Of Princes and peasants? : a comparative approach to an understanding of social development, identity and dynamics in mainland Greece, c.1300-900 B.C.

With the destruction of the Mycenaean palaces, Aegean Bronze Age society underwent
dramatic transformations. The palaces, along with much of their associated material
expressions, disappeared. In this comparative study I examine why the Mycenaean political
institutions were never reinstated and the nature of the social dynamics that subsequently
created a situation traditionally characterized as the 'Dark Ages'. To this end, analyses of the
Linear B documents from Pylos are used to examine palatial and 'extra-palatial' social
identities, relationships and the dynamics of socio-political change. Examining firstly the
concept of an administrative archive, I propose a fundamental revision to our understanding
of what these docunients represent, how they were used and, for Pylos, where their primary
context of expression lay. Specifically, I argue that the tablets were not a passive
administrative tool, but were active devices in the manipulation of social relationships and
identities within and beyond the Palace of Nestor. As mnemonic aids to the establishment of
relationships of patronage, debt and obligation within an oral/aural arena of negotiation, they
reflected clear divisions within Mycenaean society; divisions that laid the foundations for a
rejection of that socio-political system. From this, a model is suggested whereby the
dynamics of Early Iron Age society were driven by factions and factional competition,
initially focussed upon authority figures such as the basileis. It is further proposed that the
archaeological variability characteristic of this period is a direct reflection of competing
factional identities whose ideologies can be distinguished by varying degrees of affinity to
the preceding palatial system. Finally, the hiatus in the use of writing between the 12th and
8th centuries B.C is suggested to be a direct result of the connotations arising from the use to
which Linear B was put and the concomitant antipathy towards the accoutrements of
Mycenaean palatial identity.