The investigation of Aeolian foundation myths continues in this chapter, with examination of traditions of the founding of Boeotian Thebes. Ancestral Indo-European tradition is again evident, as is an Anatolian stratum, one which foregrounds technological expertise of Asian origin.

An examination of the Anatolian sources of Greek theogonic traditions, syncretistic myths that took shape in admixed Ur-Aeolian–Luvian communities in the Late Bronze Age, and descendent Aeolian assemblages of mythic and cult elements that persist into the Iron Age. Essential to many of these traditions is the presence of honey, especially honey having psychotropic properties of a sort that occurs naturally along the southern and eastern shores of the Black Sea.

Exploration of the mythic concept of Aia, region of the rising sun, and its Hurrian and Luvo-Hittite background, its introduction to European Mycenaean Greeks by the Ur-Aeolians (Ahhiyawans) of Anatolia, and Aeolian Argonautic elaborations.

Reference in the Linear B record to deities of the later pantheon, for instance Poseidon, Zeus, and Hera, among others, vividly attests to the Mycenaean pedigree of Greek religion. This chapter suggests that the resonance with local place, so foundational a characteristic of Hellenic belief in later times, also derived from Mycenaean origins. To this end, Susan Lupack decodes the complicated helix of Minoan and Mycenaean religion, illustrating that Mycenaean religion evolved through appropriations from the Minoans. The artefacts retrieved from the tomb of the Griffin Warrior in Pylos showcase the creative Minoan–Mycenaean mix. Tracing the movement of Mycenaean peoples to Crete, the linguistic examination of the famous Room of the Chariot-Tablets from Knossos demonstrates how the first wave of arrivals predominantly practised the religion they had brought with them from their mainland homes. A second assemblage from Knossos from only ca. sixty years later shows that the Mycenaeans now not only made an effort to worship Minoan deities, but also lent a new guise to their gods and goddesses, relating them to, and embedding them in, the land of the Minoans.

Reference in the Linear B record to deities of the later pantheon, for instance Poseidon, Zeus, and Hera, among others, vividly attests to the Mycenaean pedigree of Greek religion. This chapter suggests that the resonance with local place, so foundational a characteristic of Hellenic belief in later times, also derived from Mycenaean origins. To this end, Susan Lupack decodes the complicated helix of Minoan and Mycenaean religion, illustrating that Mycenaean religion evolved through appropriations from the Minoans. The artefacts retrieved from the tomb of the Griffin Warrior in Pylos showcase the creative Minoan–Mycenaean mix. Tracing the movement of Mycenaean peoples to Crete, the linguistic examination of the famous Room of the Chariot-Tablets from Knossos demonstrates how the first wave of arrivals predominantly practised the religion they had brought with them from their mainland homes. A second assemblage from Knossos from only ca. sixty years later shows that the Mycenaeans now not only made an effort to worship Minoan deities, but also lent a new guise to their gods and goddesses, relating them to, and embedding them in, the land of the Minoans.

The essay discusses the Hittite literary evidence for the site of Wilusa, the location of Ahhiyawa, and wars fought in the region of Troy during the Late Bronze Age. It is suggested that Wilusa was the Hittite name for Troy; that their term Ahhiyawa was a reference to the Mycenaeans and, most likely, to mainland Greece; and that there were at least four wars in which the Hittites were either involved or knew of that were fought in the vicinity of Troy during the fifteenth to twelfth centuries b.c.e.