Mycenaean Civilization

Around 1500 B.C. another civilization succeeded the Minoan Crete as the political, economic and cultural superpower of the Aegean region, with Mycenae as its major city. It is a civilization, described by Homer, who immortalized it in the Iliad and in the Odyssey, as being "rich in gold". The best-preserved remains are the citadels of Mycenae and Tiryns, with other remains of this civilization also in Vaphio, Pylos, Orchomenos, Iolkos and other areas. The impressive fortification walls, built to protect them against tribes, characterize not only their architecture, but also their lives. The monumental strong walls, made of megaliths, were called Cyclopean and imagined, by later Greeks, to have been built by Cyclops. The walls of Tiryns, the birthplace of Hercules, were described by Pausanias as spectacular and impressive as the pyramids of Egypt.

The citadel of Mycenae, which came to light by Heinrich Schliemann, reflects a powerful and splendid culture that became the center of this civilization. Homer says that the wanax (King Agamemnon) of the city controlled the area of Corinth, part of Achaia and many Aegean islands. Agamemnon participated in the Trojan expedition with one hundred ships. The strong fortification restricts the expansion of the city and requires a pre-planned design. The elasticity of the additive method of construction, employed by the Minoans, has no room here. The amorphous and accidental Minoan design is being replaced by a more organized, functional and rigid plan. The entrance to the city is based on a simple post and lintel idea with a triangular opening filled with a lighter slab-to relieve the weight-decorated with the image of two lions in a heraldic position flanking a column (reference to the Minoan ceremonial image of the column). It serves as the first example of monumental sculpture adjusted on an architectural structure that we find in Greece. The main structure, which becomes the basis for all future Greek architecture, the Megaron, a rectangular post and lintel building, fronted by a two-columned porch with a vestibule and a hall, is the main characteristic of the Mycenaean architecture. Other important constructions are the grave circles, which include a number of shaft graves and the dome-shaped masonry tombs - the beehive or tholos. Most impressive is the "Treasury of Atreus" as Schliemann named it. A long passage, the dromos, leads into the forty feet high, circular structure of corbeled courses of stone, a predecessor to the roman Pantheon.

The rich findings of portable art describe a civilization completely different from the Minoan. The depiction of war and hunting scenes on pottery and daggers reflect the life of heroes and battles described in the Homeric epics. The beaten gold (repousse) death masks, an early attempt of a portrait, convey their love for the realistic recording of the facial characteristics. Around 1200 B.C., the Mycenaean hegemony ceased to exist. The impressive and strong palaces were ruined and their connections with distant civilizations came to an end.

More Prehistoric Greek Civillizations

The island of Crete was the center of a great civilization, the first western-european civilization, known as the Minoan, which reached its zenith by 2000/1500 B.C.

The Mycenaean civilization came to an abrupt end, in an obscure way, in c. 1200, after the Trojan War, with the destruction of its power centers and the dispersing of their population over the Aegean and Asia Minor.