Mycenae Archaeological Museum

How to Complete

3 steps curated by Wine Memories

1. 🍷 1

   Locate Nestor's Cup - The Wine Vessel Homer Described 500 Years After It Was Buried

   wine Free

   The Mycenae Museum holds a copy of the most famous wine cup in ancient history - the gold goblet that proves Homer was writing from real memory, not fantasy.

   Homer described Nestor's Cup in the Iliad around 700 BC - two doves on the handles, gold throughout. But the actual cup was made around 1600 BC and buried around 1500 BC. Homer was describing an object 800 years older than he was, and he got the details RIGHT. The original Nestor's Cup from Mycenae's Shaft Grave IV sits in the Mycenae Archaeological Museum (Exhibition Room 1, ground floor, included in the combined €20 ticket). Either Homer had a photographic oral tradition, or people were STILL talking about this specific cup nine centuries after it was made. Find the golden mask copies case, then look for the cup display. Read the label for the Iliad reference (Book XI, lines 632-637), then walk to the window - you can see Shaft Grave IV where this cup was dug from the earth. No other museum on earth offers that proximity.

   🔄 BACKUP: Audio guides (English, Greek, French, German) available at museum entrance for ~€3. The Nestor's Cup section is well-covered. Free entry on: March 6, April 18, May 18, last weekend of September, October 28, and first/third Sunday November-March.

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2. 📜 2

   Find the Lion's Head Rhyton - Royal Wine Pourer of the Bronze Age

   history Free

   The gold lion's head rhyton is a ceremonial wine vessel that shows exactly how Mycenaean kings consumed wine in ritual settings.

   The gold lion's head rhyton from Mycenae shows WEAR - these royal wine pourers were actually USED. Dionysus was named on Linear B tablets FROM THIS PALACE, documented in royal accounting records 3,000 years before anyone built him a temple. The rhyton sits in the upper exhibition rooms (Level 2-3) of the Mycenae Museum, grouped with ceremonial objects. Wine flowed through the lion's mouth - either drunk by the king or poured as offering to the gods. When you find it, look for the wear marks on the base hole and rim, then find the humble ceramic stirrup jars nearby. Same wine, different vessel, different social class. The gold ones never left the palace; the ceramic ones traveled on ships across the Mediterranean.

   🔄 BACKUP: If the specific rhyton is in conservation, the museum's ceramic wine storage section (Level 3, daily life artifacts) always contains stirrup jars and amphorae. The explanatory text describes wine's role in Mycenaean trade and ritual. Also worth finding: the 'Warrior Vase' reproduction showing armed soldiers with wine rations.

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3. 📜 3

   Read the Linear B Tablet That Contains the First Written Word for Wine

   Optional

   history Free

   Reproduction Linear B tablets in the museum show the wine ideogram and the name 'Dionysus' - both appearing in royal palace accounting records from 1400-1200 BC.

   In 1952, British architect Michael Ventris cracked Linear B and discovered the tablets were SHOPPING LISTS - palace inventory records. But among those lists: the wine ideogram and the name 'di-wo-nu-so' - DIONYSUS, documented in Mycenaean bureaucracy 3,400 years ago. The Linear B material is displayed in the palace-era section (upper floors or main hall) of the Mycenae Museum. Look for the wine ideogram - it looks like a simple cup or goblet, followed by numbers showing wine inventory. Ask museum staff 'Pou einai ta Linear B?' if you can't locate them. The god of wine wasn't a later Greek invention - he was already established when the golden cup kings were drinking downstairs.

   🔄 BACKUP: The museum's signage in English explains Linear B's discovery and content. Even without locating the original tablet reproductions, the explanatory panels near the Grave Circle A materials describe the wine and Dionysus connection in accessible language.

   🍷 Log Memory