Originally published on October 7, 2015 (Episode 33)
Introduction
Dimitri Nakassis, MacArthur Fellow and associate professor of classics at the University of Toronto, joins Al Zambone to discuss Mycenaean Greece. His research challenges the traditional view of Mycenaean civilization as a rigidly stratified hierarchy, proposing instead a more open and dynamic economic system.
They explore how Mycenaean Greece differed from classical Greece, what evidence survives of its society, and how historians interpret texts like Linear B tablets.
About the Guest
Dimitri Nakassis is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Toronto. He is the author of Individuals and Society in Mycenaean Pylos and a 2015 MacArthur Fellow.
For Further Investigation
John Chadwick, The Mycenaean World (Cambridge, 1976)
Eric H. Cline, 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed (Princeton, 2015)
Dimitri Nakassis, Individuals and Society in Mycenaean Pylos (Brill, 2013)
Listen & Discuss
What can we learn from the Mycenaeans about how ancient societies organized themselves? How do we know so much—or so little—about civilizations so far removed from our own? Leave your reflections in the comments, and share this episode with anyone fascinated by Greece, archaeology, or ancient history.
