This thesis examines the relations between bodies and objects in early Mycenaean burials, between 1700 and 1400 BCE on mainland Greece. It adopts an artistic approach to these burials, which treats the burial context as an intentional representation, centred around the creative actions of selection and deposition. It combines these ideas with theories about aesthetics, as the perception and evaluation of material properties on the part of the viewer. It therefore focuses on the visual impressions created in the deposition, and the ways that these impressions structured past experiences and interpretations of the burial. It asks how death was transformed into visual experience: what shaped and directed the viewer’s perception of the tomb context? How can we access the intended impact of these burials based on the selection of specific visual and material properties?

In asking these questions, this thesis aims to address the limitations of current approaches to Mycenaean burials. It moves beyond questions about social and cultural hierarchies to think about burials as mediators of ritual, emotion, and narrative. Rather than focus on the socioeconomic functions of these burials or their relations with Minoan Crete, this thesis uses five case studies to show that early Mycenaean burials were intended to transform human bodies into representations, to grant the dead a status more akin to an artwork. In doing so, it reframes these contexts as complex processes of image-making and story-telling, centred around the figure of the deceased.

It first examines the manipulation of human bodies within early Mycenaean tombs, with a focus on the Vayenas tomb at Pylos and Tholos 2 at Routsi, two well-preserved and well-documented burial contexts in Messenia. It then looks at the materialisation of the body through the examination of two burial contexts in the Argolid, Shaft Grave IV in Grave Circle A at Mycenae and the Kazarma tholos. Next, it examines the narrativisation of the dead, with the Vapheio tholos in Laconia as its primary case study. The final chapter unites these different themes and contexts, to connect the twin strands of bodies and objects around an artistic approach. Ultimately, this thesis aims to reintroduce art and aesthetics as useful analytical tools for archaeological research. It offers new perspectives on the role of visual culture in burial and thus shows that there is much to be learned from the re-examination of old data with new approaches.