Abstract: Paupers and peasants and princes and kings: society in Late Bronze Age Greece

Lecturer: Dimitri Nakassis

Studies of Mycenaean society in Late Bronze Age Greece often describe it as very hierarchical and focus on the highest and lowest status individuals: the king and the officials of the palace on the one hand, and lowly laborers on the other.  Between those extremes, however, were local leaders, administrators, and skilled craftsmen whose activities we can document through texts and the archaeological record.  This paper proposes a new model of Mycenaean culture that incorporates evidence about kings, slaves, and the middling ranks of society.
 

Bibliography and/or website on lecture topic:

John Chadwick, The Mycenaean World (Cambridge University Press, 1976)