The unacknowledged Panayotis Stamatakis and his invaluable contribution to the understanding of Grave Circle A at Mycenae

Abstract

The legendary excavation of Mycenae’s Grave Circle A in 1876 resulted in the celebration of Heinrich and Sophia Schliemann as the sole excavators. The crucial role of Panayotis Stamatakis, the systematic and perceptive archaeologist who was assigned to supervise the excavation as a representative of the Greek state, was – for a long time – largely unacknowledged. Stamatakis’ invaluable manuscripts, where he recorded one by one all the finds and their locations, attributing them to specific burials, went missing for more than a century. Now part of the Archive of the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, these manuscripts shed new light on the taphonomy and burial customs of Grave Circle A, revealing the biographies of the first Mycenaean rulers.