General View of Site

Lyon Gate
 
 

The Mask of Agammemnon
 

Central Wall
 

Mycenaean Figurine
 

Entrance View

For more photos 
please visit
Mycenae's 
Photo Galerry

Acording the Greek legend and the poet Homer, King Agamemnon of Mycenae was the most powerful leader in Greece at the time of the Trojan War. There the greeks fought for 10 years to reclaim fair Helen, the wife of Agamemnon's brother Menelaus, from her seducer the Trojan prince Paris.
The fortified city of Mycenae to which it gave its name were first introduced to the world by Heinrich Schliemann from 1874 which carried the history of Europe far back into the Bronze Age of the 2nd millenium B.C..

A LOOK AT THE PAST:

When the first Greeks came to this region around 2000 B.C. they would no doubt establish themselves on the 278 m high hill. Thereafter they mingled with the ingenious population and a hybrid culture evolved. Around 1580 B.C., a radical change began to take place, as influences from Egypt and the refined Minoan culture of Crete made themselves felt. Early Mycenaean period which now began is notable for the wealth of gold found in the shaft graves, including the famous golden mask of  some dead prince wrongly identified by Schliemann as to Agammemnon.
From the Middle Mycenaean period (1500-1425) date the first-known defensive walls and the early tholos tombs. The Late Mycenaean period (1425-1100) yielded a rich harvest of finds.
In this period saw the construction of the later tholos tombs, including the "Treasury of Atreus", the older Megaron in the acropolis, the first palace and the cyclopean walls round the site. The lion Gate, the later Megaron and the extension at the East were built about 1250. After 1230 B.C. when the threat from new invaders coming from the North was felt to be presing five diferent phases of work on strenghtening the defences, and the history of mycenae finally came to end about 1100 B.C. as a result of an assault by the "Sea People" who are referred to in Egyptian sources.

WHAT TO SEE & DO:

The Citadel and the Treasury of Atreus
Greeks speculated that places like Mycenae and Tyrins had been built by the Cyclops. Only those enormous giants, people, reasoned, could have moved the enormous rocks used to built the ancient citadel's. At Mycenae enter there is the massive Lion Gate, whose two lions symbolized Mycenae's strenght. the doors missing but have been of wood, probably covered with bronze for protection. Soldiers stationed in the Round Tower on your right would have shot arrows down.
The tower's position made the attackers vulnerable to attack on their unprotected right side. Immediately ahead of the Lion Gate there is Grave Circle A, where Schliemann found the gold jewelry. When Schliemann open the tombs found some 14 kilos of gold here, including several solid gold face mask. From Grave Circle, head uphill past the low remains of a number of houses. Mycenae was not merely a palace, but a small village, with the palace at the crest of the hill and administrative buildings and homes on the slopes. The Palace was considerably grander than these small houses and had a several court rooms, bedrooms, a throne room, a large Megaron as weel as the outline of a Circular Altar on the floor. 
Head to the northeast of citadel there is at enormous cistern. Along with great walls, this cistern, which held water channeled here from a spring 500 meters away.There is more thing to see yet, the massive tomb known as the Tresury of Atreus, the largest of the tholos tombs found here. Then, the Tholos Chamber itself was built, by placing slighty overplaning courses of stone one of top. As you look up toward the ceiling of the tomb you'll see "bechive tombs". This tomb was robbed even in antiquity, so we'll never know what it contained.

GETTING THERE:

42 km. from Tolo, 115 km from Athena
Altitude:120-278m
By Bus
There are at least a dozen busses a day to Argos from the Stathmos Leoforia Peloponisou in Athens, where you can catch a bus on to Mycenae.
By Train 
Tcatch a here are several trains a day from Athens to Corinth and Argos, where you can bus on to Mycenae.
By Car
From Athens - Corinth - Nemea.