Mycenae

The walls of Mycenae are made of enormous rocks.

The stones are so big that it is hard to believe people lifted them. But they did! A long stairway in a tunnel goes down to a spring of water.

Mycenae's builders surrounded the hilltop with walls of huge, roughly shaped stone blocks. Later Greeks called walls like these 'Cyclopean', a word from their old poems, because the stones seemed too big for people to move. But people did build them.

In the 1200s BCE, the walls were made bigger, and a new gate, a ramp and a grand staircase were added. The builders also made a tunnel through the rock, with 86 steps leading 18 meters down to an underground spring. Some experts think these changes show that the people of Mycenae were worried about their safety.

The citadel was ringed with fortification walls of large, roughly worked blocks, the masonry UNESCO calls Cyclopean, a word from the Homeric epics; at Tiryns, 20 km away, comparable walls reach 8 m thick and 13 m high. Inside, a road 3.6 m wide led from the Lion Gate up a ramp supported by a five-terraced wall to the palace, with its great court, a staircase of 22 steps and more, and a megaron with a round plaster hearth and painted floors.

After damage in the late 13th century BCE, the World History Encyclopedia notes, a monumental staircase, the North Gate and a ramp were added, and the walls were extended to enclose the spring, reached by a corbelled tunnel of 86 steps descending 18 m. Some scholars read these works as signs of concern with security. Britannica records the 'granary', built in the 13th century BCE beside the Cyclopean wall, named for the carbonized barley, wheat and vetch found in its basement.

The way in is through the Lion Gate.

Two stone lions stand above the door. Outside the walls are huge round tombs, shaped like beehives. Inside one is a tall stone dome.

The main way into the citadel is the Lion Gate, built around 1250 BCE. Its doorway is about 3 meters wide and 3 meters tall, and the stone across the top, the lintel, weighs about 18 tons. Above it, two carved lions about 3 meters tall stand on either side of a column.

Outside the walls are tholos tombs, round stone tombs shaped like beehives. The most famous, called the Treasury of Atreus, has a stone dome 13.5 meters high. Builders made the dome by laying rings of stone, each a little smaller than the one below, until they met at the top. A long open corridor, 36 meters long, leads to its door.

Britannica dates the Lion Gate to about 1250 BCE; the World History Encyclopedia gives a doorway about 3 by 3 m, a lintel of about 18 tons and two heraldic lions about 3 m high flanking a column. UNESCO counts the walls, the corbelled tholos tombs and the Lion Gate among the stages of monumental architecture still visible.

The most celebrated tholos, traditionally called the Treasury of Atreus, is a circular chamber roofed by a corbelled dome 13.5 m high and 14.6 m across, approached by an unroofed walled passage, the dromos, 36 m long and 6 m wide. Corbelling builds a dome from rings of masonry, each projecting slightly inward beyond the one below, until they close at the top. UNESCO names the Lion Gate and the Treasury of Atreus as outstanding examples of human creative genius.

Archaeologists found treasure at Mycenae.

There were gold masks, cups and crowns. They also found clay tablets with very old Greek writing on them.

Digging at Mycenae began in the 1840s. In 1876, the archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann dug inside the walls and found a circle of graves full of treasure, now called Grave Circle A. There were five gold masks, gold crowns, rings, cups and decorated bronze daggers, more than 15 kilograms of gold objects in all.

In 1952, archaeologists found clay tablets in houses outside the walls. They were written in a script called Linear B. An English architect named Michael Ventris worked out that Linear B is an early form of Greek, the oldest written Greek known.

Systematic excavation began in 1840, according to Britannica, or 1841 under the Archaeological Society of Athens, according to the World History Encyclopedia. In 1876 Heinrich Schliemann uncovered the shaft graves of Grave Circle A, with over 15 kg of gold objects: among the site's celebrated finds are five beaten gold burial masks, gold diadems, carved rings, cups, a lion-head rhyton and bronze daggers inlaid with scenes. Schliemann linked one mask to a king from Homer's poems; that attribution is now considered incorrect.

In 1952 excavation of the 'house of the oil merchant' and 'house of the wine merchant' outside the walls produced tablets in Linear B, a script first found at Knossos, which the architect and cryptographer Michael Ventris showed to be an early form of Greek. UNESCO calls these tablets the first testimonies of the Greek language.