GREECE
PELOPONNESE
ARGOLIS
MYCENAE
ACROPOLIS
2024-12-02
Prolog
Mythical founder of Mycenae was Perseus, son of Zeus and Danae. Together with the Cyclopes he fortified the acropolis ("Cyclopean walls"). When some generations later Atreus was king of Mycenae, he slaughtered the children of his brother Thyestes and served them to Thyestes during a banquet. For this Atreus was killed by Aegisthus, son of Thyestes, but the dynasty of the Atreides remained under a curse.
Agamemnon, son of Atreus and supreme commander of the Greeks in the Trojan War, was slain after his return from Troy by his wife Klytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus. The murderers were then killed by Orestes, son of Agamemnon and Klytemnestra, joined by his sister Elektra in an act of blood feud. After the matricide, Orestes was haunted by the Erinyes until he was acquitted of blood-guiltiness by the Areopag.
So far the blood-drenched mythology of Mycenae. It is fascinating, however, that many of these legends have a true historical background - even if the details are often confusing, doubtful and full of chronological problems.
Located on a low hilltop, not very significant from some distance, with natural defenses and sufficient water supply, about half-way between the Argolic Gulf and Corinth and controlling the pass to the Isthmus, Mycenae was the site of a small settlement already in Neolithic times (ca. 3000 - 2800 BC). It was however relatively insignificant until the second millenium BC, when the Achaeans invaded from the North (or from elsewhere) and made Mycenae the capital of a powerful empire. From ca. 1600 BC, relations exist to Minoan Crete and to Egypt. The culmination was then reached in the 14th century BC, when Mycenaean civilization emerged as a world power.
Since ca. 1600 BC, twenty large shaft graves were built in Mycenae for members of the royal family. The first tholos tombs were constructed in the following century until ca. 1300 BC, showing a steady development and increasing architectural perfection. In ca. 1350 BC, the Cyclopean enceinte and the famous Lion Gate were built, the palace and other buildings were enlarged and by 1200 BC reached their final form.
When visiting Mycenae, one cannot avoid to think of Homer and his description of the last great period of this civilization. There are indeed indications that the story of the siege of a maritime city belongs to Mycenaean tradition since the 16th century BC. Later generations modified and elaborated this story until Homer's epic obtained its final form long after the time when Troy was conquered under the leadership of a Mycenaean king.
The total decline of this civilization ca. 1100 BC in the whole region is difficult to understand and may be due to a combination of several causes.
First excavations were undertaken in 1874 - 76 by Heinrich Schliemann, who discovered the first "Grave Circle" in Mycenae with unbelievably rich grave goods (now exhibited in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens). He was followed by P. Stamatakis (1877) and C. Tsountas (1884-1902). Further excavations and restorations were conducted since 1920 by the British School of Archaeology and the Greek Archaeological Society. They are continuing until today.
Together with the citadel of Tiryns, Mycenae was declared World Heritage of Culture by the UNESCO in 1999. Meanwhile measures are taken to channel the really large number of visitors so that parts of the acropolis are no longer open to the public.
Below: The acropolis seen from the "Treasury of Atreus" in 2021 after a great fire had destroyed the vegetation beneath the city walls.
Above and below: When Heinrich Schliemann came here in 1876 to excavate ancient Mycenae he had a room in this house, then the largest in the village. Wilhelm Dörpfeld and generations of archaeologists followed, so the house was established in the 1890's as the hotel "la Belle Helene". Since then, many celebrities stayed here, like Jean-Paul Sartre, Claude Debussy, William Faulkner, Henry Miller, Agatha Christie ... The guestbook looks like a Who's Who of the cultural world. - Heinrich Schliemann suggested not only the name for the hotel but also the Homeric inscription above the entrance that reads "Hail stranger, you will be welcome here" - Telemachus' greeting to a disguised Athena in the Odyssey.
