The Pylos Agate

I wrote two years ago about the amazing tomb unearthed at Pylos in Greece, full of Mycenaean treasures. But one treasure, this carved agate, remained unnoticed at the time because it came out of the ground so grime encrusted that it took months to fully clean it. The stone is about 1.4 inches (3.5 cm) long.

Drawing of the image. The tomb dates to around 1450 BCE. The carving is remarkably fine for such an old stone. The excavators believe that it was made in Crete, but they don't have any real evidence for that, just an assumption that such fine work was not made in mainland Greece at the time. Certainly is a striking image from the age of Homer's heroes.