Archaeology

Among the most remarkable features uncovered during the excavation of Petsas House, a 14th-century BCE ceramic production and storage complex in the settlement of Mycenae, is a series of wells that shed new light on water management and industrial practice at a Mycenaean workshop. This paper focuses on the primary well in Room Π, located at the heart of the workshop area, which proved to be not only an exceptional architectural feature but also the source of the excavation's single largest deposit of archaeological material. Reaching a depth of over 12 meters and transitioning from a...

When Heinrich Schliemann began excavations on the acropolis at Mycenae in 1874 and 1876, recovering terracotta female and bovine figurines was not merely a welcome by-product of his work — it was a primary objective. Convinced that these clay "idols" were early manifestations of Hera and her sacred cow, Schliemann's interpretations set the terms for figurine studies at the site for generations. This paper uses the remarkable assemblage of nearly 1,100 terracotta figurines recovered from Petsas House — a ceramic production and storage workshop on the lower slopes of Mycenae dating to LH...

Petsas House, the 14thc BCE building complex in Mycenae’s settlement, may serve as a case study for the socio-economic role/s of potters and pottery production, in this case on an almost industrial scale, within a domestic context during the palatial period. Pottery, its production, distribution, and consumption can give information on its role in the economy. Evidence from the workshop context may also provide evidence for the social roles of potters and the pottery they produced. Since the 2007 Langford conference and its publication in 2010, Petsas House has been interpreted as an...

This paper presents results of the Archaeological Society’s excavation (2000–2013) of the structure known as ‘Petsas House’ in Mycenae’s settlement . The building complex, destroyed late in the LH IIIA2 period, was used for habitation, ceramic production and storage, and is one of the few examples, so far excavated, of multi-use space in a palatial settlement during this period of expansion and centralization . In particular, this paper examines the nature of the destruction of Petsas House, and its immediate aftermath, along with a presentation of the extensive ceramic evidence for dating...