Mycenaean religion was the system of gods, cult and ritual practised across Bronze Age Greece at powerful centres such as Mycenae. The clay tablets found in the palaces name deities familiar from later Greek worship, and a group of shrines inside the citadel served as a focus for ritual life. Worshippers brought offerings of food, … Read more
Mycenaean art is the art of Bronze Age mainland Greece, seen at its richest at Mycenae, the leading centre that gives the whole civilization its name. It gathers goldwork, wall frescoes, painted pottery, carved gems, ivory and worked bronze into one confident style. The shaft graves of Mycenae yielded gold funerary masks, inlaid daggers, cups … Read more
The Warrior Vase is one of the best-known works of Mycenaean art, a painted pottery krater found at the citadel of Mycenae. Heinrich Schliemann discovered it near the great fortress, and it dates to the late Bronze Age. The vessel is a large mixing bowl for wine. Painters covered it with a file of helmeted … Read more
The Mask of Agamemnon is a funerary mask of beaten gold and the most famous single object ever recovered from Mycenae. It shows a bearded man’s face with closed eyes, a straight nose and finely worked ears, all hammered from one sheet of gold. Heinrich Schliemann lifted it from a shaft grave in the citadel … Read more
Iphigenia stands among the most sorrowful figures of Greek myth, the princess of Mycenae whose fate opens a long chain of grief within the royal house. She is the daughter of King Agamemnon and Queen Clytemnestra, born into the ruling line of a citadel that commanded the Greek world of legend. Her story turns on … Read more
Orestes is the prince of Mycenae in Greek myth, son of King Agamemnon and Queen Clytemnestra, and the figure who closes the tragic cycle of the royal house. Sent away as a boy for safety, he grew up in exile while his mother and her lover Aegisthus held the throne of Mycenae. He returned as … Read more
Clytemnestra stands among the darkest and strongest figures of Greek myth, the queen of Mycenae and wife of King Agamemnon. Daughter of Tyndareus and Leda, sister of Helen of Troy, she ruled the great citadel while her husband led the Greeks across the sea to war. Legend hands her a fierce will and a long … Read more
Perseus stands at the very start of Mycenae’s legend as its mythical founder and first king. Greek tradition made him a son of Zeus and the mortal princess Danae, a hero who slew the Gorgon Medusa and rescued Andromeda from a sea monster. Ancient writers said that after these deeds he founded the city and … Read more
The Tomb of Clytemnestra is a large Bronze Age tholos, or beehive tomb, standing at Mycenae near the Lion Gate and the grave circles below the citadel walls. It ranks second in size and grandeur only to the Treasury of Atreus. The chamber belongs to a ring of monumental tombs built for the rulers of … Read more
Mycenae began as a small hilltop settlement in the Argolid and grew into the leading centre of Bronze Age Greece, lending its name to a whole civilization. Its rulers gathered wealth, raised Cyclopean walls, and buried their dead in gold-filled graves and great domed tombs. From this fortified citadel they reached out across the Argolid … Read more
The secret cistern is one of the quiet marvels tucked into the north-east corner of the citadel of Mycenae. Here a vaulted passage descends by stone steps through and beneath the great wall to a deep rock-cut cistern, hidden away from the world outside. A concealed conduit once carried water to it from a spring … Read more
The Trojan War is the great legendary conflict of Greek myth, a ten-year siege of the city of Troy in Asia Minor by a coalition of Greek kingdoms. Homer’s epic poem the Iliad places Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, at the head of that Greek host, making his citadel the leading power of the heroic age. … Read more