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Mycenaean Civilization

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Mycenaean is the name given to the Bronze Age civilization centered on the Greek mainland from c. 1600 BC to c. 1100 BC. It is named after the fortified city of Mycenae that dominated the Peloponnesian peninsula (southern Greece). As with Sir Arthur Evans and the Minoan civilization, Heinrich Schliemann (1822–1890) ignited interest in Mycenaean civilization, when he began excavations on the site of ancient Mycenae in 1874. Schliemann had already conducted excavations on the site of ancient Troy in 1871.

Schliemann was a wealthy German businessman who retired at age 36 and began a second career as an amateur archeologist. Schliemann's interest in Mycenaean Greece began in early childhood. His father told him tales from the Iliad and Odyssey and gave him an illustrated world history when he was seven. Schliemann later recalled his fascination with a picture of Troy in flames, and claimed that he decided when he was eight, that he would one day dig up the ancient city of Troy. He realized his dream in 1871–1873, when he excavated Hisarlik (“Place of Fortresses”) on the Aegean cost of modern Turkey, 4 miles (6.5 km) from the Dardanelles.

In 1876, Schliemann turned his attention to Mycenae. He believed in the historicity of Homer's Iliad. Using the Iliad as a guide, along with Description of Greece, by Pausanias (d. 180 AD), a second‐century AD geographer, Schliemann searched for the grave of King Agamemnon of Mycenae who commanded the Greek forces in the siege of Troy. Schliemann excavated several shaft graves that he believed dated from the time of the Trojan Wars. The graves contained eight men, nine women and two children, together with some of the most impressive archeological treasures ever found.

The bodies were accompanied by precious metals and jewels. The faces of five of the bodies were covered with funeral masks made of gold, one of which Schliemann identified as the mask of Agamemnon. He felt that he had accomplished his lifelong dream of proving that the Trojan Wars were an actual historical event, not just myth. What Schliemann unearthed was not, as he thought, from the period of the Trojan Wars, but from a much earlier period. Nevertheless, his discoveries captured the imagination of Europe like nothing else until the discovery of King Tut's tomb by Howard Carter in 1922.

Unlike the Minoan Civilization centered on Crete, Mycenaean Greece was a warrior culture. There was no unified state, or kingdom. Instead, there were a number of “power centers,” including Mycenae, Pylos, Tiryns, Thebes, Athens, Sparta, and other fortress cities in southern and central Greece. There were other differences between the two that make it difficult to differentiate the cultural diffusion between them.

Mycenaean Civilization peaked between c. 1300 BC and 1200 BC. Though a warrior society, the Mycenaeans enjoyed many of the comforts found among the Minoans. Excavations at Pylos on the Mediterranean coast of the Peloponnesus revealed a royal palace with many of the distinctive features of the palace at Knossos. The “Palace of Nestor,” named after King Nestor in Homer's Odyssey, included wall paintings, storerooms, light wells, a sewage system, and a royal bathroom with bathtub and plumbing.

Sometime around the middle of the fifteenth century BC, the Mycenaeans conquered Crete and, as a result, came under the influence of Minoan culture. Perhaps most important for modern archeologists was the appearance of a new writing system referred to by scholars as Linear B Script. It uses the Minoan Linear A Script to write Mycenaean Greek, the earliest form of the Greek language. Linear B was used almost exclusively in the palaces for administrative purposes. It ceased to be used after the collapse of the Bronze Age civilizations between c. 1200 BC and 1150 BC.


Figure 2.1 Map of ancient Greece.

Western Civilization

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