Mycenea (jan 1, 1650 BC – jan 1, 1100 BC)

Description:

1. In Greek mythology, Mycenae was founded by the demigod Perseus (slayer of Medusa). Legend says he named the city Mycenae because his sword scabbard cap (mykes) fell to the ground there (good omen), or because he discovered a freshwater spring when picking a mushroom (mykes). To build the city's impossibly massive defensive walls, Perseus supposedly hired the Cyclopes—one-eyed giants—since no human could lift stones of that size.

2. In epic literature, Mycenae is the seat of the doomed House of Atreus and the home of King Agamemnon, the leader of the Greek forces who sailed to sack Troy in Homer’s Iliad. Homer famously gave Mycenae the epithets "broad-streeted" and "rich in gold."

3. 7th Millennium B.C. (Neolithic): Earliest traces of seasonal human settlement on the hilltop.
- About 1700 B.C. (Early Shaft Grave Era): Elite families emerge, creating wealthy underground stone burial circles. Evidence: Grave Circle B.
- 1600 B.C., inhabitants constructed Grave Circle A, the first tholos tombs, and a large central building.
- The majority of the Mycenae monuments visible today were constructed in the late Bronze Age between 1350 and 1200 B.C., during the peak of the Mycenaean civilization. Massive stone palace, monumental fortifications around Grave Circle A, religious center, and Lion Gate. 1200 BC, walls were extended NW after destructive earthquake.
- Mycenae and the Mycenaean civilization began to decline around 1200 B.C. Mycenae’s people abandoned the citadel around 100 years later after a series of fires. It’s unclear what caused the destruction of Mycenae, though theories abound.

The Fall

One of the leading theories holds that Mycenae underwent years of civil strife and social upheaval. Dorians and Heraclids then invaded, sacking all of the Mycenaean strongholds except Athens. Mycenae may have further suffered at the hands of raiders from the sea (Egyptian nomads theory). Alternatively, Mycenae may have fallen to natural disasters, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, drought or famine. Whatever the case, though the citadel was abandoned, the outer city was not completely deserted and the remaining town was sparsely inhabited until the Greek Classical Period (5th and 4th centuries B.C.).

Destruction

During the Greek Archaic period (8th to 5th centuries B.C.), a temple dedicated to Hera or Athena was erected on the summit of the Mycenaean citadel. Mycenae later took part in the Persian Wars, sending 80 men to the Battle of Thermopylae. Mycenae’s neighboring city Argos, which had remained neutral in the war, retaliated by conquering the town and destroying parts of its walls.
Sometime during the Hellenistic period—the period between Alexander the Great’s death (323 B.C.) to the emergence of the Roman Empire (31 B.C.)—the people of Argos founded a village on the Mycenae hill, repaired some of the citadel’s walls and Archaic-period temple, and built a small theatre over the walkway to the tholos Tomb of Clytemnestra (Agamemnon’s wife).

At some point, however, the new village was subsequently abandoned. When the Greek geographer Pausanians visited the area in the 2nd century A.D., Mycenae had already been in ruins.

Important Discoveries
- Lions Gate (1250 BC): Oldest piece of monumental relief sculpture surviving in Europe.
- Grave Circle A/B
- Tomb of Agamemnon; Treasury of Atreus. Beehive-shaped royal tomb (tholos). Standing over 44 feet tall, its stone dome was the largest spanning dome in the world for over a thousand years until the Romans built the Pantheon.
- Clay B tablets, administrative tablets preserved by the heat of the fires that destroyed the palace. These tablets proved that the Mycenaeans spoke an early, archaic form of the Greek language.

Global Relevancy

- The administrative systems, religious pantheon (including early mentions of Zeus, Poseidon, and Athena), maritime trade networks, and architectural styles developed here laid the direct structural foundation for Classical Greek society centuries later.

- Mycenae’s historical conflicts and palatial politics directly inspired the Iliad and the Odyssey. These works did not just capture ancient legends—they went on to permanently shape European poetry, theater, and storytelling for over three millennia.

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