Maybe this is a totally dumb question. I am visiting Greece and was in the national archeological museum today and saw many references to lions...but from what I know about the lions habitat, even the civilizations they had contact with were hundreds or maybe thousands of miles from the nearest lions.
Even if this was migratory, oral history it seems to me it would have been thousands of years separated! What am I missing?
Edit: just googled it and indeed my ignorant ass misspelled mycenaean.
Lions were fairly common in southeastern Europe as of the time of Herodotus. We are told that Xerxes encountered a few during his attempted invasion of Greece. They were driven extinct around 100 BC. It's believed that European lions were similar to the Asiatic lions present in the Middle East.