Exquisite artifacts from the University of Cincinnati’s (UC) groundbreaking archaeological excavations on the Mycenean civilization in Greece will be on display for the first time in North America at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.
The exhibition, “The Kingdom of Pylos: Warrior-Princes of Ancient Greece,” features over 230 works of art and artifacts from Messenia, part of the Mycenaean civilization that thrived 3,500 years ago.
The discovery of the “Griffin Warrior”
The centerpiece of the exhibition is the astonishing 2015 discovery by UC Classics Senior Research Associate Sharon Stocker and Carl W. Blegen Professor in Greek Archaeology Jack Davis: the unplundered tomb of a Mycenaean leader in Pylos, Greece.
Dubbed the “Griffin Warrior” due to an ivory container depicting a mythical griffin battling a lion, this find has been hailed as one of the most important archaeological discoveries in Greece in the last 50 years.
“Tension built the closer we got to the burial deposit. We hardly dared to hope that we had found an unplundered tomb,” remarked Stocker, co-director of the excavation. Davis added, “The result was more than we could have imagined — discoveries that would rewrite the story of Mycenaean civilization.”
For the past decade, Stocker and Davis have meticulously recovered, documented, and conserved thousands of artifacts from the tomb, including weapons, armor, and jewelry. Among the most remarkable is the Pylos Combat Agate, a sealstone so intricately detailed it was called “a Bronze Age masterpiece” by Archaeology magazine.
UC Professor and Classics Department Head Daniel Markovich described its “visual impact” as “amazing,” noting it “most vividly brings the world of Homeric poetry to our eyes.”
Getty exhibition first in North America on Mycenaean civilization
The exhibition, running from June 27, 2025, to January 12, 2026, at the Getty Villa Museum, marks the first major North American exhibition dedicated to the Mycenaeans. It highlights Messenia as a vibrant hub of Mycenaean culture during the Late Bronze Age (1700 to 1070 BC), home to thriving communities led by warrior-princes who eventually forged the powerful kingdom of Pylos.
The exhibition also acknowledges UC Classics’ enduring legacy in Pylos, dating back to 1939 when UC Classics Professor Carl Blegen and Konstantinos Kourouniotis discovered the Palace of Nestor. This significant find confirmed the location of ancient Pylos, described as “sandy Pylos” in Homer’s epic poems, and revealed the best-preserved Mycenaean palace on mainland Greece. Their discoveries included clay tablets inscribed in Linear B, the earliest form of the Greek language, examples of which are on display.
Timothy Potts, Director of the J. Paul Getty Museum, expressed his delight, stating, “We are delighted that the Getty Villa will be the first venue outside Europe to introduce audiences to the art and culture of the Mycenaeans, who represent the earliest known Greek-speaking culture of antiquity, and are responsible for some of the most spectacular tomb and palace monuments of the Late Bronze Age.”
He also acknowledged the “generous loans and close collaboration of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture, the Ephorate of Antiquities of Messenia and the University of Cincinnati” for making the exhibition possible.
The exhibition explores the sophisticated Mycenaean culture through four sections, showcasing their advanced engineering, refined arts, and written administrative records. It also reveals their close connections with the Minoans of Crete, evident in Minoan-made objects found in Mycenaean graves.
Later sections delve into UC’s subsequent discoveries, including two gold-lined tombs near the Palace of Nestor in 2018, which further illuminate Pylian trade networks and funerary practices.
The work of Stocker and Davis has garnered international acclaim, including the Commander of the Order of the Phoenix bestowed by the president of Greece in 2019, and the Archaeological Institute of America’s Gold Medal for Distinguished Archaeological Achievement for Davis in 2020. Both, along with Carl Blegen, have also been named honorary citizens of Pylos.
Following its run at the Getty, the exhibition is slated for display at the Hellenic National Archaeological Museum in Athens, Greece, in 2026.
The article is based on a University of Cincinnati report on the exhibition