The religious beliefs and practices of Mycenaean Greece (c. 1600–1100 BC) are difficult to discern due to limited archeological, iconographical, and material records. Existing evidence suggests that the Mycenaean religion was the mother of the Greek religion, sharing many divinities later found in classical Greece (510–323 BC), including Zeus, Poseidon, and Dionysus. Several Mycenaean religious customs, such as animal sacrifices and votive offerings, survived into the Greek period, as did terms and concepts such as theos (deity), hieros (holy man), nawos (temple), and temenos (land cut off and assigned for communal purposes).
John Chadwick noted that at least six centuries lie between the earliest presence of Proto-Greek speakers in Hellas and the earliest inscriptions in the Mycenaean script known as Linear B, during which concepts and practices will have fused with indigenous pre-Greek beliefs, and—if cultural influences in material culture reflect influences in religious beliefs—with Minoan religion. As for these texts, the few lists of offerings that give names of gods as recipients of goods reveal little about religious practices, and there is no other surviving literature.
