Mycenaean Civilization (ca. 1600 -1100 BC) was a warrior aristocracy, flourishing in southern Greece the adjacent Mediterranean islands and part of coastal Turkey. These inlaid daggers are extremely rare; less than a handful is known.
When the owner, thinking it was a heavily encrusted Chinese spear blade, gave it to me to clean, both of us were awe struck to see the Mycenaean inlays appear. As this is literally priceless, we made the decision to leave some of the incrustation intact, knowing that there would be skeptics. Incrustation takes centuries to form, and its presence will help to quell criticism.
