Heinrich Schliemann, a nineteenth century excavator and explorer, was famous for seeking, and finding, the locations of the great myth cycles of the Greeks. He discovered and excavated Troy, and after that triumph he moved on to the great Bronze Age city of the Argolid, Mycenae. He wanted to excavate the city of Atreus and Agamemnon, to reveal the splendor of the period. Ultimately, Schliemann wanted to prove to the world that the stories of Greek epic and tragedy were more than imagined stories, but based on a real period, real places, and real events. At, Mycenae he succeeded.

The first excavations uncovered an immense citadel, surrounded by thick walls built of enormous boulders. The remains of the palace of Mycenae were badly damaged, but their grandeur was obvious. Schliemann excavated tombs of incredible wealth, filled with priceless artifacts. After the discovery of a once great occupation of the city of Mycenae, Schliemann and other scholars began searching at other sites famous in myth and legend. At nearly every site they excavated, Pylos, Tiryns, and Thebes, excavators found similar fortified cities, similarly laid out palaces, and similar styles of art and other artifacts. This culture, thus, came to be known as the Mycenaean culture, named for its most famous and infamous city, Mycenae.

The Mycenaeans were the second of the complex Bronze Age civilizations in the Aegean, and owe a great deal of their culture to their predecessors, the Minoans of Crete (see Minoan Culture). Unlike the Minoans, however, the Mycenaeans left behind numerous documents in their written language, Linear B, which have now been deciphered and translated. These texts record the economic transactions and other activities of every day life in the Mycenaean palaces. A combination of evidence from these texts and archaeological excavation has revealed a great deal of the Mycenaean culture. It is fairly certain that from their earliest days, the Mycenaean cites were organized into separate kingdoms each ruled from a highly fortified city, or citadel. From the large number of weapons found in excavations and within tombs, the Mycenaeans are traditionally thought to have been a very warlike people, spreading their influence through conquest. There is evidence for Mycenaean forays into the Eastern Mediterranean, though not approaching the frequency or intensity of those of the Minoans. The Mycenaeans are known to have had contact with the Egyptians, and most likely also with the Hittites of Asia Minor. Like the Minoan civilization, Mycenaean dominance was short-lived. They rose to prominence with the decline of the Minoan centers in the fourteenth century BCE, and dominated the Aegean for only a few centuries. By 1200 BCE, their reign of power was coming to an end and several palaces show evidence of damage and abandonment. There were small attempts at reviving the Mycenaean culture after the initial blow, but by about 1050 BCE the structure of the Mycenaean culture had completely collapsed, and Greece slipped into what was known as the Dark Age.

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Chronology of the Mycenaean Age

Early Helladic c. 3000-2000 BCE
Middle Helladic c. 2000-1675 BCE
Late Helladic I and II (Early Mycenaean) c. 1675-1425 BCE
Late Helladic IIIA (Early Mycenaean) c. 1425- 1340 BCE
Late Helladic IIIB (Mycenaean) c. 1340-1190 BCE
Late Helladic IIIC and Sub-Mycenaean c. 1190-1020 BCE

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References

Biers, William R. ‘’The Archaeology of Greece’’. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996.
Dickinson, Oliver. ‘’The Aegean Bronze Age’’. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Mylonas, George E. ‘’Mycenae and the Mycenaean Age’’. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966.
Vermeule, Emily. ‘’Greece in the Bronze Age’’. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1964.

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Other aspects of Mycenaean archaeology
Mycenaean Chronology
Mycenaean Architecture
Mycenaean Art
Mycenaean Society and Way of Life
Mycenaean Religion
Mycenaean History and Development
Significant Sites of the Mycenaeans
Legacy of the Mycenaeans

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Bronze Age, Greece
Greek Archaeology