Mycenae

The ruins of the Greek city of Mycenae were visible for many centuries, but the knowledge of who had built its huge walls was lost in time. It was not until the 1870s that the truth about the site began to be uncovered.

Entranced by the stories of the Trojan War in The Iliad, German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann (1822-1890) set out to discover whether the mythical heroes of the story had really existed. This search eventually led Schliemann to excavate the ancient city of Mycenae in Greece from 1874 onwards. There he found evidence of a great civilisation, which he called the Myceanaeans.

Stone walls were then built up the sides of the shaft to form a chamber, the body and grave goods were placed inside, and the chamber was roofed over.

The six shaft graves that Schliemann found at Mycenae are known as Grave Circle A. Those graves contained 19 full skeletons of men, women and children, who had been buried with an astonishing treasure of grave goods made from gold, silver, amber and other precious materials. Some of the bodies in the shaft graves were said to have been completely covered in gold ornaments made from very thinly beaten sheets of gold.

Archaeologists now know the famous gate was constructed by the Mycenaeans, but the methods they had used were forgotten over time. Tool marks show that the large stone blocks were cut to shape by hammer and saw. The gate had a great door, which revolved around a vertical beam that acted as a pivot. The pivot holes in the lintel are still visible. Archaeologists estimate that the gate dates to the mid-13th century BCE.

 [There are still] ...parts of the ring-wall left, including the gate with lions standing on it. They say this is the work of Cyclopes, who built the wall of Tiryns. ...In the ruins of Mycenae is a water-source called Perseia, and the underground chambers of Atreus and his sons where they kept the treasure-house of their wealth. There is the grave of Atreus and the graves of those who came home from Troy.”
Pausanius, Periegesis (Guide to Greece) 16.4

During a trip to Egypt to view the tomb of the Pharaoh Ramses III, Schliemann spotted an image of a stirrup jar in a wall painting. Its similarity to a certain kind of Mycenaean stirrup jar meant that Schliemann could suggest these vessels dated to the same period as that of the Pharaoh’s tomb.

More recently, archaeologists have used both Egyptian tomb paintings, and finds of Egyptian artefacts alongside Mycenaean pottery, to establish that the Mycenaean civilisation flourished between about 1700-1100 BCE.

During the excavations of Pylos, the best preserved of the Mycenaean city palaces, archaeologists found 7000 pots in eight different rooms in the palace, including 2800 stemmed cups. This shows just how important pottery was as a material for the Mycenaeans.

Their pottery certainly was popular for trade, as examples of it have been found at sites thoughout the Mediterranean, in Egypt and in the Middle East.