Everything about Mycenaeans totally explained
» "Lion Gate" redirects here. For other uses, see Lions' Gate (disambiguation).
Mycenae (
Greek Mukênai), is an
archaeological site in
Greece, located about 90 km south-west of
Athens, in the north-eastern
Peloponnese.
Argos is 6 km to the south;
Corinth, 48 km to the north. From the hill on which the palace was located one can see across the
Argolid to the
Saronic Gulf.
In the second millennium BC Mycenae was one of the major centres of Greek civilization, a military stronghold which dominated much of southern Greece. The period of
Greek history from about
1600 BC to about
1100 BC is called
Mycenaean in reference to Mycenae.
Name
The reconstructed
Mycenaean Greek name of the place is Mukanai (long a), which has the form of a plural, like
Athanai. The change of a to e is a
development of later
Attic-
Ionic.
Although the citadel was built by Greeks, the name isn't thought to be Greek, but is rather one of the many pre-Greek place names inherited by the immigrant
Hellenes.
John Chadwick said:
» "Names such as ... Mukanai ... are certainly derived from one or more unknown languages, previously spoken in Greece."
The pre-Greek language remains unknown, but there's no evidence to rule out a member of the
Indo-European superfamily. (See
Pelasgian,
Minyans)
History
Neolithic
Only scattered sherds from disturbed debris have been found datable to this period, prior to about 3500 BC. The site was inhabited but the stratigraphy has been destroyed by later construction.
Early Bronze Age
It is believed that Mycenae was settled by
Indo-Europeans who practiced farming and herding, close to 2000 BC. Scattered sherds have been found from this period, 2100 BC to 1700 BC. At the same time,
Minoan Crete developed a very complex civilization which interacted with Mycenae.
Middle Bronze Age
The first burials in pits or
cist graves began to the west of the acropolis at about 1800-1700 BC. The
acropolis was enclosed at least partially by the earliest circuit wall.
Of the cist graves and the Middle Helladic
Emily Vermeule said:
» "...there is nothing in the Middle Helladic world to prepare us for the furious splendor of the
Shaft Graves."
Late Bronze Age
The settlement pattern at Mycenae during the Bronze Age was a fortified hill surrounded by hamlets and estates. Missing is the dense urbanity present on the coast (such as at
Argos). Since Mycenae was the capital of a state that ruled, or dominated, much of the eastern Mediterranean world, the rulers must have placed their stronghold in this less populated and more remote region for its defensive value. Since there are few documents on site with datable contents (such as an Egyptian scarab) and since no
dendrochronology has yet been performed upon the remains here, the events are listed here according to
Helladic period material culture.
Late Helladic I
Outside the partial circuit wall, Grave Circle B, named for its enclosing wall, contained ten cist graves in Middle Helladic style and four shaft graves, sunk more deeply, with interments resting in cists. Richer grave goods mark the burials as possibly regal. Mounds over the top contained broken drinking vessels and bones from a repast, testifying to a more than ordinary farewell.
Stelae surmounted the mounds.
A walled enclosure, Grave Circle A, included six more shaft graves, with 9 female, 8 male, and two juvenile interments. Grave goods were wealthier than in Circle B. The presence of engraved and inlaid
swords and
daggers, with spear points and arrowheads, leave little doubt that warrior
chieftains and their families were buried here. Some art objects obtained from the graves are the
Silver Siege Rhyton, the
Mask of Agamemnon, the
Cup of Nestor, and weapons both
votive and practical.
Late Helladic II
Alan Wace divided the nine
tholos tombs of Mycenae into three groups of three each based on architecture. His earliest - the Cyclopean Tomb, Epano Phournos, and the Tomb of Aegisthus - are dated to IIA.
Burial in tholoi is seen as replacing burial in shaft graves. The care taken to preserve the shaft graves testifies that they were by then part of the royal heritage, the tombs of the ancestral heroes. Being more visible, the tholoi all had been plundered either in antiquity, or in later historic times.
Late Helladic III
At a conventional date of
1350 BC the fortifications on the acropolis, and other surrounding hills, were rebuilt in a style known as
cyclopean because the blocks of stone used were so massive that they were thought in later ages to be the work of the one-eyed giants known as the cyclopes (singular:
Cyclops). Within these walls, much of which can still be seen, successive monumental palaces were built. The final palace, remains of which are currently visible on the acropolis of Mycenae dates to the start of LHIIIA:2. Earlier palaces must have existed, but they'd been cleared away or built over.
The construction of palaces at that time with a similar architecture was general throughout southern Greece. They all featured a
megaron, or throne room, with a raised central hearth under an opening in the roof, which was supported by four columns in a square around the hearth. A throne was placed against the center of a wall to the side of the hearth, allowing an unobstructed view of the ruler from the entrance.
Frescos adorned the plaster walls and floor.
and suggests that useful parallels will be found in the relations between Etruscan and Archaic Greek culture and religion, or between Roman and Hellenistic culture.
Mycenean
religion certainly involved offerings and sacrifices to the deities, and some have speculated that their ceremonies involved human sacrifice based on textual evidence and bones found outside tombs. In the Homeric poems, there seems to be a lingering cultural memory of human sacrifice in King
Agamemnon's sacrifice of his daughter,
Iphigenia; several of the stories of Trojan heroes involve tragic human sacrifice. This, however, is all speculation.
Beyond this speculation we can go no further. Somewhere in the shades of the centuries between the fall of the
Mycenean civilization and the end of the Greek Dark Ages, the original Mycenean religion persisted and adapted until it finally emerged in the stories of human devotion, apostasy, and divine capriciousness that exists in the two great epic poems of
Homer.
Mycenae in Classical Greek mythology and legends
Perseid dynasty
Classical Greek myths assert that Mycenae was founded by
Perseus, grandson of king
Acrisius of
Argos, son of Acrisius' daughter,
Danaë. Having killed his grandfather by accident, Perseus could not, or would not, inherit the throne of Argos. Instead he arranged an exchange of realms with his half-brother,
Megapenthes, and became king of
Tiryns, Megapenthes taking Argos. From there he founded Mycenae and ruled the kingdoms jointly from Mycenae.
Perseus married
Andromeda and had many sons but in the course of time went to war with Argos and was slain by Megapenthes. His son,
Electryon, became the second of the dynasty but the succession was disputed by the
Taphians under
Pterelaos, another Perseid, who assaulted Mycenae and losing retreated with the cattle. The cattle were recovered by
Amphitryon, a grandson of Perseus, but he killed his uncle by accident with a club in an unruly cattle incident and had to go into exile.
The throne went to
Sthenelus, third in the dynasty, a son of Perseus. He set the stage for future greatness by marrying
Nicippe, a daughter of king
Pelops of
Elis, the most powerful state of the region and the times. With her he'd a son,
Eurystheus the fourth and last of the Perseid dynasty. When a son of
Heracles,
Hyllus, killed Sthenelus, Eurystheus became noted for his enmity to Heracles and for his ruthless persecution of the
Heracleidae, the descendants of Heracles.
This is the first we hear in legend of those noted sons, who became a symbol of the hated
Dorians. Heracles had been a Perseid. After his death Eurystheus determined to annihilate these rivals for the throne of Mycenae, but they took refuge in Athens, and in the course of war Eurystheus and all his sons were killed. The Perseid dynasty came to an end. The people of Mycenae placed Eurystheus' maternal uncle,
Atreus, a Pelopid, on the throne.
Atreid dynasty
The people of Mycenae had received advice from an
oracle that they should choose a new king from among the Pelopids. The two contenders were
Atreus and his brother,
Thyestes. The latter was chosen at first. At this moment nature intervened. The sun appeared to reverse direction and set in the east. Because the sun had reversed direction, he argued, the election of Thyestes should be reversed. Atreus became king. His first move was to pursue Thyestes and all his family, but Thyestes managed to escape Mycenae.
In legend, Atreus had two sons,
Agamemnon and
Menelaus, the Atreids.
Aegisthus, the son of Thyestes, killed Atreus and restored Thyestes to the throne. With the help of King
Tyndareus of
Sparta, the Atreids drove Thyestes again into exile. Tyndareus had two ill-starred daughters,
Helen and
Clytemnestra, whom Menelaus and Agamemnon married, respectively. Agamemnon inherited Mycenae and Menelaus was regent in Sparta.
Helen eloped with
Paris of
Troy. Agamemnon conducted a 10-year war against Troy to get her back for his brother. Because of lack of wind, the warships couldn't sail to
Troy. In order to please the gods so that they might make the winds start to blow,
Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter
Iphigenia. Hunting goddess
Artemis replaced her at the very last moment with a
deer on the altar, and took
Iphigenia to
Tauris (See Iphigenia en Tauris by
Euripides). The deities having been satisfied by such a sacrifice, the winds started blowing and the warfaring fleet departed.
Legend tells us that the long and arduous Trojan War, although nominally a Greek victory, brought anarchy, piracy, and ruin. After the war, returning
Agamemnon was greeted royally with a red carpet rolled out for him and then was slain in his bathtub by
Clytemnestra, who hated him bitterly for having sacrificed their daughter
Iphigenia. Clytemnestra was aided in her crime by Aegistheus, who reigned subsequently, but
Orestes, son of Agamemnon, was smuggled out to
Phocis. He returned as an adult to slay Clytemnestra and Aegistheus. He then fled to Sparta to evade justice and a matricide, and became insane for a time. Meanwhile, the throne of Mycenae went to
Aletes, son of Aegistheus, but not for long. Recovering, Orestes returned to Mycenae to kill him and take the throne.
Orestes then built a larger state in the Peloponnesus, but he died in
Arcadia from a
snake bite. His son,
Tisamenus, the last of the Atreid dynasty, was killed by the
Heracleidae on their return to the
Peloponnesus. They claimed the right of the Perseids to inherit the various kingdoms of the Peloponnesus and cast lots for the dominion of them.
Atreids in Asia Minor?
In fact, there was a total eclipse of the sun in the
Aegean on March 5, 1223 BC, which Atreus might have twisted into a setting of the sun in the east. This date doesn't solve all the unknowns, however.
A late date is implied for the
Trojan War, which would, in that case, have been against
Troy VIIa after all. The Perseids would have been in power ca. 1380, the date of a statue base from Kom el-Heitan in Egypt recording the itinerary of an Egyptian embassy to the Aegean in the time of
Amenophis III.
M-w-k-i-n-u (phonetic "Mukanuh"?) was one of the cities visited, a rare early document of the name of Mycenae. It was one of the cities of the
tj-n3-jj ("Tinay"?), Homeric
Danaans, named, in myth, after
Danaë, which suggests that the Perseids were in fact in some sort of dominion.
Also in the 14th century BC the Ahhiya began to be troublesome to numerous kings of the
Hittite Empire. Ahhiyawa or Ahhiya, which occurs a few dozen times in Hittite tablets over the century, is probably Achaiwia, reconstructed Mycenaean Greek for
Achaea. The Hittites didn't use Danaja as did the Egyptians, even though the first Ahhiya reference in "Indictment of
Madduwatta" precedes the correspondence between
Amenhotep III and one of
Madduwatta's subsequent successors in
Arzawa, Tarhunta-Radu. The external LHIIIA:1-era sources do, however, agree in their omission of a great king or other unifying structure behind Tinay/Ahhiya.
For example, in the "Indictment of Madduwatta",
Attarissiya, the "man of Ahhiya" (for example ruler), attacks Madduwatta and drives him from his land. He obtains refuge and military assistance from the Hittite Great King Tudhaliya. After the death of the latter and in the reign of his son, Arnuwanda, Madduwatta allies with Attarissiya and they, along with another ruler, raid Alasiya, for example
Cyprus.
This is the only known occurrence of a man named Attarissiya. Attempts to link this name to
Atreus have not found wide support, nor is there any evidence of a powerful Pelopid named Atreus of those times.
During LHIIIA:2, Ahhiya, now known as
Ahhiyawa, extended its influence over
Miletus, settling on the coast of
Anatolia, and competed with the Hittites for influence and control in western
Anatolia. For instance Uhha-Ziti's Arzawa and through him
Manapa-Tarhunta's Seha River Land. While establishing the credibility of the Mycenaean Greeks as a historical power, these documents create as many problems as they solve.
Similarly, a Hittite king wrote the so-called
Tawagalawa letter to the Great King of Ahhiyawa, concerning the depredations of the Luwiyan adventurer
Piyama-Radu. Neither of the names of the great kings are stated; the Hittite king could be either
Muwatalli II or his brother
Hattusili III, which at least dates the letter to LHIIIB by Mycenaean standards. But neither the Atreus nor the Agamemnon of legend have any brothers named *Etewoclewes (Eteocles); this name, rather, is associated with Thebes, which during the preceding LHIIIA period Amenhotep III had viewed as equal to Mycenae.
Elsewhere,
Muwatalli II (reg. 1296–1272) makes a treaty with Alaksandu (possibly Alexander), king of Wilusa (Ilium); and another document has Wilusa swearing by Appaliuna (
Apollo). But the Alaksandu of the treaty is too early to be king of a city assaulted by Agamemnon, and besides,
Priam was king of that city.
There is no satisfactory way to reconcile the Hittite tablets with later Greek legend.
Excavation
The first excavations at Mycenae were carried out by the Greek
archaeologist Kyriakos Pittakis in
1841. He found and restored the Lion Gate. In
1874 Heinrich Schliemann arrived at the site and undertook a complete excavation. Schliemann believed in the historical truth of the Homeric stories and interpreted the site accordingly. He found the ancient
shaft graves with their royal
skeletons and spectacular grave goods. Upon discovering a human skull beneath a
gold death mask in one of the tombs, he declared: "I have gazed upon the face of Agamemnon".
Since Schliemann's day more scientific excavations have taken place at Mycenae, mainly by Greek archaeologists but also by the
British School at Athens. The acropolis was excavated in
1902, and the surrounding hills have been methodically investigated by subsequent excavations.
Tourism
As one of the foundational sites of
European civilization, Mycenae is a popular tourist destination less than two hours' drive from Athens. The site has been well-preserved, and the massive ruins of the cyclopaean walls and the palaces on the acropolis still arouse the admiration of visitors, particularly when it's remembered that they were built a thousand years before the monuments of Classical Greece.
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