Chapter 4 is in part an examination of a Mycenaean divine Potnia, one affiliated with the “labyrinth,” the Potnia of the dabúrinthos (δαβύρινθος). The labyrinthine space with which she is associated is an Asian cult notion introduced from Anatolia to Balkan Hellas. This chapter also examines the Rājasūya, a Vedic rite of consecration by which a warrior is made a king and a likely cult counterpart to the Mycenaean initiation of the wanaks.

Chapter 2 examines the Vedic sacrificial post called the yūpa and its role in ritual performances. A Mycenaean Greek cognate term and comparable ritual implement lies behind the Linear B form spelled u-po – that is, hûpos (ὗπος). Among other topics treated in this chapter are the Mycenaean deity called the po-ti-ni-ja, a-si-wi-ja, the Asian Potnia, and the u-po-jo po-ti-ni-ja, the Potnia of the u-po (that is, húpoio Pótnia [ὕποιο Πότνια]), a term matched exactly by Sanskrit patnī-yūpá-.

Chapter 7 examines the sheep’s fleece filter used in the preparation of Soma. A cult ideology in which such an implement played an important role was preserved for some time in Iranian tradition in the Caucuses, ultimately giving expression to Greek ideas about the presence of fleecy filters impinged with gold in the vicinity of Dioscurias – rationalizing accounts of the Golden Fleece of Aeolian Argonautic tradition. Particular elements of the Golden Fleece myth find parallels in Indic poetic accounts of the performance of Soma cult. The common Hellenic and Indic elements constitute a shared nexus of ideas that earliest took shape in Bronze-Age communities of admixed Mycenaean and Luvian populations into which Mitanni Soma ideas had spread via Kizzuwatna. The Golden Fleece mythic tradition, with its geographic localization in Transcaucasia, is a Mycenaean Asianism that took shape in Asia Minor under Indic and Iranian influences and that continued to evolve among the Iron-Age Asian Greeks.

Chapter 5 considers the Indic divine twins, the Aśvins (Aśvínā), or Nāsatyas (Nā́satyā), their association with the Indic Dawn goddess Uṣas, and their place in the Indic Soma cult. Discussion then shifts to the kingdom of Mitanni in Syro-Mesopotamia, a place into which Indic culture was introduced as Indo-Iranian peoples migrated southward through Asia, as also at Nuzi. There is good lexical evidence for the presence of a Soma cult in Mitanni, and Soma-cult ideas appear to have spread out of Mitanni, through Kizzuwatna, into the Luvian milieu of western Asia Minor, where such ideas would almost certainly have been encountered by resident Mycenaean Greeks, intermingled biologically, socially, culturally, and linguistically with Luvian populations. With that spread certain elements of Soma-cult ideology were mapped onto Anatolian cult structures.

Chapter 1 examines Pylos tablet Tn 316 in depth, giving particular attention to the Linear B forms spelled po-re-na, po-re-si, and po-re-no-, and related Sanskrit forms, and to the especial closeness of post-Mycenaean Aeolic to ancestral Helleno-Indo-Iranian in regard to this matter.

Chapter 3 examines the Mycenaean wanaks and lāwāgetās, figures responsible for leading Mycenaean society in specific ways and who correspond notionally to figures implicit in Indic and Iranian social structures – figures who descend from still more ancient Indo-European antecedents charged with the task of leading society through the spaces of the Eurasian Steppes and in migrations southward out of the Steppes.

Discussion of the transfer of cult knowledge from Anatolia to European Hellas in both the Bronze Age and Iron Age, with a close examination of Ephesian Artemis and other Asian Mother-goddess figures with consideration of Ur-Aeolian (= Ahhiyawan) and Aeolian involvement in the process.

An investigation of the Luvo-Hittite dammara- religious functionaries (male and female) and the borrowing of the term into Ahhiyawan (Ur-Aeolian) and, thence, European Mycenaean cult vocabulary as dumartes and its variant damartes (a scribal borrowing), and an exploration of the Anatolian source of the theonym Artemis. The intersection of both the cult title and divine name with Mycenaean dialect variation is carefully examined.

The investigation of Aeolian foundation myths continues in this chapter, with examination of traditions of the founding of Boeotian Thebes. Ancestral Indo-European tradition is again evident, as is an Anatolian stratum, one which foregrounds technological expertise of Asian origin.

Examination of Luvian patronymic adjectives and their diffusion into the Mycenaean dialect of Anatolia – that is, Ur-Aeolic – and their distinctive use in post-Mycenaean Aeolic. Also, discussion of hekwetai ‘warrior allies’ that appear in the Linear B documents, whose names are commonly identified by the use of the Aeolic patronymic formation of Luvian origin, and discussion of other sacralized warrior relationships with Anatolian ties.

A synthetic, concluding discussion addressing the relationship between Ur-Aeolic and Special Mycenean and providing a historical framework for, especially, the introduction of Aeolic language and culture (pre-Thessalian/Boeotian) into European Greece following the Bronze-Age collapses and for the spread of pre-Aeolians (Iron-Age Ahhiyawans) eastward into Cilicia.

Further investigation of sacralized warrior relationships, focusing on that of the epíkouroi ‘allies’ as they appear in the Linear B tablets and also in Homeric epic, where the term typically identifies Anatolian allies. In those few instances in the Iliad in which the epic poet uses epíkouros to characterize Greek alliances, the poet does so within a certain Aeolian framing – cataloguing Aeolian contingents participating in the siege of Troy and, inversely, describing the search for Achaean allies to offer warrior aid in an epic assault on a great Aeolian city.

An examination of the Anatolian sources of Greek theogonic traditions, syncretistic myths that took shape in admixed Ur-Aeolian–Luvian communities in the Late Bronze Age, and descendent Aeolian assemblages of mythic and cult elements that persist into the Iron Age. Essential to many of these traditions is the presence of honey, especially honey having psychotropic properties of a sort that occurs naturally along the southern and eastern shores of the Black Sea.

An investigation of the Hittite cult implement called the kurša and its relationship to the breast iconography of Ephesian Artemis, to various Greek implements within the context of both Bronze-Age Anatolia and Indo-European cult, and to Aeolian myth as expressed in, especially, Argonautic tradition.

This chapter investigates the topic of orthographic reconstruction of a historical writing system taking as case study the Linear B syllabary of Bronze Age Greece. The Linear B syllabary was used to render the oldest Greek dialect attested in written form, so-called ‘Mycenaean’ Greek (c. 1400–1190 BC). The reader is guided step-by-step through the stages involved in the reconstruction of the orthography of the Linear B syllabary, so as to understand how to bridge the gap between actual attestations and their phonetic rendering (e.g. Linear B a-to-ro-qo representing alphabetic Greek ?????p?? /anthropos/ ‘man’). The discussion covers some of the methodological issues scholars had to reckon with when reconstructing a historical orthographic system in the Bronze Age Aegean context. This complex process eventually made it possible to draw up the ‘rules’ that govern the system and, by assessing deviations, to evaluate the extent to which these were adhered to. This chapter also illustrates the role played in such reconstruction by the historical and linguistic backdrop, within which the adaptation of an already existing writing system (‘Minoan’ Linear A) took place to render a linguistically different language (Greek).

Reference in the Linear B record to deities of the later pantheon, for instance Poseidon, Zeus, and Hera, among others, vividly attests to the Mycenaean pedigree of Greek religion. This chapter suggests that the resonance with local place, so foundational a characteristic of Hellenic belief in later times, also derived from Mycenaean origins. To this end, Susan Lupack decodes the complicated helix of Minoan and Mycenaean religion, illustrating that Mycenaean religion evolved through appropriations from the Minoans. The artefacts retrieved from the tomb of the Griffin Warrior in Pylos showcase the creative Minoan–Mycenaean mix. Tracing the movement of Mycenaean peoples to Crete, the linguistic examination of the famous Room of the Chariot-Tablets from Knossos demonstrates how the first wave of arrivals predominantly practised the religion they had brought with them from their mainland homes. A second assemblage from Knossos from only ca. sixty years later shows that the Mycenaeans now not only made an effort to worship Minoan deities, but also lent a new guise to their gods and goddesses, relating them to, and embedding them in, the land of the Minoans.

Reference in the Linear B record to deities of the later pantheon, for instance Poseidon, Zeus, and Hera, among others, vividly attests to the Mycenaean pedigree of Greek religion. This chapter suggests that the resonance with local place, so foundational a characteristic of Hellenic belief in later times, also derived from Mycenaean origins. To this end, Susan Lupack decodes the complicated helix of Minoan and Mycenaean religion, illustrating that Mycenaean religion evolved through appropriations from the Minoans. The artefacts retrieved from the tomb of the Griffin Warrior in Pylos showcase the creative Minoan–Mycenaean mix. Tracing the movement of Mycenaean peoples to Crete, the linguistic examination of the famous Room of the Chariot-Tablets from Knossos demonstrates how the first wave of arrivals predominantly practised the religion they had brought with them from their mainland homes. A second assemblage from Knossos from only ca. sixty years later shows that the Mycenaeans now not only made an effort to worship Minoan deities, but also lent a new guise to their gods and goddesses, relating them to, and embedding them in, the land of the Minoans.

Languages are constantly changing. The reasons for the changes can be both internal (i.e., when monolingual speakers adopt new ways of saying things according to social factors like age, gender, and class) and external (e.g., language contact). Although toponyms are ‘linguistic fossils’ that tend to retain older linguistic features and can withstand violent population shifts more so than the general lexicon, they are also affected by the process of language change. This is explored through several examples from around the world. It is only through analysing language change – with an approach that incorporates historical-linguistic methodologies like the comparative method and dialectological interpretations – that a toponymist can reconstruct the original (and most remote) toponymic root of a place name. The latter half of the chapter demonstrates how toponyms can be used to ‘crack’ hitherto undeciphered languages, the most notable being Linear B (a syllabic writing system transcribing Mycenaean Greek, an archaic form of Ancient Greek). The authors also apply an experimental methodology, using toponyms, to provide a possible interpretation of place names possibly transcribed through Linear A (the grammatological ancestor of the Linear B writing system).

The centuries after the so-called collapse of the Mycenaean palace administration from the twelfth to the eighth centuries BCE saw several transformations of social and economic structures. These had an impact on the economic performance in the period. It is also significant that during this period there was no attempt to restore palatial administration, but instead Early Iron Age communities built new social and economic relationships on household units that could be understood as adaptable social-political organisations with fluid boundaries. Moreover, the Early Iron Age should not be seen as a period of stagnation but one characterised by adaptive and resilient features. These led to the well-documented visibility of the archaeological record of the eighth century BCE.