When they became acquainted with Crete, the Mycenaeans were influenced by the Minoans, not only in artistic matters but also in the whole system of organization of their socio-economic life and most importantly in the field of religion; but a thorough examination shows that the ancestral religion of the Mycenaeans differs from the Minoan one, even if at first sight there are similarities. The Mycenaean religion is polytheistic; the nameless Cretan Great goddess is worshipped but also a number of male gods (though without any iconography), named Zeus, Poseidon or Hermes; syncretism was its central characteristic. In later times, as the Cretan spiritual dominance waned, typically Minoan symbols lost their prime symbolic power to the benefit of Mycenaean conceptions. Official and popular religion, the function of open-air and built sanctuaries, the symbols, rituals and Linear B tablets are subjects constantly debated, and yet the essence of Mycenaean religion, the related ideas and concepts escape us.

An investigation of the Luvo-Hittite dammara- religious functionaries (male and female) and the borrowing of the term into Ahhiyawan (Ur-Aeolian) and, thence, European Mycenaean cult vocabulary as dumartes and its variant damartes (a scribal borrowing), and an exploration of the Anatolian source of the theonym Artemis. The intersection of both the cult title and divine name with Mycenaean dialect variation is carefully examined.

A synthetic, concluding discussion addressing the relationship between Ur-Aeolic and Special Mycenean and providing a historical framework for, especially, the introduction of Aeolic language and culture (pre-Thessalian/Boeotian) into European Greece following the Bronze-Age collapses and for the spread of pre-Aeolians (Iron-Age Ahhiyawans) eastward into Cilicia.