Ancient Mycenae

Gia Recco
April 6, 2004

Ancient Mycenae is the ruins of a large walled fortress located on the foothills of Mt. Profitis Ilias and Mt. Sara in the state of Argolid in the Peloponnese. For over four hundred years this kingdom was the most dominant in Greece. Mycenae was in fact so powerful that the Kingdom spread over Pylos, Tiryns, Corinth, Argos, and even Thebes!

It is said that Perseus, son of Danae and Zeus founded ancient Mycenae in around 1600 B.C. After a while Pelops, a son of Tantalus, defeated the reign of Perseus. It is also said that Agamemnon was king at one time. Those are the somewhat mythical facts. Another theory that is more realistic is that Neolithic people in the sixth millennium B.C first established Mycenae. During the Old Bronze Age Greece was invaded by Indo-European people who had crossed Anatolia via Troy to Greece. These people brought knowledge to primitive Mycenae.

Part of the citadel at Mycenae.

The Lion Gate

The Lion Gate was the main way to enter the walls of Mycenae. It is called this because of a relief of two headless lionesses at the top of its gate. These two lion's are guarding a column in the middle of them. The lions signify the power of the king and the column represents the city of Mycenae. This is one of the earliest coats of arms in history.

The Lion Gate

Grave Circle A

Inside the Mycenaean walls a form of graves was found called Grave Circle A. It was excavated in 1874. This form of Graves was a double fence of stone around five deep shafts. In these shafts were untouched tombs of a royal cemetery. Nineteen skeletons were found generously buried in gold and rich garments. A baby's skeleton was clothed in a full suit of gold. Five of the men had golden death masks on. Among the skeletons were many precious personal possessions such as gold bracelets, signets, diadems, drinking cups made of gold and silver, vases, swords and daggers, mirrors, and golden breastplates. The person who excavated Grave Circle A, Heinrich Schliemann, was ecstatic. Nothing like this had ever been found in Greece.

The double row of rock slabs around the graves.

The Treasury of Atreus Also at the site of Mycenae there was a tholos tomb which was named The Treasury of Atreus. When the Roman traveler Pausanias visited Mycenae in the 2^nd century A.D., he thought it was the Treasury of the King Atreus. So it was called that from then on. A tholos tomb is a large beehive shaped structure made out of rings of cut stone. Before Schliemann, this tomb had been excavated and the treasure and skeletons had been taken. People thought Schliemann was looking in the wrong place inside the walls, but it turns out they were mistaken.

The walkway into the Tholos Tomb at Mycenae.

Heinrich Schliemann

Heinrich Schliemann was born in the Baltic German state of Mecklenburg in 1822. His mother died when he was only nine years old and he was left with his father who didn’t pay very much attention to his son. Schliemann had to leave school at fourteen. Although he left school at a young age he was very bright and liked to read Homer's epics. Five years later he quit his job and went of to be a ship’s boy on a ship from Hamburg to Venezuela. The ship was wrecked off the coast of Dutch coast, but Schliemann survived and went into Amsterdam. Schliemann was employed by several trading companies and, by the age of forty Schliemann had made a considerable amount of money and knew about eight languages fluently, including ancient Greek.

Schliemann decided to pursue his dream to find Troy. But he couldn’t do it alone so he wrote to a bishop in Greece that he knew to find him a wife. The bishop replied with a seventeen year old Sophia Engastromenos. Schliemann interviewed her and he was satisfied. They were married and went off to Troy. Schliemann excavated at a small village called Hissarlik in modern day Turkey. The surroundings matched the ones described in the Iliad for Troy. After digging Schliemann discovered great treasure and riches. He thought he had found the jewels and treasure of Helen of Troy and the Trojans. He was very much mistaken. He had dug too deep and the treasures he found were treasures from before the Trojan War would have taken place. In his hurry to find evidence he dug right past the real level of Troy and destroyed it! After this exploration he went to Mycenae to find out more about the Greek soldiers that had fought in the Trojan War. He was successful again. When he found one of the burial masks the held it up and exclaimed, "I have looked upon the face of Agamemnon!"

The "face of Agamemnon."

He also dressed Sophia in the jewels and said that she had worn the jewels of Helen. Yet again he was mistaken. Once more these artifacts were from an earlier time.

Heinrich Schliemann.

Sophia Schliemann wearing "Helen's jewels"

Inside the Walls

Besides Grave Circle A, inside the walls there is Agamemnon’s palace, which is centered around the Great Court. In the palace the rooms to the north were royal apartments. The throne room was west of the Great Court, and on the southeastern part of the palace was the reception room, the megaron.

Outside the palace on the northern border of the citadel there is a secret cistern.

The view from one of the rooms of the old palace at Mycenae.

My Thoughts on Mycenae

I really enjoyed Ancient Mycenae because I had learned about it before I came to Greece and it was really wonderful to recognize everything. The views were breathtaking and beautiful as at most ancient sites in Greece. I think the Ancient Greeks chose to have their citadel there because it made them feel closer with nature and the Gods and easier to protect from invaders. I also thought it was fantastic that I got to visit a place that I had actually learned about in school. You get a much better feel of the place if you actually visit it instead of reading about it.

Some of the views from Ancient Mycenae.

Some information was used from Mycenae, a guide to the history and archaeology copyright Hesperos Editions Athens 2001, by Elsie Spathari, Ephor of Antiquities.