War and peace between Mycenaean Greece and Bronze Age Italy

Historic conclusions on the basis of archaeological research and archaeo-metallurgical research

Naue-II-sword from Italy, documentation of the production marks

This archaeological-archaeometric project is being carried out by Mathias Mehofer together with Reinhard Jung (OREA, ÖAW) in cooperation with Ernst Pernicka (Curt-Engelhorn Center for Archaeometry, Mannheim, Germany) and Ioannis Moschos (VI Ephoria Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities, Pátra, Greece) as main partners. Numerous other cooperation partners are also involved, above all in Greece and Italy. The project was financially supported in 2007 and again in 2008 by the Institute for Aegean Prehistory (INSTAP) in Philadelphia, USA, the Vienna Institute for Achaeological Science, University of Vienna (VIAS) and the FWF (Austrian Science Fund). It supplemented the individual FWF project (P 17912, 2005–2007) carried out by R. Jung on the then Mycenaean commission of the ÖAW - Austrian Academy of Science, on the cultural, economic and political contacts between the Aegean and Italy from 1600 to 1000 B.C.E.

The aim is to re-evaluate the nature of the contacts between late-Mycenaean Greece and Bronze Age Italy on the basis of new data on metallurgical production and the exchange of finished products. The material is based on chemical, mass-spectrometric and metallographic analyses of metal objects made of bronze, copper and lead - in detail 49 artifacts from Italy, 89 from Greece, one from Austria and two from Egypt. These finds are partly long-known antique specimens, but also new discoveries from modern excavations, which were studied for the first time during the project.

Die Analyse der Bleiisotopenverhältnisse zeigt, dass Artefakte italienischen Typs nach Griechenland gebracht wurden (siehe Naue-II-Schwert aus Mykene)

The results of the project will be presented monographically. Part of this monograph will be the habilitation thesis with the overall historical-archaeological evaluation of the results by R. Jung (Habilitationsschrift submitted in 2012). There are also contributions to the analysis results (R. Jung, M. Mehofer, E. Pernicka) and metallurgy (M. Mehofer), as well as contributions to the various finds and their archaeological context from the respective excavators and/or editors in Greece and Italy.

 

Link

https://www.orea.oeaw.ac.at/en/research/mediterranean-economies/war-and-peace-between-mycenaean-greece-and-bronze-age-italy/

Literature

Mehofer, M. together with R. Jung, A sword of Naue II type from Ugarit and the Historical Significance of Italian type Weaponry in the Eastern Mediterranean, Aegean Archaeology 8, 2008, 111-136.

Mehofer, M. zusammen mit R. Jung - I. Moschos, Φονεύοντας με τον ίδιο τρόπο: Οι ειρήνικες επαφές για τον πόλεμο μεταξύ δυτικής Ελλάδας και Ιταλίας κατά τη διάρκεια των όψιμων μυκηναïκών χρόνων. In: S. A. Paipetis/Ch. Giannopoulou (Hrsg.), Πολιτισμική αλληλογονιμοποίηση νότιας Ιταλίας και δυτικής Ελλάδας μέσα από την ιστορία / Cultural Cross Fertilization of Southern Italy and Western Greece through History (Patras 2009), 85-107.

Mehofer, M. together with R. Jung - E. Pernicka, Metal Exchange in Italy from the Middle to the Final Bronze Age (14th - 11th cent. BCE), in: Philip P. Betancourt-Susan

C. Ferrence (eds.), Metallurgy: Understanding How, Learning Why, Prehistory Monographs 29 (Philadelphia 2011), 231-248.

Mehofer, M. together with M. Stavropoulou-Gatsi - R. Jung, Grab eines "mykenischen" Kriegers in Kouvaras in Aitolo-Akarnanien: erste Ergebnisse. In: N. Ch.Stampolidis/A. Kanta/A. Giannikouri (eds.), Athanasia. The Earthly, the Celestial and the Underworld in the Mediterranean from the Late Bronze and the Early Iron Age. International Archaeological Conference, Rhodes 2009 (Iráklio 2012) 249-266.

Mehofer, M. together with R. Jung, Analisi archeologiche ed archeometriche di una Punta di giavellotto del BR, in: A. Cazzella/M. Moscoloni - G. Recchia, Coppa Nevigata e l'area umida alla foce del Candelaro durante l'età del Bronzo (Foggia, 2013), 453-456.

Mehofer, M. together with R. Jung, Mycenaean Greece and Bronze Age Italy: cooperation, trade or war?, Archäologisches Korrespondenzblatt 43, 2013, 175-193.

Mathias Mehofer together with Reinhard Jung, Weapons and Metals - Interregional Contacts between Italy and the Eastern Mediterranean during the Late Bronze Age, in: P.M. Fischer - T. Bürge, "Sea peoples" up-to-date. New research on transformations in the Eastern Mediterranean in the 13th-11th centuries BCE, Denkschriften der Gesamtakademie 81. Contributions to the Chronology of Eastern Mediterranean 35, Wien 2017, 389-400.

Mehofer, M. together with R. Jung, Metal Exchange in Bronze Age Italy: The Final Bronze Age Hoards from Roca Vecchia, Apulia, Roca Veccia - A Bronze Age settlement in southern Italy (in print).

 

Cooperationpartners

· Reinhard Jung, OREA, Austrian Academy of Science

· Ernst Pernicka (Curt-Engelhorn-Zentrum für Archäometrie, Mannheim)

· Ioannis Moschos (ΣΤ´ Εφορεία Προϊστορικών και Κλασικών Αρχαιοτήτων, Pátra)

 

Futher Cooperationpartners

· Alberto Cazzella und Giulia Recchia (Università Foggia)

· Joulika Christakopoulou-Somakou (ΣΤ´ Εφορεία Προϊστορικών και Κλασικών Αρχαιοτήτων, Pátra)

· Theodoros Giannopoulos (Pátra)

· Anton Kern (Natural History Museum Vienna)

· Lazaros Kolonas (Εταιρεία Μελετών Μυκηναϊκής Αχαΐας, Pátra)

· Franco Nicolis und Elena Silvestri (Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici della Provincia autonoma di Trento)

· Lena Papazoglou-Manioudaki (Athens)

· Eleni Palaiologou und Christos Piteros (Δ´ Εφορεία Προϊστορικών και Κλασικών Αρχαιοτήτων, Náfplio)

· Thanasis Papadopoulos (Ioánnina)

· Kostas Paschalidis (Archaeological National Museum Athens)

· Luciano Salzani (Verona)

· Andreas Sotiriou (ΙΕ´ Εφορεία Προϊστορικών και Κλασικών Αρχαιοτήτων, Kefaloniá)

· Maria Stavropoulou-Gatsi (Pátra)

· Anna Maria Tunzi Sisto (Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici della Puglia)

· Alessandro Vanzetti (Università La Sapienza, Rome)

· Andreas Vlachopoulos (Universität Ioánnina)

· Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung (Berlin)