When Homer (c.750 BC) wrote the stories of Achilles, Agamemnon, Menelaus and Odysseus in the Iliad and the Odyssey, he called them Achaeans, Danaans or Argives: the name ‘Mycenaean’ is a modern invention. Homer’s heroes were generally accepted as historical until in the nineteenth century scholars began to dismiss them as legends. Heinrich Schliemann (1822-90) believed that the cities described by Homer had once existed and his excavations and discoveries at Hissarlik (Troy), Mycenae and Tiryns proved that there had in fact been a Mycenaean civilisation in Bronze Age Greece.
Mycenaean origins are uncertain. Some believe that they were a Greek-speaking people migrating from the northeast to mainland Greece c.2000 BC. Others, though accepting the arrival of such people in Greece, remain to be convinced that they were the Mycenaeans. By c.1600 BC Mycenaeans were living in fair-sized towns, notably Mycenae and Tiryns in northeast Peloponnese. When Knossos was destroyed c.1425 BC the Mycenaeans took over Crete and succeeded the Minoans as the major power in the Aegean. The Mycenaeans then used their domination to expand their trading links with the civilisations around the eastern Mediterranean and northwards into continental Europe.
Human burial provided the opportunity to display status. A cist grave (from the Greek kiste, a box) was usually formed of stone slabs set on edge (but sometimes constructed of rubble or brick) and covered by stone slabs. In a tumulus burial the first burial was made in a pit lined with stones and originally roofed (this mortuary chamber represented a dwelling). Frequently a circle of stones was laid around but at some distance from the burial (hence grave circle), and a mound of soil raised over the circle. Later burials were added by digging a shaft into the tumulus with a mortuary chamber at the foot and the open shaft refilled with soil. The tholos (beehive) tomb consists of a dome created by the superposition of successively smaller rings of mudbricks or, more often, stones. Chamber tombs began in LH1 (c.1550-c.1500 BC) and proliferated throughout the Mycenaean era.
Mycenaean civilisation was characterised by independent city-states such as Pylos, Tiryns and Mycenae. Mycenae rose to prominence towards the end of the Middle Helladic period (c.2100-c.1550 BC) when two shaft grave circles were built for members of the royal family that must have controlled much of the northeastern Peloponnese. Subsequently, the elite were buried in nine tholos tombs. The citadel of Mycenae was first fortified (Cyclopean masonry) in the fourteenth century BC and the defences were strengthened in the thirteenth century BC when the Lion Gate was constructed. On top of the hill in the centre was a citadel containing a palace and a megaron, with houses all around on the lower slopes.
All the palaces of that time featured a megaron, or throne room, which had a raised central hearth under an opening in the roof. Four columns around the hearth supported an upper gallery around the sides of the room. A throne was placed against the centre of a wall to the side of the hearth, allowing an unobstructed view between the ruler and the entrance. In the second half of the thirteenth century BC the Mycenaean cities appear to have been under threat. Fortifications at Mycenae and Tiryns were strengthened, and provisions made to safeguard water supplies. A feature across the Corinthian Isthmus that appears to be a wall has been interpreted as a defence against an attack from the north. Linear-B tablets from Pylos refer to the dispatch of watchers. Both Mycenae and Tiryns experienced a number of destructions before the final disaster but the destructions c.1200 BC are distinguished by their violence and almost simultaneous occurrence.
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