The Griffin Warrior Tomb is a Bronze Age shaft tomb dating to around 1450 BC, near the ancient city of Pylos in Greece. The grave was discovered by a research team sponsored by the University of Cincinnati and led by husband-and-wife archaeologists Jack L. Davis and Sharon Stocker. The tomb site was excavated from May to October 2015. During the initial six month excavation, the research team uncovered an intact adult male skeleton and excavated 1400 objects including weapons, jewels, armour and silver and gold artifacts. Since 2015, the number of artifacts recovered from the grave has reached over 3500 items, including a historically significant Minoan sealstone called the Pylos Combat Agate and four signet gold rings with detailed images from Minoan mythology. Background The "most completely preserved of all Bronze Age palaces on the Greek mainland" is the so-called "Palace of Nestor", located near the city of Pylos. In 1939, archaeologist Carl Blegen, a professor of classical archaeology at the University of Cincinnati, with the cooperation of Greek archaeologist Konstantinos Kourouniotis, led an excavation to locate the palace of the famous king of Homer's Iliad. Blegen selected a hilltop site in Messenia, called Epano Englianos, as a possible location of the ancient ruins. The excavation uncovered the remains of a number of structures, tombs and the first examples of Greek writing in Linear B. The excavation continued from 1952 to 1966, with Blegen retiring in 1957. With questions still to be answered about the Mycenaean civilization prior to the 13th century BC, the University of Cincinnati renewed excavations at the "Palace of Nestor" in 2015, with the support of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens and the permission of the Greek Ministry of Culture. Blegen's work at Pylos is continued by Davis and Stocker, who have both worked in this area of Greece for the past 25 years. Initial excavation The gravesite was discovered in an olive grove near the ancient Palace of Nestor, within the Bronze Age city of Pylos, in southwest Greece. The excavation leaders, Davis and Stocker, had originally planned to excavate downhill from the Palace. Due to local bureaucracy issues and an unforeseen strike, they were unable to get a permit for their desired site and were instead only given permission to dig in a neighboring olive grove. A few spots in the olive grove were chosen for investigation, including "three stones that