For many years, archaeologists had been rooting around the 3,500-year-old tomb of a Bronze Age warrior which they call the "Griffin Warrior.” Within the warrior's ancient tomb, they had previously unearthed his skeleton and an array of jewelry. Now, the University of Cincinnati revealed something that they call “his most stunning historical offering yet.”
Researchers who work at the site in southwest Greece have found a beautifully carved gem which they describe as “one of the finest works of prehistoric Greek art ever discovered.”
The beautiful gem is a seal stone called “Pylos Combat Agate.” Carvings on it illustrate a story reminiscent of an epic Greek poem, according to which a victorious warrior lifts his sword to deliver a fatal blow to his vanquished foe who's laying defeated. Historians studying the find think it almost certainly illustrates a legendary story well-known to the ancient Minoan and Mycenaean culture. The tiny seal stone has been caked in limestone over the millennia so that the researchers had to use a powerful camera lens and photomicroscopy to discover its former beauty.
An artist's impression of the full scene. University of Cincinnati
It seems that their efforts were well worth it. As Shari Stocker, a senior research associate in UC's Department of Classics said in a statement:
"Looking at the image for the first time was a very moving experience, and it still is. It's brought some people to tears,"
“Some of the details on this are only a half-millimeter big,” researcher Jack Davis added. “They’re incomprehensibly small.”
This clear view of the stone was only made possible through photomicroscopy imaging techniques. University of Cincinnati
The Griffin Warrior’s burial site was found next to the Palace Of Nestor, a Mycenaean Greek palace between the city of Pylos and the ancient polis of Khôra. His nickname has come from an ivory plaque adorned with the mythical beast discovered resting in his grave. Thanks to his skeleton's relatively good condition, anthropologists and anatomical science experts managed to reconstruct what this prestigious warrior looked like digitally.
As Davis explained: “It seems that the Minoans were producing art of the sort that no one ever imagined they were capable of producing. It shows that their ability and interest in representational art, particularly movement and human anatomy, is beyond what it was imagined to be. Combined with the stylized features, that itself is just extraordinary.”
"What is fascinating is that the representation of the human body is at a level of detail and musculature that one doesn't find again until the classical period of Greek art 1,000 years later," he added. "It's a spectacular find."
