The Ring Hunt: A Seal Ring from Mycenae

A gold ring was recovered during the excavation of Shaft Grave 4 of Grave circle A in Mycenae.  I reproduce the seal portion below:

 A gold seal ring from Mycenae. 
CMS I, 015
Grave Circle A, Shaft Grave IV, LH I  [1]

This image is from the German Archaeological Institute and is a more careful rendering than any other I have seen.  What is shown is quite consistent with what we know of conditions in Bronze Age Greece so that, in this post, I am going to treat the scene as straight reportage; this has the potential to be more productive than thinking of it as nothing more than a collection of memes (imported or otherwise).  Nor do I try here to confront the question of Mainland or Cretan origin.

What is shown here?  

A stag is being hunted by two men in a light chariot.  The chariot has four spoked wheels and is being drawn by two horses.  One of the men is the shooter; the other is the charioteer.  The quarry is a fallow deer (Dama dama) stag as is evident from the spots on his coat as well as the palmate horns.   Dama dama is now almost extinct in Greece but it was plentiful enough in pre-historic times.  Long before Greek-speakers came to Greece, Dama dama was the primary quarry at Klissoura. [2]   Herds of fallow deer still survive on Rhodes.[3]

How likely is it that Mycenaean hunters charge around the countryside on a chariot hoping to encounter and shoot a stag?  In a nutshell: not very likely at all.  In fact, virtually impossible.  So back to our original question: What is shown here?

One way to kill deer is to organize a ring hunt.  The ring hunt can be a very large, many day, affair. It basically involves a very large number of beaters spread out over many miles, and arranged in a ring. During the hunt these beaters gradually force the prey to converge on the killing grounds where they are confronted (often) by someone of high rank who does the shooting.  We must regard the ring hunt as intended mostly as a display of royal power and strength.[4]

An irish ring-hunt for red deer (Cervus elaphus) is described in Reeves-Smyth [2017]. [5]  In that hunt a local chieftain participated with beaters to drive a large number of deer into an enclosed space in which the intended targets were first brought down by dogs.

We are told that the ring hunt was a common form of hunting among the Mongols. [6]  

More essentially the ring hunt is often a means of enhancing the leader's prestige. [7]  One such hunt was illustrated by an Italian artist, Giuseppe Castiglione, at some time before his death in 1766.  At the climax of this hunt the beaters are standing around the enclosure nearly shoulder to shoulder and watching 'admiringly' while the emperor Qianlong shoots deer from horseback while riding at full gallop.  In intent it is identical to the motif on the gold ring with which we started. [8]

 John Taylor 'the Water Poet' made a visit to Scotland in 1618, described in his Pennyless Pilgrimage, where he took part in a large organized hunt. He describes how the deer were driven by beaters to a central place: 

"The manner of the hunting is this-five or six hundred men do rise early in the morning, and they do disperse themselves divers ways, and seven, eight, or tenne miles compasse, they do bring in or chase in the deere in many herds, two, three, or four hundred in a herd, to such or such a place, as the noblemen shall appoint them. When the day is come the lords and gentlemen of their companys doe ride or goe to the said places,  some times wadeing up to the middle through bournes and rivers; and then they being come to the place, do lye downe on the ground til those four said scouts, which are called the tinckhell, doe bring down the deere; ... " [9]

These examples show the antiquity, ubiquitousness, and  popularity of the ring hunt.  And the fact that all these examples are necessarily historic does not lessen the legitimate conclusion  that such hunts with beaters in which social or political leaders showed off their power and ability come down to us from prehistoric times.  I suspect that this little seal ring tells us something about methods of hunt among the Mycenaean people.

Where did these hunts take place?

Footnotes

[1] The CMS is the Corpus der minoischen und mykenischen Siegel.  The ring itself is described here.   Arachne has more here.  This shows the original (click to enlarge):

[2] Starkovich [2012] 29.

[3] Trantalidou [2002] 161

[4] Fletcher [2011] pos. 2128 et passim.

[5] Reeves-Smyth [2017] 232-3.

[6] Fletcher [2011] pos. 2034: "The Mongols constructed hunting parks throughout China and in all outposts of their empire but, in keeping with their more mobile and nomadic lifestyle, the driven hunt or ring hunt was the most common form of hunting in their home country."

[7] Idem.

[8] Fletcher cotinues (2042): "Such massive ring hunts, involving tens of thousands of men, were practiced for many centuries throughout Eurasia. They were seen as ideal training for military campaigns and in them we can see close parallels with English monarchs and nobles hunting par force amongst their retainers in the forest or chase."

[9] Watson [1913] 158-160.  The entire account of this hunt is worth reading in order to get an idea of the enormous scale of this many-day enterprise.  'Tinckhell' is a fine old anglo-scots term for 'beaters'.   In hunts of this type they sometimes numbered in the hundreds.

Bibliography

Fletcher; John. Gardens of Earthly Delight: The History of Deer Parks. Windgather Press. Kindle Edition. 2011.

Reeves-Smyth [2017] : Reeves-Smyth, Terence. 'A History of Deer Management in Ireland with special reference to the Glenarm Deer Parks', Ulster Journal of Archaeology (74), pp. 231-258. 2017-2018. Online here.

Starkovich [2012] : Starkovich, Britt M., 'Fallow Deer (Dama dama) Hunting During the Late Pleistocene at Klissoura Cave 1 (Peloponnese, Greece)', Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft für Urgeschichte (21), 11-36. 2012. Online here.

Trantalidou [2002] : Trantalidou, Katerina. 'The Rhodian fallow deer: game and trophy since prehistoric times', pp. 159-224 in M. Masseti, ed., Island of Deer: Natural history of the Fallow Deer of Rhodes and the vertebrates of the Dodecanese (Greece). Rhodes, Greece: City of Rhodes, Environment Organization. 2002. Online here.

Watson [1913] : Watson, William J., 'Aoibhinn an Obair an t-Sealg'm. The Celtic Review (9:34), pp. 156-168 (Nov., 1913).  Online here