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Better-written sources:
Smithsonian Magazine (start at "Within a few years of the warrior’s burial" for the Minoan-Mycenaean link):
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/golden-warrior-greek-...
Archaeology.org:
https://www.archaeology.org/issues/352-1909/features/7900-gr...
I've been mildly obsessed by this engraving ever since its discovery. It's stupendously beautiful and incredibly dynamic. In comparison, much posterior Archaic Greek art that is imitative of Egyptian sculpture is stiff and simple.
The implications about its craftsmanship make the Bronze Age collapse seem even more dramatic.
This is an impressive seal, but not really such an outlier compared to the prior finds. Here's the wikipedia page [1] on Minoan seals.
And here's a blogpost [2] about Minoan seals from 2015, before this particular seal was found. It gives some details about the technology used to create them, in particular, yes, those guys had lenses and lathes.
[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoan_seals
[2]
http://antiquatedantiquarian.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-minoan...
>but not really such an outlier compared to the prior finds
I'm in complete disagreement with you on that. It's obviously part of an established iconographic tradition and in that stylistic sense, it's not outlying. But the craftsmanship is in another class entirely. It's a _qualitative_ leap from every other known piece.
> It's a qualitative leap from every other known piece.
Fair enough.
Now, since we are on HN, a site dedicated to "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity", I'll advance a question.
First the background: stone seals were used to ratify all sorts of contracts. The more intricate the seal, the more status the owner had, and most likely this was in part due to the fact that it was more difficult to forge. So, the owner of such a seal very likely enjoyed a nice status dividend. Of course, the person himself was shown a lot of respect and deference in face-to-face encounters, but because of the seal, his representatives could enjoy some form of authority hundreds of miles away from the home base. And since Minos was a maritime civilization, this probably was quite a typical occurrence.
Now, here's the question: this seal stone was made hundreds of years before the Bronze Age collapse. I agree with you that it appears to be qualitatively way above all the other seal stones discovered so far (and most likely those not discovered too, since we have discovered thousands of inprints as well, and a spectacular inprint would have been publicized). So the question is: why didn't the craftsman who made this seal, or his disciples, or some other craftsmen not create similar sealstones during the next few centuries?
And maybe I'm allowed to engage in some wild speculation here. The owner of the seal, well aware of the immense advantages he enjoyed because of its uniqueness, was most likely also aware that if more such seals were to flood the market, his comparative status would diminish. So, he had all the reasons to make sure this didn't happen.
Now, most cultures have some type of myth of the master artisan being killed or imprisoned by his patron, but the first and most well known such myth is the one of Daedalus, who worked for ... king Minos.
Is it possible that the creator of the Pylos Combat Agate suffered the fate of Daedalus?
We are very much aware of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, but the knowledge of the Late Bronze Age collapse is much more fragmented, even though the repercussions were very similar.
Who knows how contemporary world might look like if the Bronze Age civilizations just kept on developing.
I have been watching a youtube series on the collapse of civilisations :
https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCT6Y5JJPKe_JDMivpKgVXew
episode 2 is about the Bronze Age Collapse and the interesting thing for me is how little is known about it.
There are many theories, but ultimately we do not know why these waves of migrations caused the destruction of major, ancient empires. A volcano erupting in Iceland is one possibility, leading to famine and a domino effect of migration and collapse.
It seems almost like a World War before there could be such a thing, with the civilisations involved not robust enough to survive such a conflict.
In a sense, we're very much aware of the collapse of the Western Roman empire because its reputation is overblown and its documentation is otherwise extensive.
I can't believe that's real art from before the Greek dark ages.
Interestingly - this man was 1.5m (5 ft) tall only and buried with warrior regalia
That would have been small for the time. The average for adult males at that time in the area looks to have been around 1.625m[1]. If I remember correctly, it was about 1.7m a millennium later, during the Classical period.
[1]:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-019-00850-3