The Family Jewels

 

 

 The Family Jewels

When you walk into the Mycenaean Gallery in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, your eyes are almost blinded by the light reflecting from the countless number of gold and precious items gathered from the palaces and citadels of Mycenae, Tiryns, Pylos and other ancient sites in the Peloponnese. There is much evidence displayed there to indicate that the culture of the Mycenaean Bronze Age was a rich one indeed. Likewise when you see the 1874 picture of Sophie Schliemann wearing the gold diadems, earrings and necklaces which her husband Heinrich discovered and named the Jewels of Helen or Priam’s Treasure, you instantly reach the conclusion that the Kingdom of Troy was also immensely wealthy. That being the case, why are there so few references to jewelry in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey? One would expect to find the women of the two epics dripping with jeweled treasures, but that is not the case.

There are any number of references to gold sceptres, drinking cups, goblets, craters and mixing bowls in the Iliad as well as mentions of gold, silver and bronze-adorned weapons, shields and armour. Most items of this nature appear to have been fashioned by the god Hephaestus but there is little additional mention made of jewelry, other than for golden clasps on breastplates or belts. Helen, the Queen of Sparta, and Hecuba who is Queen of Troy are not shown by Homer as being adorned with gold and jewelled finery and neither is Andromache, the wife of Hector. Chryseis and Briseis, the sex slaves of Agamemnon and Achilles are likewise lacking in finery.

The only divine being in the Iliad who was wearing any jewelry was the goddess Hera. In the hope that the Achaeans would gain the upper hand without his involvement in the war, Hera hatched a plan to seduce her husband Zeus and lure him off to the bedroom so that he would forget about the battle being waged below on the plains of Troy. Hera prettied herself by putting on her finest, including one of Athena’s gowns, and she borrowed a number of items from Aphrodite to make herself more appealing.

Then she put on an ambrosial gown which Athena had fashioned, richly embroidered by her cunningly skillful hands and she then fastened it to her breast with golden brooches. Around her waist she placed a girdle with a hundred tassels and in her earlobes she placed earrings set with three globes and many graces shone forth from them. And on top of it all, the glittering goddess placed a veil, shining and white as the sun. Under her shining feet she placed well-oiled sandals.

She topped it all off with a highly-embroidered leather strap, inside of which were all kinds of alluring charms including love, desire and sweet talking and beguilement that fools even the mind of the wise.

In the Odyssey, Homer makes reference to a single piece of jewelry that Odysseus wore, a golden brooch of unique design. He tells us of no other pieces of finery except for the fact that the King and Queen of Phaeacia sent him away with many fine gifts as he set off for his home in Ithaca.

The godlike Odysseus wore a double-folded upper cloak of purple fleece, fastened on the front with a golden brooch with double clasps and on the front it was cunningly engraved. In the forefront a hound held a spotted fawn in its paws and pinned it as it struggled. All the men marveled at this and they were made of gold and the hound was strangling the fawn and it was gasping to get to its feet and was trying to flee.

There are no references in the Odyssey to jewelry being worn by the nymph Calypso or the sorceress Circe and likewise Queen Arete and her daughter the princess Nausicaa never appear with jewels. The only mention of jewelry comes in the Odyssey when Alcinous, the leader of the suitors, sent the hopeful would-be grooms in search of elaborate gifts to present to Penelope in the hope that she would judge which one offered the finest and then choose that individual to be her new husband. The display of wealth was quite extensive.

Thus spoke Antinous and his words pleased them all and each man sent out a herald to bring forth his gifts. For Antinous the herald brought a large and beautiful robe, all richly embroidered and containing twelve gold brooches fitted with curved clasps. And right away another one brought a chain for Eurymachus, all made of gold and strung with amber beads and as shining as the sun. His squires brought Eurydamas a pair of earrings, well-fashioned into three teardrops and with great grace shining from them. And from the house of lord Peisander the son of Polyctor, his squire brought a most beautiful and glorious jewel of a necklace. And so each one of the Achaeans brought one lovely gift after another. But afterwards the fair lady went up to her upper chamber and her handmaidens bore the beautiful gifts there for her.

We need to ask the question as to why there are so few references to jewelry in the two epics. There could be a number of answers. Perhaps this was one of Homer’s anachronisms and he mistakenly described the culture of the period of Greek history in which he wrote, rather than the Bronze Age timeframe of the events that he was portraying. Perhaps he knew nothing of the enormous wealth of Mycenae and Troy, examples of which had been unearthed by Schliemann. Then again, perhaps the Greeks and Trojans of the Trojan War period had little or no wealth. Perhaps the answer is a combination of these factors. Let’s look at each proposition.

 Overwhelming archaeological evidence proves that enormous wealth must have been present in Mycenaean Greece and Troy. Two treasure troves of precious objects were discovered by Heinrich Schliemann during his digs at the sites of ancient Troy and the citadel of Mycenae in the 1870’s. Despite his assertions to the contrary, accurate dating of the objects places the death mask of Agamemnon and the other items found in the shaft graves at Mycenae to a period preceding Agamemnon by several hundred years. Likewise, the Treasury of Priam or Jewels of Helen were found at Troy at a level dated at more than 1,000 years earlier in time than the Trojan War and well below the city known now to archaeologists as Troy VI. Homer would have had no knowledge of such treasures since they were far underground at both the time of the Trojan War and at the time that he composed his epics, and they were not unearthed until the 19^th century.

Whether Homer knew about wealthy artifacts from Mycenae and Tory or not, the fact is that he chose not to write about them. As indicated above, there are indeed very few references to jewelry in the Iliad and the Odyssey. Homer’s writings reflected the cultural norms of his own time and not the time of the Trojan War in Bronze Age Greece. His failure to mirror what was common in olden times was another of his literary anachronisms. In ancient Greece, and especially in the time of Homer, men were expected to dress rather simply. For a man to wear elaborate gold ornaments beyond a simple signet ring was considered effeminate or barbarian. One’s weapons, armour, horses and chariot were considered the true symbols of status and power for citizens and heroes. Women in Homer’s time wore some jewelry but never to excess and did not want to be seen as displaying ‘trinkets’ of foreign trade. Jewelry was regarded as not essential in establishing one’s status in society or prowess on the battlefield.

But we also have to consider the possibility that Homer’s lack of reference to jewelry in the epics might have truly been an accurate representation of the facts. Perhaps by the time the Trojan War broke out, the Achaeans and the Trojans had no wealth to display fashionably. Maybe both cultures were financially destitute and the war was fought for economic reasons rather than to seek vengeance for the kidnapping of Helen. Putting the story of Helen to one side, scholars have noted that there were compelling underlying economic reasons for the Greeks to launch an invasion of Troy. The city of Troy had control of the Dardanelles Strait and could exact a toll on anyone passing through that critical trade route. This would have been a tremendous source of wealth for the Greeks if they were able to wrest control of the straits away from the Trojans. The Black Sea routes provided the gateway and access to key resources that were critical for Bronze Age cultures, especially raw materials like tin which was crucial for making bronze. At the time, Troy was considered a wealthy city and if taken by the Achaeans, could provide them with much plunder, slaves and ongoing tribute. In addition, destroying a major player like Troy would provide the Greek alliance an opportunity to become the major player in the Aegean.

So perhaps the Achaeans were penniless and in dire economic straits and launched an invasion of what they considered to be a wealthy land in order to build their own diminished treasury. Perhaps when they got to Troy, they found that the Dardanians were in no better shape economically than the Greeks were. They spent ten years frittering away their scant remaining resources in trying to capture the citadel of Troy. When they finally did accomplish their mission, they must have found that their return on investment was minimal and then were forced to return home with little more than what they came with. This scenario makes perfect sense when we consider that within approximately 50 years of the end of the Trojan War, all of the cities and citadels of the Late Bronze Age around the entire region collapsed. They were all tottering financially and fell into ruination. Climate change, natural events, famine and invasions by hostile strangers spelled an end to all these cities, including Mycenae and Troy. Homer didn’t mention any jewels, because by this time, with the exception of the treasures buried in the Mycenaean shaft graves and at the site of Troy II, all awaiting the arrival of Heinrich Schliemann a couple of millennia later, any remaining treasures and jewels were probably all hocked in some Dorian or Sea Peoples’ pawn shop.