Mycenae
Encyclopedia
Mycenae is an archaeological site
in Greece
, located about 90 km south-west of Athens
, in the north-eastern Peloponnese
. Argos
is 11 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.
of Mycenae most probably derives from the Greek word "μύκης" (mycēs) meaning mushroom, and also any knobbed mushroom-shaped body. Pausanias describes how Megapenthes
founded the city and named it from the cap（mycēs）from the sheath of his sword. Botanical words such as
Mycena
, Mycelium
, Mycetozoa
etc., also derive from "μύκης".
The reconstructed Mycenaean Greek
name of the site is Mukānai, which has the form of a plural like Athānai
. The change of ā to ē is a development
of later Attic
-Ionic
.
Although the citadel was built by Greeks, the name is not thought to be Greek, but is rather one of the many pre-Greek place names inherited by the immigrant Hellenes
. According to John Chadwick
the name of Mycanae is of pre-Greek origin. The pre-Greek language remains unknown, but there is no evidence to rule out a member of the Indo-European
superfamily. (See Pelasgian, Minyans
)
s from disturbed debris have been found datable to the Neolithic (prior to 3500 BC). The site was inhabited but the stratigraphy has been destroyed by later construction.
who practiced farming and herding. Scattered sherds dating to 2100-1700 BC have been found, when Mycenae interacted with Minoan Crete. Other theories suggest the settling of Mycenae a thousand years earlier.
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:
During the Bronze Age the pattern of settlement at Mycenae was a fortified hill surrounded by hamlets and estates, in contrast to the dense urbanity on the coast (cf. 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.
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 sword
s and dagger
s, with spear points and arrowheads, leave little doubt that warrior chieftain
s 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.
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.
). 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 had 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. Fresco
s adorned the plaster walls and floor.
The room was accessed from a courtyard with a columned portico. A grand staircase led from a terrace below to the courtyard on the acropolis.
In the Temple built within the citadel, a scarab of Queen Tiye
of Egypt
, who was married to Amenhotep III
, was placed in the Room of the Idols alongside at least one statue of either LHIIIA:2 or B:1 type. Amenhotep III's relations with m-w-k-i-n-u, *Mukana, have corroboration from the inscription at Kom al-Hetan - but Amenhotep's reign is thought to align with late LHIIIA:1. It is likely that Amenhotep's herald presented the scarab to an earlier generation, which then found the resources to rebuild the citadel as Cyclopean and then, to move the scarab here.
Wace’s second group of tholoi are dated between IIA and IIIB: Kato Phournos, Panagia Tholos, and the Lion Tomb. The final group, Group III: the Treasury of Atreus, the Tomb of Clytemnestra and the Tomb of the Genii, are dated to IIIB by a sherd under the threshold of the Treasury of Atreus, the largest of the nine tombs. Like the Treasury of Minyas
at Orchomenus the tomb had been looted of its contents and its nature as funerary monument had been forgotten. The structure bore the traditional name of "Treasury".
The pottery phases on which the relative dating scheme is based (EH, MH, LH, etc.) do not allow very precise dating, even augmented by the few existing C-14 dates due to the tolerance inherent in these. The sequence of further construction at Mycenae is approximately as follows. In the middle of LHIIIB, around 1250 or so, the Cyclopean wall was extended on the west slope to include grave circle A. The main entrance through the circuit wall was made grand by the best known feature of Mycenae, the Lion Gate
, through which passed a stepped ramp leading past circle A and up to the palace. The Lion Gate was constructed in the form of a 'Relieving Triangle' in order to support the weight of the stones. An undecorated postern gate also was constructed through the north wall.
One of the few groups of excavated houses in the city outside the walls lies beyond Grave Circle B and belongs to the same period. The House of Shields, the House of the Oil Merchant, the House of the Sphinxes, and the West House. These may have been both residences and workshops.
Citadel facts and figures
Circuit length: 1105M
Preserved height: up to 12.5M
Width: 7.5-17M
Minimum stone required: 145,215 Cu.M or 14,420 average stones (10 tons)
Time to move 1 Block using men: 2.125 days
Time to move all Blocks using men: 110.52 years
Time to move 1 Block using oxen: 0.125 day
Time to move all Blocks using oxen: 9.9 years
based on 8 hour work day
The largest stones including the lintels and gate jambs weighed well over 20 tonnes some may have been close to 100 tonnes.
Somewhat later, toward the end of LHIIIB, another extension to the citadel was undertaken. The wall was extended again on the north east, with a sally port and also a secret passage through and under the wall, of corbeled construction, leading downward by some 99 steps to a cistern carved out of rock 15 m below the surface. It was fed by a tunnel from a spring on more distant higher ground.
Already in LHIIIA:1, Egypt knew *Mukana by name as a capital city on the level of Thebes and Knossos. During LHIIIB, Mycenae's political, military and economic influence likely extended as far as Crete
, Pylos
in the western Peloponnese, and to Athens
and Thebes. Hellenic settlements already were being placed on the coast of Anatolia. A collision with the Hittite empire over their sometime dependency at a then strategic location, Troy, was to be expected. In folklore, the powerful Pelopid family ruled many Greek states, one branch of which was the Atreid dynasty at Mycenae.
By 1200 BC the power of Mycenae was declining; during the 12th century, Mycenaean dominance collapsed. The destruction of Mycenae is part of the general Bronze Age collapse
. Within a short time around 1200 BC, all the palaces of southern Greece were burned, including that at Mycenae. This is traditionally attributed to a Dorian invasion
of Greeks from the north, although some historians now doubt that such an invasion took place. Displaced populations escaped to former colonies of the Mycenaeans in Anatolia and elsewhere, where they came to speak the Ionic dialect. A further theory, mentioned by Egyptian hieroglyphs, is that the destruction of the palaces is related to the attacks of the mysterious Sea Peoples who destroyed the Hittite Empire and then attacked the 19th then the 20th dynasties of Egypt. Other theories have been that a drought caused the Mycenaean decline, but there is no climatological evidence for this. Amos Nur argues that earthquakes played a major role in the destruction of Mycenae and many other cities at the end of the Bronze Age. However, no conclusive evidence has been brought forward to confirm any theory of why the Mycenaean citadel and others around it fell at this time.
Whatever the cause, by the LH IIIC period (whose latest phase is also termed "Submycenaean"), Mycenae was no longer a major power. Pottery and decorative styles were changing rapidly. Craftsmanship and art declined. Although the settlement was much reduced in size, the citadel remained occupied though it never regained its earlier importance. A temple dedicated to Hera was built on the summit in the Archaic period. A Mycenaean contingent fought at Thermopylae
and Plataea
during the Persian Wars. In 468 BC, however, troops from Argos
captured Mycenae, expelled the inhabitants and slighted the fortifications.
times its ruins became a tourist attraction.
religion survived into classical Greece
in their pantheon of Greek deities, but it is not known to what extent Greek religious belief is Mycenean, nor how much is a product of the Greek Dark Ages
or later. Finley
detected only few authentic Mycenean beliefs in the eighth-century Homeric world, but M.Nilsson
suggested that the Mycenean religion was the mother of the Greek religion
. Through the oral tradition Homer
transferred the beliefs during the Dark-Ages, but he kept in memory the confederacy of the Greeks under the powerful king of Mycenae. when gods walked along friendly with men, and the "heroic-age" when great heroes dominated the scene. The belief in gods as embodiments of power, the heroic outlook inherited from a distant past together with the local chthonic
cults, were later fitted into the frame of the city-states and his demands into an elastic system.
From the history traced by Nilsson and Guthrie
the Mycenean pantheon consisted of Minoan
deities, but also of gods and goddesses who appear under different names with similar functions in East and West. Many of these names appearing in the Linear B
inscriptions can be found later in classical Greece like Zeus
, Hera
, Poseidon
, Athena
, Hermes
, Eileithyia and Dionysos, but the etymology is the only evidence of the cults.
There are several reasonable guesses that can be made, however. It seems that originally the Myceneans like many Indo-European
s considered divine any object that inherited an internal power ( anima
). Certain religious beliefs were mixed with the beliefs of the local populations as it appears in the old cults of isolated Arcadia
which survived up to classical Greece
. In these cults Poseidon
appears usually as a horse, which represents the river spirit of the underworld as it usually happens in northern-European
folklore.The precursor goddesses of Demeter
and Persephone
are closely related with the springs and the animals, and especially with Poseidon and Artemis
who was the first nymph
. Mycenaean religion was almost certainly polytheistic, and the Myceneans were actively syncretistic, adding foreign deities to their pantheon of deities with considerable ease. The Myceneans probably entered Greece with a pantheon of deities headed by some ruling sky-deity which linguists speculate might have been called *Dyeus in early Indo-European
. In Greek, this deity would become Zeus
' onMouseout='HidePop("5915")' href="/topics/Ancient_Greek_phonology">ancient Greek
). Among the Hindus, this sky-deity becomes "Dyaus Pita
". In Latin he becomes "deus pater" or Jupiter
; we still encounter this word in the etymologies of the words "deity" and "divine."
Later in some cults Zeus
is united with the Aegean
Great Goddess
, who is represented by Hera
, in a "holy wedding" (hieros gamos).At some point in their cultural history, the Myceneans adopted some Minoan goddesses like Aphaea
, Britomartis
, Diktynna and associated them with their sky-god. Many of them were absorbed by more powerful divinities, and some like the vegetation goddesses
Ariadne
and Helen survived in Greek folklore together with the cult of the "divine child", who was probably the precursor of Dionysos. Athena
and Hera
survived and were tutelary goddesses, the guardians of the palaces and the cities. In general, later Greek religion distinguishes between two types of deities: the Olympian
, or sky, deities (including Zeus), which are now commonly known in some form or another; and, the chthonic
deities, or deities of the earth. Walter Burkert
warns:
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
The pantheon included also deities representing the powers of nature and wild life, who appear with similar functions in the Mediterranean
region. The "Mistress of the animals", later called Artemis
, who was the first nymph
, may be identified as the Minoan Britomartis
, and has similar functions with the Sumerian Ninhursag
. Poseidon
is the lord of the sea , and therefore of storms and earthquakes, (the "Earth shaker" in Linear B
tablets ). He may have functioned as a pre-Hellenic chthonic Zeus, the lord or spouse of the Earth goddess. Athena
whose task was to protect the olive-trees is a civic Artemis. The powers of animal nature fostered a belief in nymphs whose existence was bound to the trees and the waters, and in gods with human forms and the heads or tails of animals who stood for primitive bodily insticts. In Arcadia
were depicted animal-headed gods, indicating than in the remote past the gods were conceived as animals and birds, in a surrounding of animal-headed daemons
. Later the gods were revealed in human forms with an animal as a companion or symbol. Some of the old gods survived in the cult of Dionysos (Satyrs) and Pan (the goat-god).
The Myceneans adopted probably from the east a priest-king system and the belief of a ruling deity in the hands of a theocratic society. At the end of the second milemnium BC, when the Mycenean city-state collapsed, it seems that the Greek thought was gradually released from the idea that each man was a servant to the gods, and sought a "moral purpose". It is possible that this procedure started before the end of the Mycenean age , but the idea is almost absent or vague in the Homeric poems, where the interference of the gods is not related on the rightness or wrongness of men's actions. Later Hesiod
uses a lot of eastern material in his cosmology
and in the genealogical trees of the gods, and he introduces the idea of the existence of something else behind the gods, which was more powerful than they. This is the powerful Fate (Moira
), who in the Homeric poems is acting in parallel with the gods and predestinates the events. Hesiod complies to the Greek desire of an order in the universe, and tries to bring the gods under a rule comparable to the rule which controls the lives of men. In Greek mythology
this power is named Ananke
(necessity).
The Olympian
system is an ordered system . The Greek divinities live with Zeus at their head and each is concerned with a recognizable sphere. However certain elements in some Greek cults indicate the survival of some older cults from a less rationalized world , old cults of the dead, agrarian magic, exorcism of evil spirits, peculiar sacrifices, and animal headed gods, In the Homeric poems the avenging Fate
was probably originally a daemon , acting in parallel with the gods. Later the cult of Dionysos Zagreus
indicates that life-blood of animals was needed to renew that of men. A similar belief may be guessed from the Mycenean Hagia Triada sarcophagus
(1400 BC), which combines features of Minoan civilization
and Mycenean style. It seems that the blood of a bull was used for the regeneration of the reappearing dead. Probably most of these cults existed in the Mycenean-age and survived by immemorial practice.
A secondary level of importance was the cult of the heroes, which seems to have started in the Mycenean-age. These were great men of the past, who were exalted after death to honour, because of what they had done. According to an old Minoan
belief beyond the sea there was an island called Elysion, where the departured could have a different, but happier existence. Later the Greeks believed that there could live in human form only the heroes, and the beloved of the gods. The souls of the rest were drifting unconsciously in the gloomy space of Hades
. Gods and men had common origin, but there was an enormous gap between the immortal gods and the mortal men. However certain elements indicate that the Myceneans probably believed in a future existence. Two well preserved bodies were found in Shaft Grave VI, and Helbig
believed that an embalming preceded the burial. In the shaft graves discovered by Schliemann the corpses were lightly exposed to fire in order to preserve them
Mycenaean 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. In the far past even human beings might be oferred to placate inscrutable gods, especially in times of guilty fear. Later sacrifice became a feast at which oxen were slaughtered.Men kept the meat, and gave the gods the bones wrapped in fat.
Beyond this speculation we can go no further. Somewhere in the shades of the centuries between the fall of the Mycenaean
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
. It was the beginning of the religion which later the Greeks considered Hellenic
, and embodies a paradox. Though the world is dominated by a divine power that the gods bestow in different ways on men, nothing but "darkness" lay ahead and life was sometimes frail and unsubstantial.
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 cousin, 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 had 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 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.
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. Atreus argued that because the sun had reversed its path, the election of Thyestes should be reversed. The argument was heeded, and Atreus became king. His first move was to pursue Thyestes and all his family - that is, his own kin - but Thyestes managed to escape from 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 became king of Sparta.
Soon, 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 could not sail to Troy
. In order to please the gods so that they might make the winds start to blow, Agamemnon
sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia. According to some versions of the legend, the 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; already before the Greek fleet set sail for Troy, the conflict had divided the gods as well, and this contributed to curses and acts of vengeance following many of the Greek heroes. After the war, Agamemnon
, returning, 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 ordered the sacrifice of their daughter Iphigenia (although the life of the latter had been saved). 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 Athens 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. Whatever the historical realities reflected in these stories, the Atreids are firmly set in the epoch near the end of the Heroic age, leading up to the arrival of the Dorians. There are no established stories of a royal house at Mycenae later than the Atreids, and this could reflect the fact that not much more than fifty or sixty years seem to have separated the fall of Troy VIIa (the likely inspiration of Homeric Troy) and the fall of Mycenae.
on March 5, 1223 BC, which Atreus might have twisted into a setting of the sun in the east. This date does not 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 tablet
s over the century, is probably Achaiwia, reconstructed Mycenaean Greek for Achaea
. The Hittites did not 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" (i.e. 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, i.e. 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.
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 skeleton
s 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.
The Athens Archaeological Society is currently excavating the Mycenae Lower Town (as of 2011), with support from Dickinson College
and the Institute for Aegean Prehistory.
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
in Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
, located about 90 km south-west of Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
, in the north-eastern Peloponnese
Peloponnese
The Peloponnese, Peloponnesos or Peloponnesus , is a large peninsula , located in a region of southern Greece, forming the part of the country south of the Gulf of Corinth...
. Argos
Argos
Argos is a city and a former municipality in Argolis, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Argos-Mykines, of which it is a municipal unit. It is 11 kilometres from Nafplion, which was its historic harbour...
is 11 km to the south; Corinth
Corinth
Corinth is a city and former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Corinth, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit...
, 48 km to the north. From the hill on which the palace was located one can see across the Argolid to the Saronic Gulf
Saronic Gulf
The Saronic Gulf or Gulf of Aegina in Greece forms part of the Aegean Sea and defines the eastern side of the isthmus of Corinth. It is the eastern terminus of the Corinth Canal, which cuts across the isthmus.-Geography:The gulf includes the islands of; Aegina, Salamis, and Poros along with...
.
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
History of Greece
The history of Greece encompasses the history of the territory of the modern state of Greece, as well as that of the Greek people and the areas they ruled historically. The scope of Greek habitation and rule has varied much through the ages, and, as a result, the history of Greece is similarly...
from about 1600 BC to about 1100 BC is called Mycenaean
Mycenaean Greece
Mycenaean Greece was a cultural period of Bronze Age Greece taking its name from the archaeological site of Mycenae in northeastern Argolis, in the Peloponnese of southern Greece. Athens, Pylos, Thebes, and Tiryns are also important Mycenaean sites...
in reference to Mycenae.
Name
The etymologyEtymology
Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...
of Mycenae most probably derives from the Greek word "μύκης" (mycēs) meaning mushroom, and also any knobbed mushroom-shaped body. Pausanias describes how Megapenthes
Megapenthes
In Greek mythology, Megapénthês is a name that refers to:* A son of Proetus. He exchanged kingdoms with his cousin Perseus, whom he killed much later. He was the father of Argeus and possibly Anaxagoras...
founded the city and named it from the cap（mycēs）from the sheath of his sword. Botanical words such as
Mycena
Mycena
Mycena is a large genus of small saprotrophic mushrooms that are rarely more than a few centimeters in width. They are characterized by a white spore print, a small conical or bell-shaped cap, and a thin fragile stem. Most are gray or brown, but a few species have brighter colors. Most have a...
, Mycelium
Mycelium
thumb|right|Fungal myceliaMycelium is the vegetative part of a fungus, consisting of a mass of branching, thread-like hyphae. The mass of hyphae is sometimes called shiro, especially within the fairy ring fungi. Fungal colonies composed of mycelia are found in soil and on or within many other...
, Mycetozoa
Mycetozoa
Mycetozoa is a grouping of slime molds.-Classification:It can be divided into dictyostelid, myxogastrid, and protostelid groups.The mycetozoan groups all fit into the unikont supergroup Amoebozoa, whereas most other slime molds fit into various bikont groups .-Utility in research:Dictyostelids are...
etc., also derive from "μύκης".
The reconstructed Mycenaean Greek
Mycenaean language
Mycenaean Greek is the most ancient attested form of the Greek language, spoken on the Greek mainland, Crete and Cyprus in the 16th to 12th centuries BC, before the hypothesised Dorian invasion which was often cited as the terminus post quem for the coming of the Greek language to Greece...
name of the site is Mukānai, which has the form of a plural like Athānai
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
. The change of ā to ē is a development
Sound change
Sound change includes any processes of language change that affect pronunciation or sound system structures...
of later Attic
Attic Greek
Attic Greek is the prestige dialect of Ancient Greek that was spoken in Attica, which includes Athens. Of the ancient dialects, it is the most similar to later Greek, and is the standard form of the language studied in courses of "Ancient Greek". It is sometimes included in Ionic.- Origin and range...
-Ionic
Ionic Greek
Ionic Greek was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic dialect group of Ancient Greek .-History:Ionic dialect appears to have spread originally from the Greek mainland across the Aegean at the time of the Dorian invasions, around the 11th Century B.C.By the end of the Greek Dark Ages in the 5th Century...
.
Although the citadel was built by Greeks, the name is not thought to be Greek, but is rather one of the many pre-Greek place names inherited by the immigrant Hellenes
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
. According to John Chadwick
John Chadwick
John Chadwick was an English linguist and classical scholar most famous for his role in deciphering Linear B, along with Michael Ventris.-Early life and education:...
the name of Mycanae is of pre-Greek origin. The pre-Greek language remains unknown, but there is no evidence to rule out a member of the Indo-European
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
superfamily. (See Pelasgian, Minyans
Minyans
According to Greek mythology and legendary prehistory of the Aegean region, the Minyans were an autochthonous group inhabiting the Aegean region...
)
History
Neolithic
Only scattered sherdSherd
In archaeology, a sherd is commonly a historic or prehistoric fragment of pottery, although the term is occasionally used to refer to fragments of stone and glass vessels as well....
s from disturbed debris have been found datable to the Neolithic (prior to 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 close to 2000 BC by Indo-EuropeansProto-Indo-Europeans
The Proto-Indo-Europeans were the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language , a reconstructed prehistoric language of Eurasia.Knowledge of them comes chiefly from the linguistic reconstruction, along with material evidence from archaeology and archaeogenetics...
who practiced farming and herding. Scattered sherds dating to 2100-1700 BC have been found, when Mycenae interacted with Minoan Crete. Other theories suggest the settling of Mycenae a thousand years earlier.
Middle Bronze Age
The first burials in pits or cistCist
A cist from ) is a small stone-built coffin-like box or ossuary used to hold the bodies of the dead. Examples can be found across Europe and in the Middle East....
graves began to the west of the acropolis at about 1800-1700 BC. The acropolis
Acropolis
Acropolis means "high city" in Greek, literally city on the extremity and is usually translated into English as Citadel . For purposes of defense, early people naturally chose elevated ground to build a new settlement, frequently a hill with precipitous sides...
was enclosed at least partially by the earliest circuit wall.
Of the cist graves and the Middle Helladic Emily Vermeule
Emily Vermeule
Emily Dickinson Townsend Vermeule was an American classical scholar and archaeologist.-Biography:She was born on August 11, 1928 in New York City. She earned an undergraduate degree at Bryn Mawr College in 1950, and earned a master's degree from Radcliffe College in 1954, and a Ph.D. from Bryn...
said:
- "...there is nothing in the Middle Helladic world to prepare us for the furious splendor of the Shaft GravesShaft tombA shaft tomb or shaft grave is a type of burial structure formed from a deep and narrow shaft sunk into natural rock. Burials were then placed at the bottom...
."
Late Bronze Age
Argos
Argos is a city and a former municipality in Argolis, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Argos-Mykines, of which it is a municipal unit. It is 11 kilometres from Nafplion, which was its historic harbour...
). 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
Dendrochronology
Dendrochronology or tree-ring dating is the scientific method of dating based on the analysis of patterns of tree-rings. Dendrochronology can date the time at which tree rings were formed, in many types of wood, to the exact calendar year...
has yet been performed upon the remains here, the events are listed here according to Helladic period
Helladic period
Helladic is a modern archaeological term meant to identify a sequence of periods characterizing the culture of mainland ancient Greece during the Bronze Age. The term is commonly used in archaeology and art history...
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 several 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. StelaeStele
A stele , also stela , is a stone or wooden slab, generally taller than it is wide, erected for funerals or commemorative purposes, most usually decorated with the names and titles of the deceased or living — inscribed, carved in relief , or painted onto the slab...
surmounted the mounds.
A walled enclosure, Grave Circle A
Grave Circle A, Mycenae
Grave Circle A in Mycenae is a 16th century BC royal cemetery situated on the southeast of the Lion Gate, the main entrance of the Bronze Age citadel of Mycenae, southern Greece...
, 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 sword
Bronze Age sword
Bronze Age swords appear from around the 17th century BC, in the Black Sea region and the Aegean, evolving out of the dagger. They are replaced by the Iron Age sword during the early part of the 1st millennium BC....
s and dagger
Dagger
A dagger is a fighting knife with a sharp point designed or capable of being used as a thrusting or stabbing weapon. The design dates to human prehistory, and daggers have been used throughout human experience to the modern day in close combat confrontations...
s, with spear points and arrowheads, leave little doubt that warrior chieftain
Paramount chief
A paramount chief is the highest-level traditional chief or political leader in a regional or local polity or country typically administered politically with a chief-based system. This definition is used occasionally in anthropological and archaeological theory to refer to the rulers of multiple...
s and their families were buried here. Some art objects obtained from the graves are the Silver Siege Rhyton
Silver Siege Rhyton
The Silver Siege Rhyton is a silver vessel discovered in Shaft Grave IV of Grave Circle A at Mycenae and is dated to ca. 1600-1500 BCE, or during the Late Helladic I period. The rhyton was likely used for the transportation of libation for use in sacred ritual and is so named for its relief...
, the Mask of Agamemnon
Mask of Agamemnon
The Mask of Agamemnon is an artifact discovered at Mycenae in 1876 by Heinrich Schliemann. The artifact is a funeral mask hewn in gold, and was found over the face of a body located in a burial shaft...
, the Cup of Nestor, and weapons both votive and practical.
Late Helladic II
Alan WaceAlan Wace
Alan John Bayard Wace was an English archaeologist.Wace was educated at Shrewsbury School and Pembroke College, Cambridge...
divided the nine tholos
Beehive tomb
A beehive tomb, also known as a tholos tomb , is a burial structure characterized by its false dome created by the superposition of successively smaller rings of mudbricks or, more often, stones...
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: CyclopsCyclops
A cyclops , in Greek mythology and later Roman mythology, was a member of a primordial race of giants, each with a single eye in the middle of his forehead...
). 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 had 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
Megaron
The megaron is the great hall of the Grecian palace complexes. It was a rectangular hall, fronted by an open, two-columned porch, and a more or less central, open hearth vented though an oculus in the roof above it and surrounded by four columns. It is the architectural predecessor of the...
, 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. Fresco
Fresco
Fresco is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Greek word affresca which derives from the Latin word for "fresh". Frescoes first developed in the ancient world and continued to be popular through the Renaissance...
s adorned the plaster walls and floor.
In the Temple built within the citadel, a scarab of Queen Tiye
Tiye
Tiye was the daughter of Yuya and Tjuyu . She became the Great Royal Wife of the Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III....
of Egypt
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
, who was married to Amenhotep III
Amenhotep III
Amenhotep III also known as Amenhotep the Magnificent was the ninth pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty. According to different authors, he ruled Egypt from June 1386 to 1349 BC or June 1388 BC to December 1351 BC/1350 BC after his father Thutmose IV died...
, was placed in the Room of the Idols alongside at least one statue of either LHIIIA:2 or B:1 type. Amenhotep III's relations with m-w-k-i-n-u, *Mukana, have corroboration from the inscription at Kom al-Hetan - but Amenhotep's reign is thought to align with late LHIIIA:1. It is likely that Amenhotep's herald presented the scarab to an earlier generation, which then found the resources to rebuild the citadel as Cyclopean and then, to move the scarab here.
Wace’s second group of tholoi are dated between IIA and IIIB: Kato Phournos, Panagia Tholos, and the Lion Tomb. The final group, Group III: the Treasury of Atreus, the Tomb of Clytemnestra and the Tomb of the Genii, are dated to IIIB by a sherd under the threshold of the Treasury of Atreus, the largest of the nine tombs. Like the Treasury of Minyas
Minyas (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Minyas was the founder of Orchomenus, Boetia. As the ancestor of the Minyans, a number of Boeotian genealogies lead back to him, according to the classicist H.J. Rose...
at Orchomenus the tomb had been looted of its contents and its nature as funerary monument had been forgotten. The structure bore the traditional name of "Treasury".
The pottery phases on which the relative dating scheme is based (EH, MH, LH, etc.) do not allow very precise dating, even augmented by the few existing C-14 dates due to the tolerance inherent in these. The sequence of further construction at Mycenae is approximately as follows. In the middle of LHIIIB, around 1250 or so, the Cyclopean wall was extended on the west slope to include grave circle A. The main entrance through the circuit wall was made grand by the best known feature of Mycenae, the Lion Gate
Lion Gate
The Lion Gate was the main entrance of the Bronze Age citadel of Mycenae, southern Greece. It was erected during the 13th century BC in the northwest side of the acropolis and is named after the relief sculpture of two lionesses in a heraldic pose that stands above the entrance...
, through which passed a stepped ramp leading past circle A and up to the palace. The Lion Gate was constructed in the form of a 'Relieving Triangle' in order to support the weight of the stones. An undecorated postern gate also was constructed through the north wall.
One of the few groups of excavated houses in the city outside the walls lies beyond Grave Circle B and belongs to the same period. The House of Shields, the House of the Oil Merchant, the House of the Sphinxes, and the West House. These may have been both residences and workshops.
Citadel facts and figures
Circuit length: 1105M
Preserved height: up to 12.5M
Width: 7.5-17M
Minimum stone required: 145,215 Cu.M or 14,420 average stones (10 tons)
Time to move 1 Block using men: 2.125 days
Time to move all Blocks using men: 110.52 years
Time to move 1 Block using oxen: 0.125 day
Time to move all Blocks using oxen: 9.9 years
based on 8 hour work day
The largest stones including the lintels and gate jambs weighed well over 20 tonnes some may have been close to 100 tonnes.
Somewhat later, toward the end of LHIIIB, another extension to the citadel was undertaken. The wall was extended again on the north east, with a sally port and also a secret passage through and under the wall, of corbeled construction, leading downward by some 99 steps to a cistern carved out of rock 15 m below the surface. It was fed by a tunnel from a spring on more distant higher ground.
Already in LHIIIA:1, Egypt knew *Mukana by name as a capital city on the level of Thebes and Knossos. During LHIIIB, Mycenae's political, military and economic influence likely extended as far as Crete
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
, Pylos
Pylos
Pylos , historically known under its Italian name Navarino, is a town and a former municipality in Messenia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Pylos-Nestoras, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit. It was the capital of the former...
in the western Peloponnese, and to Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
and Thebes. Hellenic settlements already were being placed on the coast of Anatolia. A collision with the Hittite empire over their sometime dependency at a then strategic location, Troy, was to be expected. In folklore, the powerful Pelopid family ruled many Greek states, one branch of which was the Atreid dynasty at Mycenae.
Decline
Bronze Age collapse
The Bronze Age collapse is a transition in southwestern Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age that some historians believe was violent, sudden and culturally disruptive...
. Within a short time around 1200 BC, all the palaces of southern Greece were burned, including that at Mycenae. This is traditionally attributed to a Dorian invasion
Dorian invasion
The Dorian invasion is a concept devised by historians of Ancient Greece to explain the replacement of pre-classical dialects and traditions in southern Greece by the ones that prevailed in Classical Greece...
of Greeks from the north, although some historians now doubt that such an invasion took place. Displaced populations escaped to former colonies of the Mycenaeans in Anatolia and elsewhere, where they came to speak the Ionic dialect. A further theory, mentioned by Egyptian hieroglyphs, is that the destruction of the palaces is related to the attacks of the mysterious Sea Peoples who destroyed the Hittite Empire and then attacked the 19th then the 20th dynasties of Egypt. Other theories have been that a drought caused the Mycenaean decline, but there is no climatological evidence for this. Amos Nur argues that earthquakes played a major role in the destruction of Mycenae and many other cities at the end of the Bronze Age. However, no conclusive evidence has been brought forward to confirm any theory of why the Mycenaean citadel and others around it fell at this time.
Whatever the cause, by the LH IIIC period (whose latest phase is also termed "Submycenaean"), Mycenae was no longer a major power. Pottery and decorative styles were changing rapidly. Craftsmanship and art declined. Although the settlement was much reduced in size, the citadel remained occupied though it never regained its earlier importance. A temple dedicated to Hera was built on the summit in the Archaic period. A Mycenaean contingent fought at Thermopylae
Thermopylae
Thermopylae is a location in Greece where a narrow coastal passage existed in antiquity. It derives its name from its hot sulphur springs. "Hot gates" is also "the place of hot springs and cavernous entrances to Hades"....
and Plataea
Plataea
Plataea or Plataeae was an ancient city, located in Greece in southeastern Boeotia, south of Thebes. It was the location of the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC, in which an alliance of Greek city-states defeated the Persians....
during the Persian Wars. In 468 BC, however, troops from Argos
Argos
Argos is a city and a former municipality in Argolis, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Argos-Mykines, of which it is a municipal unit. It is 11 kilometres from Nafplion, which was its historic harbour...
captured Mycenae, expelled the inhabitants and slighted the fortifications.
Revival and end
Mycenae was briefly reoccupied in the Hellenistic period, when it could boast a theatre. It was subsequently abandoned, and by RomanRoman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
times its ruins became a tourist attraction.
Religion
Much of the MycenaeanMycenaean Greece
Mycenaean Greece was a cultural period of Bronze Age Greece taking its name from the archaeological site of Mycenae in northeastern Argolis, in the Peloponnese of southern Greece. Athens, Pylos, Thebes, and Tiryns are also important Mycenaean sites...
religion survived into classical Greece
Classical Greece
Classical Greece was a 200 year period in Greek culture lasting from the 5th through 4th centuries BC. This classical period had a powerful influence on the Roman Empire and greatly influenced the foundation of Western civilizations. Much of modern Western politics, artistic thought, such as...
in their pantheon of Greek deities, but it is not known to what extent Greek religious belief is Mycenean, nor how much is a product of the Greek Dark Ages
Greek Dark Ages
The Greek Dark Age or Ages also known as Geometric or Homeric Age are terms which have regularly been used to refer to the period of Greek history from the presumed Dorian invasion and end of the Mycenaean Palatial civilization around 1200 BC, to the first signs of the Greek city-states in the 9th...
or later. Finley
Moses I. Finley
Sir Moses I. Finley CBE, FBA was an American and English classical scholar. His most notable work is The Ancient Economy , where he argued that status and civic ideology governed the economy in antiquity rather than rational economic motivations.-Early life and career:He was born in 1912 in New...
detected only few authentic Mycenean beliefs in the eighth-century Homeric world, but M.Nilsson
Martin P. Nilsson
Martin Persson Nilsson was a Swedish philologist, mythographer, and a scholar of the Greek, Hellenistic and Roman religious systems...
suggested that the Mycenean religion was the mother of the Greek religion
Greek religion
Greek religion can refer to several things, including*Ancient Greek religion**Greek hero cult**Eleusinian Mysteries**Hellenistic religion**Platonic idealism*Greek Orthodox Church*Religion in Greece*Hellenic Polytheistic Reconstructionism...
. Through the oral tradition Homer
Homer
In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...
transferred the beliefs during the Dark-Ages, but he kept in memory the confederacy of the Greeks under the powerful king of Mycenae. when gods walked along friendly with men, and the "heroic-age" when great heroes dominated the scene. The belief in gods as embodiments of power, the heroic outlook inherited from a distant past together with the local chthonic
Chthonic
Chthonic designates, or pertains to, deities or spirits of the underworld, especially in relation to Greek religion. The Greek word khthon is one of several for "earth"; it typically refers to the interior of the soil, rather than the living surface of the land or the land as territory...
cults, were later fitted into the frame of the city-states and his demands into an elastic system.
From the history traced by Nilsson and Guthrie
W. K. C. Guthrie
William Keith Chambers Guthrie was a Scottish classical scholar, best known for his History of Greek Philosophy, published in six volumes between 1962 and his death.-Early life and education:...
the Mycenean pantheon consisted of Minoan
Minoan civilization
The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age civilization that arose on the island of Crete and flourished from approximately the 27th century BC to the 15th century BC. It was rediscovered at the beginning of the 20th century through the work of the British archaeologist Arthur Evans...
deities, but also of gods and goddesses who appear under different names with similar functions in East and West. Many of these names appearing in the Linear B
Linear B
Linear B is a syllabic script that was used for writing Mycenaean Greek, an early form of Greek. It pre-dated the Greek alphabet by several centuries and seems to have died out with the fall of Mycenaean civilization...
inscriptions can be found later in classical Greece like Zeus
Zeus
In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...
, Hera
Hera
Hera was the wife and one of three sisters of Zeus in the Olympian pantheon of Greek mythology and religion. Her chief function was as the goddess of women and marriage. Her counterpart in the religion of ancient Rome was Juno. The cow and the peacock were sacred to her...
, Poseidon
Poseidon
Poseidon was the god of the sea, and, as "Earth-Shaker," of the earthquakes in Greek mythology. The name of the sea-god Nethuns in Etruscan was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman mythology: both were sea gods analogous to Poseidon...
, Athena
Athena
In Greek mythology, Athena, Athenê, or Athene , also referred to as Pallas Athena/Athene , is the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, warfare, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts, justice, and skill. Minerva, Athena's Roman incarnation, embodies similar attributes. Athena is...
, Hermes
Hermes
Hermes is the great messenger of the gods in Greek mythology and a guide to the Underworld. Hermes was born on Mount Kyllini in Arcadia. An Olympian god, he is also the patron of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of the cunning of thieves, of orators and...
, Eileithyia and Dionysos, but the etymology is the only evidence of the cults.
There are several reasonable guesses that can be made, however. It seems that originally the Myceneans like many Indo-European
Indo-European
Indo-European may refer to:* Indo-European languages** Aryan race, a 19th century and early 20th century term for those peoples who are the native speakers of Indo-European languages...
s considered divine any object that inherited an internal power ( anima
Animism
Animism refers to the belief that non-human entities are spiritual beings, or at least embody some kind of life-principle....
). Certain religious beliefs were mixed with the beliefs of the local populations as it appears in the old cults of isolated Arcadia
Arcadia
Arcadia is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the administrative region of Peloponnese. It is situated in the central and eastern part of the Peloponnese peninsula. It takes its name from the mythological character Arcas. In Greek mythology, it was the home of the god Pan...
which survived up to classical Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
. In these cults Poseidon
Poseidon
Poseidon was the god of the sea, and, as "Earth-Shaker," of the earthquakes in Greek mythology. The name of the sea-god Nethuns in Etruscan was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman mythology: both were sea gods analogous to Poseidon...
appears usually as a horse, which represents the river spirit of the underworld as it usually happens in northern-European
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
folklore.The precursor goddesses of Demeter
Demeter
In Greek mythology, Demeter is the goddess of the harvest, who presided over grains, the fertility of the earth, and the seasons . Her common surnames are Sito as the giver of food or corn/grain and Thesmophoros as a mark of the civilized existence of agricultural society...
and Persephone
Persephone
In Greek mythology, Persephone , also called Kore , is the daughter of Zeus and the harvest-goddess Demeter, and queen of the underworld; she was abducted by Hades, the god-king of the underworld....
are closely related with the springs and the animals, and especially with Poseidon and Artemis
Artemis
Artemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Her Roman equivalent is Diana. Some scholars believe that the name and indeed the goddess herself was originally pre-Greek. Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron: "Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals"...
who was the first nymph
Nymph
A nymph in Greek mythology is a female minor nature deity typically associated with a particular location or landform. Different from gods, nymphs are generally regarded as divine spirits who animate nature, and are usually depicted as beautiful, young nubile maidens who love to dance and sing;...
. Mycenaean religion was almost certainly polytheistic, and the Myceneans were actively syncretistic, adding foreign deities to their pantheon of deities with considerable ease. The Myceneans probably entered Greece with a pantheon of deities headed by some ruling sky-deity which linguists speculate might have been called *Dyeus in early Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European language
The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...
. In Greek, this deity would become Zeus
Zeus
In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...
' onMouseout='HidePop("5915")' href="/topics/Ancient_Greek_phonology">ancient Greek
Ancient Greek phonology
Ancient Greek phonology is the study of the phonology, or pronunciation, of Ancient Greek. Because of the passage of time, the original pronunciation of Ancient Greek, like that of all ancient languages, can never be known with absolute certainty...
). Among the Hindus, this sky-deity becomes "Dyaus Pita
Dyaus Pita
In the Vedic pantheon ' or ' or Dyaus Pitar is the Sky Father, divine consort of the Prithvi and father of Agni, Indra , and Ushas, the daughter representing dawn. In archaic Vedic lore, Dyauṣ Pitṛ and Prithivi Matṛ were one, single composite dvandva entity, named as the Dyavaprthivi...
". In Latin he becomes "deus pater" or Jupiter
Jupiter (mythology)
In ancient Roman religion and myth, Jupiter or Jove is the king of the gods, and the god of the sky and thunder. He is the equivalent of Zeus in the Greek pantheon....
; we still encounter this word in the etymologies of the words "deity" and "divine."
Later in some cults Zeus
Zeus
In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...
is united with the Aegean
Aegean civilization
Aegean civilization is a general term for the Bronze Age civilizations of Greece around the Aegean Sea. There are three distinct but communicating and interacting geographic regions covered by this term: Crete, the Cyclades and the Greek mainland. Crete is associated with the Minoan civilization...
Great Goddess
Mother goddess
Mother goddess is a term used to refer to a goddess who represents motherhood, fertility, creation or embodies the bounty of the Earth. When equated with the Earth or the natural world such goddesses are sometimes referred to as Mother Earth or as the Earth Mother.Many different goddesses have...
, who is represented by Hera
Hera
Hera was the wife and one of three sisters of Zeus in the Olympian pantheon of Greek mythology and religion. Her chief function was as the goddess of women and marriage. Her counterpart in the religion of ancient Rome was Juno. The cow and the peacock were sacred to her...
, in a "holy wedding" (hieros gamos).At some point in their cultural history, the Myceneans adopted some Minoan goddesses like Aphaea
Aphaea
Aphaea was a Greek goddess who was worshipped almost exclusively at a single sanctuary on the island of Aegina in the Saronic Gulf. She originated as early as the 14th century BCE as a local deity associated with fertility and the agricultural cycle...
, Britomartis
Britomartis
Britomartis , was the Minoan goddess of mountains and hunting. She is among the Minoan goddess figures that passed through the Mycenaeans' culture into classical Greek mythology, with transformations that are unclear in both transferrals...
, Diktynna and associated them with their sky-god. Many of them were absorbed by more powerful divinities, and some like the vegetation goddesses
Vegetation deity
A vegetation deity is a nature deity whose disappearance and reappearance, or life, death and rebirth, embodies the growth cycle of plants. In nature worship, the deity can be a god or goddess with the ability to regenerate itself. A vegetation deity is often a fertility deity...
Ariadne
Ariadne
Ariadne , in Greek mythology, was the daughter of King Minos of Crete, and his queen Pasiphaë, daughter of Helios, the Sun-titan. She aided Theseus in overcoming the Minotaur and was the bride of the god Dionysus.-Minos and Theseus:...
and Helen survived in Greek folklore together with the cult of the "divine child", who was probably the precursor of Dionysos. Athena
Athena
In Greek mythology, Athena, Athenê, or Athene , also referred to as Pallas Athena/Athene , is the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, warfare, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts, justice, and skill. Minerva, Athena's Roman incarnation, embodies similar attributes. Athena is...
and Hera
Hera
Hera was the wife and one of three sisters of Zeus in the Olympian pantheon of Greek mythology and religion. Her chief function was as the goddess of women and marriage. Her counterpart in the religion of ancient Rome was Juno. The cow and the peacock were sacred to her...
survived and were tutelary goddesses, the guardians of the palaces and the cities. In general, later Greek religion distinguishes between two types of deities: the Olympian
Twelve Olympians
The Twelve Olympians, also known as the Dodekatheon , in Greek mythology, were the principal deities of the Greek pantheon, residing atop Mount Olympus. Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Hestia, and Hades were siblings. Ares, Hermes, Hephaestus, Athena, Apollo, and Artemis were children of Zeus...
, or sky, deities (including Zeus), which are now commonly known in some form or another; and, the chthonic
Chthonic
Chthonic designates, or pertains to, deities or spirits of the underworld, especially in relation to Greek religion. The Greek word khthon is one of several for "earth"; it typically refers to the interior of the soil, rather than the living surface of the land or the land as territory...
deities, or deities of the earth. Walter Burkert
Walter Burkert
Walter Burkert is a German scholar of Greek mythology and cult.An emeritus professor of classics at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, he also has taught in the United Kingdom and the United States...
warns:
- "To what extent one can and must differentiate between Minoan and Mycenaean religion is a question which has not yet found a conclusive answer"
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
The pantheon included also deities representing the powers of nature and wild life, who appear with similar functions in the Mediterranean
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...
region. The "Mistress of the animals", later called Artemis
Artemis
Artemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Her Roman equivalent is Diana. Some scholars believe that the name and indeed the goddess herself was originally pre-Greek. Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron: "Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals"...
, who was the first nymph
Nymph
A nymph in Greek mythology is a female minor nature deity typically associated with a particular location or landform. Different from gods, nymphs are generally regarded as divine spirits who animate nature, and are usually depicted as beautiful, young nubile maidens who love to dance and sing;...
, may be identified as the Minoan Britomartis
Britomartis
Britomartis , was the Minoan goddess of mountains and hunting. She is among the Minoan goddess figures that passed through the Mycenaeans' culture into classical Greek mythology, with transformations that are unclear in both transferrals...
, and has similar functions with the Sumerian Ninhursag
Ninhursag
In Sumerian mythology, Ninhursag or Ninkharsag was the earth and mother goddess, one of the seven great deities of Sumer. She is principally a fertility goddess. Temple hymn sources identify her as the 'true and great lady of heaven' and kings of Sumer were 'nourished by Ninhursag's milk'...
. Poseidon
Poseidon
Poseidon was the god of the sea, and, as "Earth-Shaker," of the earthquakes in Greek mythology. The name of the sea-god Nethuns in Etruscan was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman mythology: both were sea gods analogous to Poseidon...
is the lord of the sea , and therefore of storms and earthquakes, (the "Earth shaker" in Linear B
Linear B
Linear B is a syllabic script that was used for writing Mycenaean Greek, an early form of Greek. It pre-dated the Greek alphabet by several centuries and seems to have died out with the fall of Mycenaean civilization...
tablets ). He may have functioned as a pre-Hellenic chthonic Zeus, the lord or spouse of the Earth goddess. Athena
Athena
In Greek mythology, Athena, Athenê, or Athene , also referred to as Pallas Athena/Athene , is the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, warfare, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts, justice, and skill. Minerva, Athena's Roman incarnation, embodies similar attributes. Athena is...
whose task was to protect the olive-trees is a civic Artemis. The powers of animal nature fostered a belief in nymphs whose existence was bound to the trees and the waters, and in gods with human forms and the heads or tails of animals who stood for primitive bodily insticts. In Arcadia
Arcadia
Arcadia is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the administrative region of Peloponnese. It is situated in the central and eastern part of the Peloponnese peninsula. It takes its name from the mythological character Arcas. In Greek mythology, it was the home of the god Pan...
were depicted animal-headed gods, indicating than in the remote past the gods were conceived as animals and birds, in a surrounding of animal-headed daemons
Daemon (mythology)
The words dæmon and daimôn are Latinized spellings of the Greek "δαίμων", a reference to the daemons of Ancient Greek religion and mythology, as well as later Hellenistic religion and philosophy...
. Later the gods were revealed in human forms with an animal as a companion or symbol. Some of the old gods survived in the cult of Dionysos (Satyrs) and Pan (the goat-god).
The Myceneans adopted probably from the east a priest-king system and the belief of a ruling deity in the hands of a theocratic society. At the end of the second milemnium BC, when the Mycenean city-state collapsed, it seems that the Greek thought was gradually released from the idea that each man was a servant to the gods, and sought a "moral purpose". It is possible that this procedure started before the end of the Mycenean age , but the idea is almost absent or vague in the Homeric poems, where the interference of the gods is not related on the rightness or wrongness of men's actions. Later Hesiod
Hesiod
Hesiod was a Greek oral poet generally thought by scholars to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. His is the first European poetry in which the poet regards himself as a topic, an individual with a distinctive role to play. Ancient authors credited him and...
uses a lot of eastern material in his cosmology
Cosmology
Cosmology is the discipline that deals with the nature of the Universe as a whole. Cosmologists seek to understand the origin, evolution, structure, and ultimate fate of the Universe at large, as well as the natural laws that keep it in order...
and in the genealogical trees of the gods, and he introduces the idea of the existence of something else behind the gods, which was more powerful than they. This is the powerful Fate (Moira
Moirae
The Moirae, Moerae or Moirai , in Greek mythology, were the white-robed incarnations of destiny . Their number became fixed at three...
), who in the Homeric poems is acting in parallel with the gods and predestinates the events. Hesiod complies to the Greek desire of an order in the universe, and tries to bring the gods under a rule comparable to the rule which controls the lives of men. In Greek mythology
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
this power is named Ananke
Ananke (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Ananke, also spelled Anangke, Anance, or Anagke , was the personification of destiny, necessity and fate, depicted as holding a spindle. She marks the beginning of the cosmos, along with Chronos...
(necessity).
The Olympian
Twelve Olympians
The Twelve Olympians, also known as the Dodekatheon , in Greek mythology, were the principal deities of the Greek pantheon, residing atop Mount Olympus. Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Hestia, and Hades were siblings. Ares, Hermes, Hephaestus, Athena, Apollo, and Artemis were children of Zeus...
system is an ordered system . The Greek divinities live with Zeus at their head and each is concerned with a recognizable sphere. However certain elements in some Greek cults indicate the survival of some older cults from a less rationalized world , old cults of the dead, agrarian magic, exorcism of evil spirits, peculiar sacrifices, and animal headed gods, In the Homeric poems the avenging Fate
Moirae
The Moirae, Moerae or Moirai , in Greek mythology, were the white-robed incarnations of destiny . Their number became fixed at three...
was probably originally a daemon , acting in parallel with the gods. Later the cult of Dionysos Zagreus
Zagreus
In ancient Greek religion and myth, the obscure and ancient figure of Zagreus was identified with the god Dionysus and was worshipped by followers of Orphism, whose late Orphic hymns invoke his name....
indicates that life-blood of animals was needed to renew that of men. A similar belief may be guessed from the Mycenean Hagia Triada sarcophagus
Hagia Triada sarcophagus
The Hagia Triada sarcophagus is a late Bronze Age 137 cm-long limestone sarcophagus. It was originally dated to 1400 BC and was rediscovered in Hagia Triada on Crete in 1903...
(1400 BC), which combines features of Minoan civilization
Minoan civilization
The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age civilization that arose on the island of Crete and flourished from approximately the 27th century BC to the 15th century BC. It was rediscovered at the beginning of the 20th century through the work of the British archaeologist Arthur Evans...
and Mycenean style. It seems that the blood of a bull was used for the regeneration of the reappearing dead. Probably most of these cults existed in the Mycenean-age and survived by immemorial practice.
A secondary level of importance was the cult of the heroes, which seems to have started in the Mycenean-age. These were great men of the past, who were exalted after death to honour, because of what they had done. According to an old Minoan
Minoan civilization
The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age civilization that arose on the island of Crete and flourished from approximately the 27th century BC to the 15th century BC. It was rediscovered at the beginning of the 20th century through the work of the British archaeologist Arthur Evans...
belief beyond the sea there was an island called Elysion, where the departured could have a different, but happier existence. Later the Greeks believed that there could live in human form only the heroes, and the beloved of the gods. The souls of the rest were drifting unconsciously in the gloomy space of Hades
Hades
Hades , Hadēs, originally , Haidēs or , Aidēs , meaning "the unseen") was the ancient Greek god of the underworld. The genitive , Haidou, was an elision to denote locality: "[the house/dominion] of Hades". Eventually, the nominative came to designate the abode of the dead.In Greek mythology, Hades...
. Gods and men had common origin, but there was an enormous gap between the immortal gods and the mortal men. However certain elements indicate that the Myceneans probably believed in a future existence. Two well preserved bodies were found in Shaft Grave VI, and Helbig
Helbig
Helbig is surname of:* Allen Helbig , a contemporary American artist, graphic designer, illustrator, animator, photographer* Bradley Helbig* Don Helbig...
believed that an embalming preceded the burial. In the shaft graves discovered by Schliemann the corpses were lightly exposed to fire in order to preserve them
Mycenaean religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
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
Agamemnon
In Greek mythology, Agamemnon was the son of King Atreus and Queen Aerope of Mycenae, the brother of Menelaus, the husband of Clytemnestra, and the father of Electra and Orestes. Mythical legends make him the king of Mycenae or Argos, thought to be different names for the same area...
's sacrifice of his daughter, Iphigenia; several of the stories of Trojan heroes involve tragic human sacrifice. In the far past even human beings might be oferred to placate inscrutable gods, especially in times of guilty fear. Later sacrifice became a feast at which oxen were slaughtered.Men kept the meat, and gave the gods the bones wrapped in fat.
Beyond this speculation we can go no further. Somewhere in the shades of the centuries between the fall of the Mycenaean
Mycenaean Greece
Mycenaean Greece was a cultural period of Bronze Age Greece taking its name from the archaeological site of Mycenae in northeastern Argolis, in the Peloponnese of southern Greece. Athens, Pylos, Thebes, and Tiryns are also important Mycenaean sites...
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
Homer
In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...
. It was the beginning of the religion which later the Greeks considered Hellenic
Greek
Greek may refer to anything related to:*Greece, a country in south-eastern Europe*Greeks, an ethnic group*Greek language, or more specifically:**Mycenaean Greek, **Ancient Greek,...
, and embodies a paradox. Though the world is dominated by a divine power that the gods bestow in different ways on men, nothing but "darkness" lay ahead and life was sometimes frail and unsubstantial.
Perseid dynasty
Perseus
Perseus ,Perseos and Perseas are not used in English. the legendary founder of Mycenae and of the Perseid dynasty of Danaans there, was the first of the mythic heroes of Greek mythology whose exploits in defeating various archaic monsters provided the founding myths of the Twelve Olympians...
, grandson of king Acrisius
Acrisius
Acrisius was a mythical king of Argos, and a son of Abas and Aglaea , grandson of Lynceus, great-grandson of Danaus. His twin brother was Proetus, with whom he is said to have quarreled even in the womb of his mother...
of Argos
Argos
Argos is a city and a former municipality in Argolis, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Argos-Mykines, of which it is a municipal unit. It is 11 kilometres from Nafplion, which was its historic harbour...
, son of Acrisius' daughter, Danaë
Danaë
In Greek mythology, Danaë was a daughter of King Acrisius of Argos and Eurydice of Argos. She was the mother of Perseus by Zeus. She was sometimes credited with founding the city of Ardea in Latium....
. 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 cousin, Megapenthes
Megapenthes
In Greek mythology, Megapénthês is a name that refers to:* A son of Proetus. He exchanged kingdoms with his cousin Perseus, whom he killed much later. He was the father of Argeus and possibly Anaxagoras...
, and became king of Tiryns
Tiryns
Tiryns is a Mycenaean archaeological site in the prefecture of Argolis in the Peloponnese, some kilometres north of Nauplion.-General information:...
, Megapenthes taking Argos. From there he founded Mycenae and ruled the kingdoms jointly from Mycenae.
Perseus married Andromeda
Andromeda (mythology)
Andromeda is a princess from Greek mythology who, as divine punishment for her mother's bragging, the Boast of Cassiopeia, was chained to a rock as a sacrifice to a sea monster. She was saved from death by Perseus, her future husband. Her name is the Latinized form of the Greek Ἀνδρομέδη...
and had many sons but in the course of time went to war with Argos and was slain by Megapenthes. His son, Electryon
Electryon
In Greek mythology, Electryon was the son of Perseus and Andromeda, and king of Tiryns and Mycenae or Medea in Argolis. He married either Anaxo, daughter of his brother Alcaeus and sister of Amphitryon, or Eurydice daughter of Pelops...
, 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
Amphitryon
Amphitryon , in Greek mythology, was a son of Alcaeus, king of Tiryns in Argolis.Amphitryon was a Theban general, who was originally from Tiryns in the eastern part of the Peloponnese. He was friends with Panopeus....
, 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
Sthenelus
In Greek mythology, Sthenelus was a name attributed to several different individuals.*Son of Perseus and Andromeda, and king of Mycenae.*Son of Capaneus and Evadne, he fought alongside Diomedes and the other Argives in the Trojan War and was one of the men who hid in the Trojan horse...
, third in the dynasty, a son of Perseus. He set the stage for future greatness by marrying Nicippe
Nicippe
Nicippe is a name attributed to several women in Greek mythology.*Nicippe, one of the fifty daughters of Thespius and Megamede. She bore Heracles a son, Antimachus....
, a daughter of king Pelops
Pelops
In Greek mythology, Pelops , was king of Pisa in the Peloponnesus. He was the founder of the House of Atreus through his son of that name....
of Elis
Elis
Elis, or Eleia is an ancient district that corresponds with the modern Elis peripheral unit...
, the most powerful state of the region and the times. With her he had a son, Eurystheus
Eurystheus
In Greek mythology, Eurystheus was king of Tiryns, one of three Mycenaean strongholds in the Argolid, although other authors including Homer and Euripides cast him as ruler of Argos: Sthenelus was his father and the "victorious horsewoman" Nicippe his mother, and he was a grandson of the hero...
the fourth and last of the Perseid dynasty. When a son of Heracles
Heracles
Heracles ,born Alcaeus or Alcides , was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson of Perseus...
, Hyllus
Hyllus
In Greek mythology, Hyllus was the son of Heracles and Deianira, husband of Iole, nursed by Abia....
, killed Sthenelus, Eurystheus became noted for his enmity to Heracles and for his ruthless persecution of the Heracleidae
Heracleidae
In Greek mythology, the Heracleidae or Heraclids were the numerous descendants of Heracles , especially applied in a narrower sense to the descendants of Hyllus, the eldest of his four sons by Deianira Other Heracleidae included Macaria, Lamos, Manto, Bianor, Tlepolemus, and Telephus...
, the descendants of Heracles.
This is the first we hear in legend of those noted sons, who became a symbol of the 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
Atreus
In Greek mythology, Atreus was a king of Mycenae, the son of Pelops and Hippodamia, and the father of Agamemnon and Menelaus. Collectively, his descendants are known as Atreidai or Atreidae....
, a Pelopid, on the throne.
Atreid dynasty
The people of Mycenae had received advice from an oracleOracle
In Classical Antiquity, an oracle was a person or agency considered to be a source of wise counsel or prophetic predictions or precognition of the future, inspired by the gods. As such it is a form of divination....
that they should choose a new king from among the Pelopids. The two contenders were Atreus
Atreus
In Greek mythology, Atreus was a king of Mycenae, the son of Pelops and Hippodamia, and the father of Agamemnon and Menelaus. Collectively, his descendants are known as Atreidai or Atreidae....
and his brother, Thyestes
Thyestes
In Greek mythology, Thyestes was the son of Pelops and Hippodamia, King of Olympia, and father of Pelopia and Aegisthus. Thyestes and his twin brother, Atreus, were exiled by their father for having murdered their half-brother, Chrysippus, in their desire for the throne of Olympia...
. The latter was chosen at first. At this moment nature intervened. The sun appeared to reverse direction and set in the east. Atreus argued that because the sun had reversed its path, the election of Thyestes should be reversed. The argument was heeded, and Atreus became king. His first move was to pursue Thyestes and all his family - that is, his own kin - but Thyestes managed to escape from Mycenae.
Agamemnon
In Greek mythology, Agamemnon was the son of King Atreus and Queen Aerope of Mycenae, the brother of Menelaus, the husband of Clytemnestra, and the father of Electra and Orestes. Mythical legends make him the king of Mycenae or Argos, thought to be different names for the same area...
and Menelaus
Menelaus
Menelaus may refer to;*Menelaus, one of the two most known Atrides, a king of Sparta and son of Atreus and Aerope*Menelaus on the Moon, named after Menelaus of Alexandria.*Menelaus , brother of Ptolemy I Soter...
, the Atreids. Aegisthus
Aegisthus
In Greek mythology, Aegisthus was the son of Thyestes and of Thyestes' daughter, Pelopia....
, the son of Thyestes, killed Atreus and restored Thyestes to the throne. With the help of King Tyndareus
Tyndareus
In Greek mythology, Tyndareus or Tyndareos was a Spartan king, son of Oebalus and Gorgophone , husband of Leda and father of Helen, Castor and Polydeuces, Clytemnestra, Timandra, Phoebe and Philonoe.Tyndareus had a brother named Hippocoon , who seized power and exiled Tyndareus...
of Sparta
Sparta
Sparta or Lacedaemon, was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. It emerged as a political entity around the 10th century BC, when the invading Dorians subjugated the local, non-Dorian population. From c...
, the Atreids drove Thyestes again into exile. Tyndareus had two ill-starred daughters, Helen and Clytemnestra
Clytemnestra
Clytemnestra or Clytaemnestra , in ancient Greek legend, was the wife of Agamemnon, king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Mycenae or Argos. In the Oresteia by Aeschylus, she was a femme fatale who murdered her husband, Agamemnon – said by Euripides to be her second husband – and the Trojan princess...
, whom Menelaus and Agamemnon married, respectively. Agamemnon inherited Mycenae and Menelaus became king of Sparta.
Paris (mythology)
Paris , the son of Priam, king of Troy, appears in a number of Greek legends. Probably the best-known was his elopement with Helen, queen of Sparta, this being one of the immediate causes of the Trojan War...
of Troy
Troy
Troy was a city, both factual and legendary, located in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey, southeast of the Dardanelles and beside Mount Ida...
. Agamemnon conducted a 10-year war against Troy to get her back for his brother. Because of lack of wind, the warships could not sail to Troy
Troy
Troy was a city, both factual and legendary, located in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey, southeast of the Dardanelles and beside Mount Ida...
. In order to please the gods so that they might make the winds start to blow, Agamemnon
Agamemnon
In Greek mythology, Agamemnon was the son of King Atreus and Queen Aerope of Mycenae, the brother of Menelaus, the husband of Clytemnestra, and the father of Electra and Orestes. Mythical legends make him the king of Mycenae or Argos, thought to be different names for the same area...
sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia. According to some versions of the legend, the hunting goddess Artemis
Artemis
Artemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Her Roman equivalent is Diana. Some scholars believe that the name and indeed the goddess herself was originally pre-Greek. Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron: "Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals"...
replaced her at the very last moment with a deer
Deer
Deer are the ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. Species in the Cervidae family include white-tailed deer, elk, moose, red deer, reindeer, fallow deer, roe deer and chital. Male deer of all species and female reindeer grow and shed new antlers each year...
on the altar, and took Iphigenia to Tauris (See Iphigenia en Tauris by Euripides
Euripides
Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him but according to the Suda it was ninety-two at most...
). 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; already before the Greek fleet set sail for Troy, the conflict had divided the gods as well, and this contributed to curses and acts of vengeance following many of the Greek heroes. After the war, Agamemnon
Agamemnon
In Greek mythology, Agamemnon was the son of King Atreus and Queen Aerope of Mycenae, the brother of Menelaus, the husband of Clytemnestra, and the father of Electra and Orestes. Mythical legends make him the king of Mycenae or Argos, thought to be different names for the same area...
, returning, was greeted royally with a red carpet rolled out for him and then was slain in his bathtub by Clytemnestra
Clytemnestra
Clytemnestra or Clytaemnestra , in ancient Greek legend, was the wife of Agamemnon, king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Mycenae or Argos. In the Oresteia by Aeschylus, she was a femme fatale who murdered her husband, Agamemnon – said by Euripides to be her second husband – and the Trojan princess...
, who hated him bitterly for having ordered the sacrifice of their daughter Iphigenia (although the life of the latter had been saved). Clytemnestra was aided in her crime by Aegistheus, who reigned subsequently, but Orestes
Orestes (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Orestes was the son of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon. He is the subject of several Ancient Greek plays and of various myths connected with his madness and purification, which retain obscure threads of much older ones....
, son of Agamemnon, was smuggled out to Phocis
Phocis
Phocis is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the administrative region of Central Greece. It stretches from the western mountainsides of Parnassus on the east to the mountain range of Vardousia on the west, upon the Gulf of Corinth...
. He returned as an adult to slay Clytemnestra and Aegistheus. He then fled to Athens to evade justice and a matricide, and became insane for a time. Meanwhile, the throne of Mycenae went to Aletes
Aletes
Aletes may refer to:* Aletes , the Greek mythology figure who was killed by Orestes* Aletes , a Trojan counselor depicted in the Aeneid.* Aletes, son of Hippotes* Aletes, son of Icarius* Aletes, the plant genus...
, 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
Arcadia
Arcadia is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the administrative region of Peloponnese. It is situated in the central and eastern part of the Peloponnese peninsula. It takes its name from the mythological character Arcas. In Greek mythology, it was the home of the god Pan...
from a snake
Snake
Snakes are elongate, legless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes that can be distinguished from legless lizards by their lack of eyelids and external ears. Like all squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales...
bite. His son, Tisamenus
Tisamenus
Tisamenus or Tissamenus in Greek mythology, was a son of Orestes and Hermione. He succeeded his father to the thrones of Argos, Mycenae and Sparta and was later killed in the final battle with the Heracleidae. The latter were led by Aristodemus, Cresphontes, Oxylus, Temenus and sought to retake...
, the last of the Atreid dynasty, was killed by the Heracleidae
Heracleidae
In Greek mythology, the Heracleidae or Heraclids were the numerous descendants of Heracles , especially applied in a narrower sense to the descendants of Hyllus, the eldest of his four sons by Deianira Other Heracleidae included Macaria, Lamos, Manto, Bianor, Tlepolemus, and Telephus...
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. Whatever the historical realities reflected in these stories, the Atreids are firmly set in the epoch near the end of the Heroic age, leading up to the arrival of the Dorians. There are no established stories of a royal house at Mycenae later than the Atreids, and this could reflect the fact that not much more than fifty or sixty years seem to have separated the fall of Troy VIIa (the likely inspiration of Homeric Troy) and the fall of Mycenae.
Atreids in Asia Minor
In fact, there was a total eclipse of the sun in the AegeanAegean Sea
The Aegean Sea[p] is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus...
on March 5, 1223 BC, which Atreus might have twisted into a setting of the sun in the east. This date does not solve all the unknowns, however.
A late date is implied for the Trojan War
Trojan War
In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta. The war is among the most important events in Greek mythology and was narrated in many works of Greek literature, including the Iliad...
, which would, in that case, have been against Troy
Troy
Troy was a city, both factual and legendary, located in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey, southeast of the Dardanelles and beside Mount Ida...
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
Amenhotep III
Amenhotep III also known as Amenhotep the Magnificent was the ninth pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty. According to different authors, he ruled Egypt from June 1386 to 1349 BC or June 1388 BC to December 1351 BC/1350 BC after his father Thutmose IV died...
. 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
Danaë
In Greek mythology, Danaë was a daughter of King Acrisius of Argos and Eurydice of Argos. She was the mother of Perseus by Zeus. She was sometimes credited with founding the city of Ardea in Latium....
, 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 tablet
Clay tablet
In the Ancient Near East, clay tablets were used as a writing medium, especially for writing in cuneiform, throughout the Bronze Age and well into the Iron Age....
s over the century, is probably Achaiwia, reconstructed Mycenaean Greek for Achaea
Achaea
Achaea is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of West Greece. It is situated in the northwestern part of the Peloponnese peninsula. The capital is Patras. The population exceeds 300,000 since 2001.-Geography:...
. The Hittites did not use Danaja as did the Egyptians, even though the first Ahhiya reference in "Indictment of Madduwatta
Madduwatta
Madduwatta was a king of Arzawa, in Anatolia, about 14th or 13th century BC.- Life :Perhaps, Madduwatta was first a local king of a Lukka city-state at coast of southwestern Asia Minor.He faced a struggle, in the Lukka Lands , against a "man from Ahhiya" Madduwatta (sometimes given as...
" precedes the correspondence between Amenhotep III
Amenhotep III
Amenhotep III also known as Amenhotep the Magnificent was the ninth pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty. According to different authors, he ruled Egypt from June 1386 to 1349 BC or June 1388 BC to December 1351 BC/1350 BC after his father Thutmose IV died...
and one of Madduwatta
Madduwatta
Madduwatta was a king of Arzawa, in Anatolia, about 14th or 13th century BC.- Life :Perhaps, Madduwatta was first a local king of a Lukka city-state at coast of southwestern Asia Minor.He faced a struggle, in the Lukka Lands , against a "man from Ahhiya" Madduwatta (sometimes given as...
's subsequent successors in Arzawa
Arzawa
Arzawa in the second half of the second millennium BC was the name of a region and a political entity in Western Anatolia, the core area of which was centered on the Hermos and Maeander river valleys, corresponding with the Late Bronze Age kingdoms of the...
, 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" (i.e. 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, i.e. Cyprus
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
.
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
Miletus
Miletus was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia , near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Caria...
, settling on the coast of Anatolia
Anatolia
Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey...
, and competed with the Hittites for influence and control in western Anatolia
Anatolia
Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey...
. For instance Uhha-Ziti's Arzawa and through him Manapa-Tarhunta
Manapa-Tarhunta
Manapa-Tarhunta was a king in western Anatolia during the Late Bronze Age. Manapa-Tarhunta is known through the archives of the kings of Hattusas.He was a younger son of King Muwa-Walwis of the Seha River Land, born ca. the 1330s BC....
'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
Tawagalawa letter
The Tawagalawa letter was written by a Hittite king to a king of Ahhiyawa around 1250 BC. This letter, of which only the third tablet has been preserved, concerns the activities of an adventurer Piyama-Radu against the Hittites, and requests his extradition to Hatti under assurances of safe conduct...
to the Great King of Ahhiyawa, concerning the depredations of the Luwiyan adventurer Piyama-Radu
Piyama-Radu
Piyamaradu was a warlike aristocratic personage whose name figures prominently in the Hittite archives of the middle and late 13th century BC in western Anatolia. His history is of particular interest because it appears to intertwine with that of the Trojan War...
. Neither of the names of the great kings are stated; the Hittite king could be either Muwatalli II
Muwatalli II
Muwatalli II was a king of the New kingdom of the Hittite empire .- Biography :He was the eldest son of Mursili II and Queen Gassulawiya, and he had several siblings....
or his brother Hattusili III
Hattusili III
Hattusili III was a king of the Hittite empire ca. 1267–1237 BC . He was the fourth and last son of Mursili II...
, 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
Muwatalli II
Muwatalli II was a king of the New kingdom of the Hittite empire .- Biography :He was the eldest son of Mursili II and Queen Gassulawiya, and he had several siblings....
(reg. 1296–1272) makes a treaty with Alaksandu (possibly Alexander), king of Wilusa (Ilium); and another document has Wilusa swearing by Appaliuna (Apollo
Apollo
Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...
). But the Alaksandu of the treaty is too early to be king of a city assaulted by Agamemnon, and besides, Priam
Priam
Priam was the king of Troy during the Trojan War and youngest son of Laomedon. Modern scholars derive his name from the Luwian compound Priimuua, which means "exceptionally courageous".- Marriage and issue :...
was king of that city.
Excavation
Heinrich Schliemann
Heinrich Schliemann was a German businessman and amateur archaeologist, and an advocate of the historical reality of places mentioned in the works of Homer. Schliemann was an archaeological excavator of Troy, along with the Mycenaean sites Mycenae and Tiryns...
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 skeleton
Skeleton
The skeleton is the body part that forms the supporting structure of an organism. There are two different skeletal types: the exoskeleton, which is the stable outer shell of an organism, and the endoskeleton, which forms the support structure inside the body.In a figurative sense, skeleton can...
s and spectacular grave goods. Upon discovering a human skull beneath a gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
death mask
Death mask
In Western cultures a death mask is a wax or plaster cast made of a person’s face following death. Death masks may be mementos of the dead, or be used for creation of portraits...
in one of the tombs, he declared: "I have gazed upon the face of Agamemnon
Mask of Agamemnon
The Mask of Agamemnon is an artifact discovered at Mycenae in 1876 by Heinrich Schliemann. The artifact is a funeral mask hewn in gold, and was found over the face of a body located in a burial shaft...
".
Since Schliemann's day more scientific excavations have taken place at Mycenae, mainly by Greek archaeologists but also by the British School at Athens
British School at Athens
The British School at Athens is one of the 17 Foreign Archaeological Institutes in Athens, Greece.-General information:The School was founded in 1886 as the fourth such institution in Greece...
. The acropolis was excavated in 1902, and the surrounding hills have been methodically investigated by subsequent excavations.
The Athens Archaeological Society is currently excavating the Mycenae Lower Town (as of 2011), with support from Dickinson College
Dickinson College
Dickinson College is a private, residential liberal arts college in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Originally established as a Grammar School in 1773, Dickinson was chartered September 9, 1783, five days after the signing of the Treaty of Paris, making it the first college to be founded in the newly...
and the Institute for Aegean Prehistory.
See also
- AgamemnonAgamemnonIn Greek mythology, Agamemnon was the son of King Atreus and Queen Aerope of Mycenae, the brother of Menelaus, the husband of Clytemnestra, and the father of Electra and Orestes. Mythical legends make him the king of Mycenae or Argos, thought to be different names for the same area...
- PerseusPerseusPerseus ,Perseos and Perseas are not used in English. the legendary founder of Mycenae and of the Perseid dynasty of Danaans there, was the first of the mythic heroes of Greek mythology whose exploits in defeating various archaic monsters provided the founding myths of the Twelve Olympians...
- Ancient GreeceAncient GreeceAncient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
- Mycenaean GreeceMycenaean GreeceMycenaean Greece was a cultural period of Bronze Age Greece taking its name from the archaeological site of Mycenae in northeastern Argolis, in the Peloponnese of southern Greece. Athens, Pylos, Thebes, and Tiryns are also important Mycenaean sites...
- Aegean CivilizationAegean civilizationAegean civilization is a general term for the Bronze Age civilizations of Greece around the Aegean Sea. There are three distinct but communicating and interacting geographic regions covered by this term: Crete, the Cyclades and the Greek mainland. Crete is associated with the Minoan civilization...
- National Archaeological Museum of AthensNational Archaeological Museum of AthensThe National Archaeological Museum in Athens houses some of the most important artifacts from a variety of archaeological locations around Greece from prehistory to late antiquity. It is considered one of the great museums in the world and contains the richest collection of artifacts from Greek...