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“You Can’t Take It with You”

Using evidence from the extensive cemeteries at the palatial center of Mycenae and at Prosymna, a second tier settlement site within the territory of Mycenae, this chapter examines the burial practices, patterns, and traditions within the sociopolitical context of the Palatial period itself, but also with a longer diachronic lens toward what came before and what follows. In the form and scale of burial architecture, in the treatment of interments, and among the objects associated with burial practices, significant changes occur. During the period of state formation, tomb architecture and burial practices exhibit diverse and potentially competitive characteristics. The variety of exotica and specialized ceramic sets suggest conspicuous consumption and differential access to status as much as do the weapons and jewelry in valuable materials. A sociopolitical flourishing comes with the Palatial period. While there is great expansion in the numbers of tombs, at the same time the patterns of use both stabilize and standardize. Remarkable at both sites is a pronounced contraction of investment in the mortuary sphere when the Palatial period is at its height—burial traditions are simplified and streamlined including characteristics from constructional details down to a marked decline in grave provisions, especially among higher value and status materials and exotica. This previews by several generations the characteristics of the Postpalatial period, when a dramatic decline in material culture generally is reflected also in tomb construction and use.