Combats between humans and animals on Mycenaean seals

Abstract

One class of representation on Mycenaean seals, the combats between humans and animals, is the subject of this thesis. It is hoped that the study of this uniform group of 42 seals may illustrate aesthetic and other criteria for dating seals as a whole as well as shed some light on the interactions between the Aegean and the Orient and Egypt through the type (form) and meaning (content) of elemental motifs employed. After a definition of actual and possible combat scenes which shall be included in our survey, we proceed to distinguish Mycenaean from Cretan and modern gems and, on the basis of aesthetics, shape, dimensions, material and technique, to order the Helladic sealstones chronologically. Such a chronological arrangement is prerequisite to an analysis of the elements of human and animal positions, weapon, landscape, dress, hair, miscellaneous objects and composition, as they appear in human-lion, human-boar, human-non-bovine ruminant, human-bull and human-fantastic animal scenes. Once we know when such elements entered the Mycenaean repertoire, we may look to the arts of Crete, Egypt and the Near East for their contemporary or previous appearance, and thereby observe native initiative or foreign intrusions in the depiction of the combat theme in Greece. It is seen that, aside from some accessories of dress and hair, the mode of combating animals from a chariot with a bow and arrow, some miscellaneous objects, antithetic and Group V bull composition, and the subject of human-fantastic animal encounters, the theme and manner of expression of human-animal combats developed largely in the Aegean. Although there was great interaction between Crete and Greece, which may have provided the themes of ruminant and possibly bull combat, yet the subject matter of lion and boar combats and the idea of confronting the beast with short range weapons was a Helladic contribution. The interpretation of underlying significance of human-animal combat scenes is shown to be quite uncertain and although there may exist possible hints of religious or mythological connotation, no general conclusions can be drawn about any particular combat theme or about man-animal combats as a whole.