Grave Circle A is a royal cemetery of deep shaft graves lying inside the walls of the citadel of Mycenae, just beyond the great gateway. A double ring of upright stone slabs marks the circle, which held the bodies of men, women and children of the early ruling house. The graves belong to the dawn … Read more
Agamemnon stands as the legendary king of Mycenae in Greek myth, the commander who led the Greek forces against Troy in the war told by Homer. He was the son of Atreus and the brother of Menelaus, born into a dynasty stained by murder and revenge across generations. Myth ties his name to the shaft … Read more
The Mycenaean civilization was the first great civilization of mainland Greece, rising in the Late Bronze Age and named after Mycenae, its most important centre in the Argolid. Its people spoke an early form of Greek and wrote it in the Linear B script, kept mainly for palace records. Powerful kingdoms grew around fortified citadels, … Read more
The palace of Mycenae crowned the highest point of the citadel, rising above the Lion Gate and the grave circles that guard the slope below. Here the rulers of Mycenae held their seat through the Late Bronze Age, governing the surrounding kingdom from a hall built for command and ceremony. Courtyards, corridors and storerooms spread … Read more
The Mycenae Archaeological Museum stands on the slope of the citadel, a short walk from the Lion Gate, gathering the finds pulled from the site and its cemeteries under one roof. Pottery, painted plaster, figurines, jewellery, bronze weapons and clay tablets fill its cases, arranged to explain how a Bronze Age capital lived, worshipped and … Read more
Mycenae is the great fortified citadel of the Argolid, set on a low hill in the Peloponnese near the modern village of Mykines in southern Greece. The site sits about a two-hour drive from Athens and around half an hour from Nafplio, which makes it an easy heritage stop on any tour of the region. … Read more
The Cyclopean walls of Mycenae are the vast fortification circuit that rings the Bronze Age citadel in the Argolid, in the Peloponnese. Builders raised them from huge, roughly worked limestone boulders set without mortar, the largest weighing tonnes apiece. The scale of the stones stunned later Greeks, who decided that only the giant Cyclopes could … Read more
The Treasury of Atreus, also called the Tomb of Agamemnon, is a great Bronze Age tholos or beehive tomb at Mycenae in the Argolid, in the Peloponnese. Built in the Late Bronze Age, it is the largest and finest of the Mycenaean tholos tombs. A long open passage cut into the hillside leads to a … Read more
The Lion Gate is the main entrance to the Bronze Age citadel of Mycenae, set in the Argolid region of the Peloponnese in southern Greece. A triangular limestone slab above the lintel carries two lions or lionesses flanking a central column, the emblem of Mycenaean art and power. This relief is the oldest known monumental … Read more
A Mycenae day trip from Athens reaches the Bronze Age citadel of legendary King Agamemnon, with its famous Lion Gate, Cyclopean walls and beehive royal tombs, in under two hours. Make it simple with a guided day trip or skip-the-line tickets from My Greece Tours and see far more of the Peloponnese in your day. … Read more