Pylos Combat Agate

Pylos Combat Agate
The Pylos Combat Agate. Photograph by Jeff Vanderpool, Courtesy of the Department of Classics, University of Cincinnati
Material	Agate
Size	3.4 centimetres (1.3 in)
Created	1450 BCE
Period/culture	Aegean Bronze Age
Discovered	2017 Pylos, Greece 37°01′41.6″N 21°41′45.4″E / 37.028222°N 21.695944°E / 37.028222; 21.695944
Discovered by	Sharon Stocker and Jack L. Davis
Place	Pýlos, Greece
class=notpageimage| Location of discovery

The Pylos Combat Agate is a Minoan sealstone of the Mycenaean era, likely manufactured in Late Minoan Crete. It depicts two warriors engaged in hand-to-hand combat, with a third warrior lying on the ground.^[1][2] It was discovered in the Griffin Warrior Tomb near the Palace of Nestor in Pylos and is dated to about 1450 BCE.^[3] The seal has come to be known as Pylos Combat Agate.^[2]

The seal is noted for its exceptionally fine and elaborate engraving, and considered "the single best work of glyptic art ever recovered from the Aegean Bronze Age".^[2] The quality of the work anticipates later developments as far ahead as the Classical era of a millennium later.