Bellerophon Talets from the Mycenaean World? A Tale of Seven Bronze Hinges

Journal of Hellenic Studies

Volumn 118, Issue , 1998, Pages 187-189

  Shear, Ione Mylonas ^a  

^a NONE   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 84996783699     PISSN: 00754269     EISSN: 20414099     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/632241     Document Type: Article

References (40)

1. Cf. discussion and bibliography cited by J.P. Crielaard, ‘Homer, History and Archaeology. Some Remarks on the Date of the Homeric World’, in J.P. Crielaard (ed.), Homeric Questions. Essays in Philology, Ancient History and Archaeology, Including the Papers of a Conference Organized by the Netherlands Institute at Athens (15 May 1993) (Amsterdam 1995)213–214.
2. G.F. Bass, ‘A Bronze Age Shipwreck at Ulu Burun (Kas): 1984 campaign’, AJA 90 (1986) 269–96
3. ‘Oldest Known Shipwreck Reveals Splendors of the Bronze Age’, National Geographic 172 (1987) 692–733
4. G.F. Bass and C. Pulak, ‘The Late Bronze Age Shipwreck at ‘Ulu Burun: 1986’, AJA 91 (1987) 321
5. G.F. Bass, C. Pulak, D. Collon and J. Weinstein, ‘The Late Bronze Age Shipwreck at Ulu Burun: 1986 Campaign’, AJA 93 (1989) 1–29
6. G.F. Bass, ‘A Bronze-Age Writing-Diptych from the Sea off Lycia’, Kadmos 29 (1990) 169.
7. A. Ford, Homer. The Poetry of the Past (Ithaca & London 1992) 13, 137–8
8. B.B. Powell, Homer and the Origin of the Greek Alphabet (Cambridge 1991) 199–200
9. R. Bellamy, ‘Bellerophon's Tablet’, CJ 84 (1988–1989) 289–307
10. A. Heubeck, ‘Schrift’, ArchHom 3 (1979) X, 10.
11. Although the opinions of Bellamy and especially Heubeck are often cited to support this concept, it should be noted that both scholars published their conclusions before the Uluburun tablet had been found. Nevertheless their interpretation continues to be accepted and casually repeated by scholars of Greek literature; cf. for example B. Knox, Introduction to The Odyssey, Homer, trans. B. Fagles (New York 1996) 20.
12. R. Payton, ‘The Ulu Burun Writing-Board Set’, Anatolian Studies 41 (1991) 99–106
13. P. Warnock and M Pendleton, ‘TheWood of the Ulu Burun Diptych’, Anatolian Studies 41 (1991) 107–11
14. M. Pendleton and P. Wamock, ‘Scanning Electron Microscopy Analysis of the Ulu Burun Diptych’, Institute of Nautical Archaeology Newsletter 17:1 (1990) 26–7.
15. Payton (n.5) 103.
16. D. Symington, ‘Late Bronze Age Writing-Boards and their Uses. Textual Evidence from Anatolia and Syria’, Anatolian Studies 41 (1991) 111–23.
17. This room was later labeled Room No. 8 or, as it is better known in modern scholarship, the Archives Room; C.W. Blegen and M. Rawson, The Palace of Nestor at Pylos in Western Messenia, vol I: The buildings and their contents (Princeton 1966)
18. hereafter Pylos I, 6, 95–100.
19. C.W. Blegen and K. Kourouniotis, ‘Excavations of Pylos, 1939’, AJA 43 (1939) 569
20. Pylos I (n.9) 98, fig. 274.1 (objects slightly enlarged in photograph). The hinges were originally stored in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, Inventory No. 7755. After the museum was built in Chora, along with many of the other finds from Pylos the hinges were returned and they are now on display in the Chora Museum, Inventory No. 2774.
21. A.J. Evans, The Palace of Minos at Knossos (London 1921–1935) hereafter PM, IV, 668.
22. This sketch was published by J. Boardman, The Date of the Knossos Tablets (Oxford 1963) 21–3, fig. 5.
23. Pylos I (n.9) 97
24. cf. also PM (n.11) IV, 597.
25. Cf. PM (n.11) IV, 836, where it is noted that in the excavations on Crete bronze hinges were found only with this one deposit of tablets. After the publication of Evans' work, two groups of small bronze hinges with Linear A tablets were found in the palace at Zakros
26. N. Platon, Zakros. The Discovery of a Lost Palace of Ancient Crete (New York 1971) 148, 151, 159
27. N. Platon and W.C. Brice, Inscribed Tablets and Pithos in Linear A System from Zakros (Athens 1971) 26–7, 32–5
28. E. Hallager, The Minoan Roundel and Other Sealed Documents in the Neopalatial Linear A Administration in Aegaeum 14 (1996) 1,75–7. Following Evans' original suggestion, Platon once again associated the bronze hinges with wooden boxes which possibly contained Linear A tablets. If Evans' interpretation of the bronze hinges found with the Linear B tablets is questioned, then Platon's explanation of the bronze hinges found with the earlier tablets also needs to be re-examined.
29. Illustrated in Pylos I (n.9) fig. 274.1, on right, bottom and center rows.
30. Illustrated in Pylos I (n.9) fig. 274.1, center, left.
31. Illustrated in Pylos I (n.9) fig. 274.1, top row, center.
32. Illustrated in Pylos I (n.9) fig. 274.1, middle row, center. The sixth fragment is thicker than the seventh fragment and thus presumably these two fragments do not belong together. The fifth and sixth fragments, on the other hand, because of their fragmentary state of preservation, could have, but did not necessarily come from the same hinge.
33. Illustrated in Pylos I (n.9) fig. 274.1, top, left.
34. This piece is not illustrated in Pylos I (n.9) fig. 274.1. It is displayed with the bronze fragment attached to the background, the carbonized wood face up.
35. The Linear B tablets, of course, vary greatly in size. The largest one found at Knossos was reported to be 0.267 m. by 0.155 m.; A.J. Evans, Scripta Minoa I (Oxford 1909) 48. The larger tablets from Pylos have a height of 0.05 to 0.12 m. or more and the length of 0.07 to 0.25 m.
36. the smaller tablets have a height of 0.01 m. to 0.05 m. and a length of 0.10 to 0.25 m.; E.L. Bennett Jr., The Pylos Tablets, Texts of the Inscriptions Found 1939–1954, with introduction by C.W. Blegen (Princeton 1955) viii-ix.
37. W. Burkert, ‘Oriental Myth and Literature in the Iliad’, R. Hägg (ed.), The Greek Renaissance of the Eighth Century BC. Tradition and Innovation. Proceedings of the Second International Symposium at the Swedish Institute in Athens, 1–5 June, 1981 (Stockholm 1983) 51–6
38. Heubeck (n.4) 134
39. Powell (n.4) 199–200, argued that this tale must have come from the east.
40. Mycenaean contacts with the east have been well documented; cf. for example the many words associated with textiles which came from that part of the world; E.J.W. Barber, Prehistoric Textiles, the Development of Cloth in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages with Special Reference to the Aegean (Princeton 1991). Since the existing wooden tablet was found on a ship which had entered Aegean harbours, as indicated by the cargo on the ship, the knowledge of such tablets could have reached the people of Crete and the mainland during the course of this trade. With this knowledge, tales concerning their use would also have been known and the possibility that some of these tales were adopted into the oral tradition of the Greek Bronze Age becomes a likely sequel.