The Perfume Industry of Mycenaean Pylos

Shelmerdine combines the Linear B tablets from Pylos with archaeological evidence from the palace to reconstruct how perfumed oil was made, stored, recorded and used. Classical Greek, Assyrian and Egyptian evidence serves for comparison, and tablets from Knossos and Mycenae give further Mycenaean parallels.

Ingredients and equipment come first, then the tablet records, the rooms where oil was kept, and the industry's local and trading roles. After the introduction, Chapter 2 treats manufacture and comparative evidence, and Chapter 3 the Pylos perfumers, their equipment and the possible workshop location. Chapter 4 analyses the find-spots and scribal hands of the Fr tablets and then Rooms 23, 24, 32 and 38. Chapter 5 reconstructs scribal administration, and Chapter 6 discusses ritual and secular uses and trade.

The evidence

The documents are four ingredient lists, the Fr-series records of finished oil, a transfer tablet and sealings associated with stored oil. Shelmerdine compares the listed materials and process with classical recipes and Middle Assyrian tablets. On the archaeological side she uses vessel shapes, residues, tablet find-spots and room contents at Pylos, together with candidate workshop contexts at Mycenae and Zakros, and notes that ordinary vessels could serve several purposes (pp. 10–25, 40–62).

The argument

Shelmerdine argues that the Pylos tablets record a palace-controlled perfume industry and not a set of unrelated offerings. She separates ingredient allocations, a transfer of treated oil, inventories and disbursement records, and uses find-spots and scribal hands to interpret what each was for. Several scribes appear to have monitored different oil types and storerooms, with Hand 2 carrying broader responsibilities (pp. 62–68, 106–120).

For manufacture she concludes that production involved heating oil and probably a preliminary astringent treatment, followed by steeping aromatics. The palace stored oil in several areas: Room 23 was a principal storeroom and scribal centre, while Rooms 32 and 38 held distinctive stocks. She names Court 47 as a possible workshop area and calls that reconstruction speculative, and suggests that some oils may have been coloured. The Fr records include ritual and secular distributions, and the ingredient quantities may have exceeded what local use required, which supports the possibility of trade (pp. 122–153).

Dating

Shelmerdine places the Pylos tablets in late LH IIIB, which she takes as the late 13th century B.C. The excavators date the palace's destruction to 1230–1200 B.C., and she notes debate over the pottery chronology. Her comparisons include Middle Assyrian recipes dated 1243–1207 B.C. and the palace at Zakros, destroyed in LM IB in the middle to late 15th century B.C.