Shane Roosa on Mycenae

Mycenae, The Ancient Citadel

This was my first time at Mycenae, and I was very excited because I had read so much about it in the past. Getting off the bus and seeing it for the first time was like walking into Disneyworld for the first time as a child. I was struck by the level of defensibility of the site. It’s situated on a high hilltop wedged into the cleft of a steep ravine with mountains guarding its northern approaches. The ancients fortified the hilltop further with successive stages of massive sets of circuit walls, with only a single gate (called the Lion Gate, as there is a massive triangular stone relief of a column flanked by two lions above the lintel) to enter by. It was quite imposing to walk through, and there would have been no doubt for the ancients as they entered how wealthy and powerful its owners were. From the top of the hill where the royal palace stood, nearly the entire Argolid is visible all the way out to the sea, including the rival city of Argos. It would have been nearly impossible to approach Mycenae with an army or fleet and remain undetected. To quote one of the instructors (who was in turn quoting a prior student): “It’s easy to see why Agamemnon thought he could rule the world from here.”

The famous “Lion Gate” at Mycenae. Click here to see exact location!

The Myths

According to myth, the city of Mycenae was founded by the demigod Perseus, who is credited with both slaying the Gorgon Medusa and a sea-serpent sent by Poseidon to destroy “Aethiopia.” It was believed that Perseus used the giant Cyclopes to build the massive walls of the city, as it seemed no man could lift such enormous stones. To this day the walls are called Cyclopean Walls, and that is the name given to architecture made of large unworked or minimally worked stone blocks with no mortar. Mycenae was also supposedly the seat of the great King Agamemnon, ruler of the Achaean Greeks in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.

The History

The site was inhabited going back to approximately 5000 BCE but was likely fortified starting around 1700 BCE and it became the fortress it is today around 1350 BCE, during the golden age of Mycenaean civilization. The Mycenaeans were an ancient, war-like, Greek-speaking people who wrote in a script called Linear B which is completely unrelated to the modern or classical Greek alphabets. The Mycenaeans were the undisputed masters of Greece from about 1500 BCE until the Bronze Age collapse in about 1200 BCE, though there is evidence at Mycenae that it was inhabited until around 1100 BCE. After the Bronze Age collapse and the abandonment of Mycenae, the use of Linear B ceased entirely and the Greeks were illiterate until the emergence of the classical Greek alphabet sometime in the 8th century BCE.

The Site

In addition to the citadel and its famous walls, the site is also home to grave circles (circular, open-topped monumental architecture surrounding pit, cist, and shaft graves containing multiple burials and grave goods), several well-preserved Tholos tombs (beehive-shaped massive dome structures built into hills, that also housed pit, cist, and shaft graves and contained multiple burials and grave goods), the remains of a small village or workshop district outside the citadel referred to as “The Lower Town”, and a modern museum showcasing archaeological artefacts uncovered at the site.

One of the grave circles at Mycenae.

Tholos tomb.