From: Subject: The Lion Gate at Mycenae Date: Sun, 4 May 2008 18:32:26 +0300 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/html; charset="windows-1255" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Location: http://localhost:8780/pubs/journals/pensee/ivr03/31lionv.htm X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.3198 The Lion Gate at Mycenae

The Lion Gate at Mycenae

Immanuel Velikovsky

The following is taken from an unpublished sequel to Velikovsky's = Ages in Chaos. "The Lion Gate of Mycenae" was originally = set=20 in type in 1952, as part of Ages in Chaos, Volume II. The = version=20 printed below is virtually identical to the 1952 text.

The Lion Gate of Mycenae was the city gate, built one or two = centuries later=20 than the tombs discovered in this place. Two lions rampant are carved in = stone=20 relief on the gate. There was a time when historians and archaeologists = were in=20 disagreement as to its age and that of the fortification on Mycenae in = general.=20 Similar bas-reliefs of two lions rampant facing each other are found in = a number=20 of places in Phrygia in Asia Minor. "The resemblance in idea is = complete," wrote=20 W.M. Ramsay in 1881(l). "The schema is so peculiarly characteristic of = Phrygia,=20 that we can hardly admit it to have been borrowed from any other = country. We are=20 therefore driven to the conclusion that the Mycenaean artists either are = Phrygians, or learned the idea from Phrygians." "It is not allowable to = separate=20 them [the Phrygian and the Mycenaean monuments] in time by several = centuries.=20 The end of the Phrygian kingdom is a fixed date, about 675 B.C."(2). The = invasion of Asia Minor by the Cimmerians put an end to the Phrygian = culture and=20 art. "I do not think it is allowable to place the Mycenaean gateway = earlier than=20 the ninth, and it is more likely to belong to the eighth, century. The = view to=20 which I find myself forced is as follows. There was in the eighth = century lively=20 intercourse between Argos and Asia Minor: in this intercourse the = Argives=20 learned ... to fortify their city in the Phrygian style with lions over = the=20 gate. Historically there is certainly good reason to assign at least = part of the=20 fortifications of Mycenae to the time when the Argive kings [the tyrants = of the=20 eighth century] were the greatest power in Greece [here follow the names = of=20 several authorities among the historians who hold the same view]. On the = other=20 hand, the almost universal opinion of archaeologists rejects this=20 hypothesis"(3).

"Moreover there remains a difficulty which no one has even attempted = to=20 dispose of. It is a historical fact that Argos was the greatest power in = Greece=20 and supreme in the Peloponnesos during the eighth century: Greek = tradition=20 assigns to the Argive kings several developments of civilization .... = Yet the=20 majority of archaeologists assign all the early remains in this district = to a=20 period centuries earlier. Is it probable that all traces of the greatest = period=20 in Argive history have altogether disappeared, while numerous remains = exist of=20 Argive glory during the unknown period 1500-1000 B.C. and again of = Argive bronze=20 work of the sixth century B.C.? I find myself unable to face this = difficulty:=20 the presumption is that very early remains of art and wealth in the = Argive=20 valley belong to the period of Argive greatness, and those who refer = them to a=20 remoter period must begin to face and explain away this antecedent = probability=20 against them"(4). Carian, Phrygian, Assyrian, Egyptian, and Hellenic = style=20 influences found in the remains of Mycenae are "precisely what we should = expect=20 in a kingdom like the Argos of the eighth century," when this kingdom = had=20 intercourse with Asia Minor, Phoenicia, and Egypt. "I wish however to = express no=20 opinion here about the date of the Mycenaean tombs and about Mycenaean = pottery,=20 but only to argue that the fortifications of the Lion Gate belong to the = period=20 800-700 B.C."(5).

I quote this opinion of Ramsay with the special intention of showing = how this=20 viewpoint was invalidated. The Egyptologist, Flinders Petrie, made the = following=20 reply:

"[A] matter which demands notice is Professor Ramsay's conclusion = that the=20 lion gateway is of as late a date as the eighth century B.C. This = results from=20 assuming it to be derived from the Phrygian lions groups, on the ground = of not=20 knowing of any other prototype. As however we now have a wooden lion, in = exactly=20 the same attitude, dated to 1450 in Egypt ... it seems that the Phrygian = designs=20 are not the only source of this motive for Mycenae"(6).

In Egypt of the later part of the Eighteenth Dynasty a single = instance of a=20 rampant lion (not two rampant lions facing each other as in Mycenae and = in=20 Phrygia) made Petrie claim Egypt as the place of origin of this image. = He=20 discovered heaps of Mycenaean ware in Egypt of the time of Amenhotep III = and=20 Akhnaton. He could not but conclude that these heaps coming from Mycenae = must be=20 dated in the fifteenth and fourteenth centuries; even more impressive = was the=20 find of a signet of Queen Tiy in one of the Mycenaean Royal graves = opened by=20 Schliemann. Therefore Petrie decidedly opposed Ramsay in his estimate of = eighth=20 century for the Lion Gate and the fortification wall of Mycenae.

Here is a case where the internal evidence points to the eighth = century; but=20 the Egyptologist demands of the classical scholar that he disregard the = internal=20 evidence in favor of the time scale of Egypt.

The debate between Ramsay and Petrie took place before Evans' = archaeological=20 work in Crete: there, too, rampant stone lions have been found and = conveyed the=20 idea that Mycenae must have borrowed the image from there and from a = period well=20 preceding the Phrygian models(7). Yet one should not lose sight of the = fact that=20 Crete's chronology was built upon relations with Egypt. In the section = "Scandal=20 of Enkomi" we shall read how Evans objected to chronological = implications of the=20 Cyprian archaeology on the basis of relations between the Minoan = (Cretan) and=20 Egyptian chronologies on one hand and Minoan and Cyprian, on the = other.

In Ages in Chaos, vol. I, it was shown in great detail why = the end=20 of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt must be placed in the later part of = the ninth=20 century. If this is so then Ramsay's view should be contemplated anew: = the=20 Phrygian models could have found imitators on Crete, not only in = Mycenae. But=20 even if Crete was the original place of the model, the dependence of the = Cretan=20 chronology on that of Egypt constitutes the crux of the problem. But = Ramsay=20 raised also another question of great import-- namely, where are the = ruins of=20 the palaces of the eighth century Tyrants of Argos, the age which in = Greek=20 history immediately preceded the so-called Ionian time--the seventh = century? Was=20 not an error committed and the tyrants endowed with two existences? We = shall=20 discuss the problem when considering the finds at Argos. Let us keep in = mind=20 that in the 1880s and 1890s classical scholars of the stature of W.M. = Ramsay=20 (1851-1939) questioned the inclusion of the Dark Ages of five or six = hundred=20 years' duration between the Mycenaean past and the Greek Age in Greece. = And let=20 us not overlook what was the supposedly crushing argument for wedging = more than=20 half of a millennium into the history of Ancient Greece.

REFERENCES

1. W. M. Ramsay, "A Study of Phrygian Art," = Journal=20 of Hellenic Studies, IX (1888), 350ff.
2. Ibid., p. = 351.
3.=20 Ibid., p. 370.
4. Ibid., pp. 370-71.
5. = Ibid.,=20 p. 371.
6. Sir W. M. Flinders Petrie, "Notes on the Antiquities of = Mycenae,"=20 Journal of Hellenic Studies, XII (1891).
7. Cf. J. W. = Graham,=20 The Palaces of Crete, figs. 133, 135, 136.

PENSEE Journal III

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