest burials, lay outside the limits of the later Bronze Age defenses, but the other circle, A, enclosing the richest burials in six large graves, was deliberately incorporated within them. The wealthy burials belonged to leading, if not royal, families of the place that would eventually supplant Knossos as the chief centre of the Aegean. Schliemann excavated the graves of Circle A in 1876, but it was not until 1951 that Circle B was noted. These graves are capacious shafts cut in the rock, often with pebble floors and slab roofs. They were used for multiple burials over a course of at least several years, and the remains, including beef bones and oyster shells, give evidence of well-developed funeral rites. Both men and women were buried in the graves, many of which contained several bodies. After the bodies were placed in the graves, the stone-walled burial chambers were roofed with timbers, and the shafts above were filled again. Sometimes the remains of earlier burials seem to have been pushed aside to make room for later ones, but, if so, the shafts must have been laboriously reopened to admit new burials. Large stone slabs with carvings in flat relief had been set above some of the graves. The carvings include spiral designs and pictures of the dead riding in their chariots to war or to the hunt. They have vivid battle imagery—three stallions rearing, spears ground under chariot wheels, and a man falling headfirst from a chariot. In one case, the scene of a warrior driving a chariot over a fallen enemy encased in a shield seems to be reinforced by a scene just below it, a lion chasing a deer. This visual simile may be analogous to lion similes in Homeric epic. According to another interpretation, the dead were taking part in their own funeral games with chariot races as described in Homer. These tombstones provide the earliest evidence for chariots on the mainland.
A fantastic array of gold and silver cups, jewelry, and dress ornaments had been placed with the dead, especially with those in the graves of Circle A. Golden diadems and elaborate hairpins decked the heads of women. Beads in necklaces were of amethyst, probably from Egypt, and amber, from the Baltic. The men were buried with supplies of bronze weapons, including great slashing knives and spearheads and two kinds of rapier-like swords, a mainland version and a Cretan version. Several swords are ornamented with gold-plated hilts and pommels of polished stone, ivory, or gold; some have gold predators at the hilt gripping the blades in their mouths. The blades may be ornamented with running horses, flying griffins, shields in the shape of a figure eight, or even lilies running down from hilt to tip. The tremendous influence from Crete on these graves is visible in the metal cups, faience “sacral knots” (i.e., representations of a Cretan ritual object in the shape of a scarf with a looped knot and fringed ends), dolphin-appliquéd ostrich eggs, conch shells associated with ritual summoning, gold triple shrine facades, images of bulls with double axes between their horns, and imported pottery painted with plants. Beside them is an equal wealth of local art such as formal gold cups, gold worked in breathless surface patterns of lions, bulls, and plants, and dozens of lions twisted as ornament. There probably is a local iconography in the gold seals of duels, lion combat, chariot hunting, and a wounded lion trying to pull an arrow from his shoulder. Traveling artists may account for some of the similarities to Cycladic and Cretan art, but local armourers may also have wrought local metal into drinking cups. Covering the faces of some of the men were gold portrait masks showing them with beards and mustaches. In this they are like an amethyst “portrait” gem in Circle B of a bearded mature man. (Later studies of faces also seem to reserve the beard and mustache for important or powerful elders, although fashions change; servants and soldiers are normally beardless). Women’s costume cannot be known from the remains, but it may have had the same range of tunic, apron, and veil as in the Theran paintings, and the jewelry is impressive.
Some bronze dagger blades were inlaid with remarkable pictures or designs in other metals, chiefly gold and silver and electrum (a mixture of gold and silver) in various shades. Black niello was used as a background for these pictures or to heighten the incised detail. The most famous of the Shaft Grave daggers shows men armed with bows, spears, and great body shields, hunting a pride of lions; another has catlike animals chasing wild fowl among papyrus flowers beside a silver stream. This technique of “painting in metals” appears to have originated in Syria, although the workmanship and style of the pictures on the Mycenae daggers look novel. Whereas other daggers and some metal cups with inlaid designs of this kind have been found on the mainland, none has yet been recovered in Crete. But many of the treasures from the Shaft Graves are imports from Crete.
The Shaft Graves had so many metal vases, including huge bronze cauldrons (one marked with Linear signs), that clay vases were not much needed. Yet, the contemporary chamber tombs at Mycenae and many other sites have wonderful pottery that is both imported from Crete and made with local taste with spirals, ferns, and double axes. In this development one can observe the formation of a new Mycenaean Greek culture, as it assimilated styles from Crete and yet insisted on more traditional local habits. It is this tentative fusion of two cultural “languages of art,” already in touch for two or three centuries, that gave a special impetus to the new Mycenaean world, rendering it flexible, receptive, and adventurous. The pottery, superior in technique, colour, and design, was attractive to other cultures and widely used as commercial containers for oils. Because it has been found in almost all coastal districts from Syria to Sardinia, it is a real aid to dating.