Buxom Ladies
Young ladies carrying flowers in a religious procession, as depicted in a fresco from Pylos. Don't let this image deceive you: archaeologists usually discover frescoes in pieces, which they have to painstakingly reassemble. Look closely, note the blotches. Those are the actual, surviving fragments; the rest is an educated reconstruction of what the fresco might have looked like in 1200 B.C.
The religious procession was a popular motif in Aegean Bronze Age art. Stately rows of priests, priestesses, and sacrificial animals graced the public spaces of the Minoan and Mycenaean palaces. The Minoans probably adopted the idea from the Egyptians, with whom they had close trading and diplomatic ties, then the Mycenaeans, who admired all things Minoan, brought the style to mainland Greece. Unlike the Minoans, however, the Mycenaeans never quite managed to infuse their frescoes with the same liveliness; the men and women parading up and down the palace walls are rigid, ponderous, as though they were stenciled on.
Exaggerated bare breasts are a feature of Aegean Bronze Age religious artwork; one sees them on seal rings, ceramic votaries, and frescoes. Based on these images, many people assume Minoan and Mycenaean women walked around bare-breasted all the time. Dress is a topic deserving its own post, but suffice to say that, given the context of the images, women only exposed themselves during rituals, and their ample bosoms suggest those rituals had something to do with the fertility of the land.