Mycenaean Mastery at the Getty Villa

Sealstone with a Battle Scene (The Pylos Combat Agate), Minoan, 1630–1440 BCE. © Hellenic Ministry of Culture – HOCRED / Archaeological Museum, Chora, SN18-0112 / © Palace of Nestor Excavations, Department of Classics, University of Cincinnati / Photo: Jeff Vanderpool

Bros think about the Roman Empire, but nobody thinks about the Mycenaeans. It wasn't always that way. To Homer the Mycenaean epoch was a golden age of Greek prosperity and heroism, the setting for the Iliad and Odyssey. Despite that, Mycenae has little name recognition in 21st-century America, and important Mycenaean material is rarely encountered in museums. The first large U.S. museum survey is the Getty Villa's new, post-fire-closure show, "The Kingdom of Pylos: Warrior-Princes of Ancient Greece." It assembles over 230 objects from Messenia, the Western part of the Mycenaean realm, and particularly from Pylos, a kingdom that came to rule about 800 square miles. 

First gallery of "The Kingdom of Pylos: Warrior-Princes of Ancient Greece"

Signet Ring with a Ritual Scene (Minoan), 1630–1440 BCE. © Hellenic Ministry of Culture – HOCRED / Archaeological Museum of Chora, SN24-0030 / © Palace of Nestor Excavations, Department of Classics, University of Cincinnati. Photo: Jeff Vanderpool

The Mycenaeans lived on the Greek mainland and were innovative architects and engineers, producing palaces, beehive-shaped tombs, roads, and bridges. As artists they produced wall paintings, painted pottery, decorated weapons, carved gems, and jewelry. They prized the older, more refined art of Minoan Crete (much as Rome looked back to Greece). The show contains a number of Minoan pieces found in Mycenaean excavations. 

Man and Lioness, 1630–1440 BCE. © Hellenic Ministry of Culture – HOCRED / Archaeological Museum of Chora, SN24-0808 / Photo: © Palace of Nestor Excavations, Department of Classics, University of Cincinnati. Photo: Jeff Vanderpool

"The Kingdom of Pylos" introduces a number of recent finds, notably the tomb of the "Griffin Warrior" discovered in 2015 by a husband-and-wife team of American archaeologists, Jack L. Davis and Sharon Stocker of the University of Cincinnati. The Griffin Warrior, named for an ivory relief on view, was buried with over 3500 precious objects.

Most of the objects in "Kingdom of Pylos" are diminutive, and the star piece is "incomprehensibly small" in Davis' words. That's the Pylos Combat Agate (top of post), a 1.4-in.-wide sealstone probably made in Crete. The quality of the gem's carving has already upended art history. Davis feels the command of anatomy is more like that associated with the Classical period (a millennium later) than the late Bronze Age. This raises questions both art-historic and technological. It's assumed that the carver must have used a magnifying glass to achieve such fine detail. Lenses were discovered at the Minoan Palace of Knossos, one capable of 11× magnification. The carving would have used miniature drills, lubricated with olive oil. Perhaps the biggest mystery is how Aegean artists achieved such mastery, only to lose it. Mycenaean culture ended about 1050 BCE, followed by a Greek "dark age" with few surviving records. That in turn was succeeded by the Geometric Period (900–700 BCE), with its abstract, much less naturalistic sculpture.

The Pylos Combat Agate is displayed in a shrine-like case below a large reproduction visible across the gallery. A touchscreen allows visitors to zoom in on details otherwise invisible. The touchscreen also has diagrams explaining the weapons and jewelry (Mycenaean warriors took their best jewelry and cosmetics into combat). The carved warrior is shown wearing a bracelet and sealstone not unlike the Agate itself. 

Digital reconstruction of Griffin Warrior. © Palace of Nestor Excavations, Department of Classics, University of Cincinnati

Today's archaeology incorporates DNA sequencing and AI. On view is a digital reconstruction of the Griffin Warrior's appearance. He looks like he could play himself in a Netflix miniseries. He was 30-something, 5-1/2 ft, and did not die in combat—the skeleton has no evidence of trauma.

Tablet on Feasting (The Tripod Tablet), about 1180 BCE. © Hellenic Ministry of Culture – HOCRED / National Archaeological Museum, Athens, 12586 / Photo: The Pylos Tablets Digital Project, © Department of Classics, University of Cincinnati

Other objects come from the nearby Palace of Nestor, named for the king of "sandy Pylos" in Homer. (As far as we know, King Nestor is as fictional as Achilles.) The palace contained a trove of clay tablets inscribed with Linear B script, the earliest written form of the Greek language. The palace burned down about 1250 BCE, baking the clay tablets and preserving their inscriptions for posterity. 

"The Kingdom of Pylos: Warrior-Princes of Ancient Greece" runs through Jan. 12, 2026. It travels to the Hellenic National Archaeological Museum, Athens, from Mar. 1 to June 30, 2026. 

Wall Painting with a Griffin and Lion (fragmentary wall painting with modern watercolor reconstruction), 1240–1190 BCE. © Hellenic Ministry of Culture – HOCRED / Archaeological Museum, Chora, CM 5256 series. Image © J. Paul Getty Trust. Photo: Jeff Vanderpool