45 Facts About Mycenaean Greece

Mycenaean Greece was the last phase of the Bronze Age in Ancient Greece, spanning the period from approximately 1750 to 1050 BC.

Mycenaean Greece settlements appeared in Epirus, Macedonia, on islands in the Aegean Sea, on the south-west coast of Asia Minor, Cyprus, while Mycenaean Greece-influenced settlements appeared in the Levant, and Italy.

Mycenaean Greece Greeks introduced several innovations in the fields of engineering, architecture and military infrastructure, while trade over vast areas of the Mediterranean was essential for the Mycenaean Greece economy.

Mycenaean Greece was dominated by a warrior elite society and consisted of a network of palace-centered states that developed rigid hierarchical, political, social and economic systems.

Mycenaean Greece perished with the collapse of Bronze Age culture in the eastern Mediterranean, to be followed by the Greek Dark Ages, a recordless transitional period leading to Archaic Greece where significant shifts occurred from palace-centralized to de-centralized forms of socio-economic organization.

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Bronze Age in mainland Mycenaean Greece is generally termed as the "Helladic period" by modern archaeologists, after Hellas, the Greek name for Mycenaean Greece.

Notwithstanding the above academic disputes, the mainstream consensus among modern Mycenologists is that Mycenaean civilization began around 1750 BC, earlier than the Shaft Graves, originating and evolving from the local socio-cultural landscape of the Early and Middle Bronze Age in mainland Greece with influences from Minoan Crete.

Mycenaean Greece presence appears to be depicted in a fresco at Akrotiri, on Thera island, which possibly displays many warriors in boar's tusk helmets, a feature typical of Mycenaean Greece warfare.

The use of the new script spread in mainland Mycenaean Greece and offers valuable insight into the administrative network of the palatial centers.

Mycenaean Greece presence reached the adjacent sites of Iasus and Ephesus.

Mycenaean Greece continues to be mentioned in international affairs, particularly in Hittite records.

Nevertheless, other regions on the edge of the Mycenaean Greece world prospered, such as the Ionian islands, the northwestern Peloponnese, parts of Attica and a number of Aegean islands.

Hypothesis of a Dorian invasion, known as such in Ancient Greek tradition, that led to the end of Mycenaean Greece, is supported by sporadic archaeological evidence such as new types of burials, in particular cist graves, and the use of a new dialect of Greek, the Doric one.

Alternative scenarios propose that the fall of Mycenaean Greece was a result of internal disturbances which led to internecine warfare among the Mycenaean states or civil unrest in a number of states, as a result of the strict hierarchical social system and the ideology of the wanax.

Each Mycenaean Greece kingdom was governed from the palace, which exercised control over most, if not all, industries within its realm.

In general, Mycenaean Greece society appears to have been divided into two groups of free men: the king's entourage, who conducted administrative duties at the palace, and the people, da-mo.

Mycenaean Greece economy, given its pre-monetary nature, was focused on the redistribution of goods, commodities and labor by a central administration.

The Mycenaean Greece palaces maintained extensive control of the nondomestic areas of production through careful control and acquisition and distribution in the palace industries, and the tallying of produced goods.

The Mycenaean Greece economy featured large-scale manufacturing as testified by the extent of workshop complexes that have been discovered, the largest known to date being the recent ceramic and hydraulic installations found in Euonymeia, next to Athens, that produced tableware, textiles, sails, and ropes for export and shipbuilding.

The Mycenaean era saw the zenith of infrastructure engineering in Greece, and this appears not to have been limited to the Argive plain.

The Mycenaean Greece palaces imported raw materials, such as metals, ivory and glass, and exported processed commodities and objects made from these materials, in addition to local products: oil, perfume, wine, wool and pottery.

The 14th century BC Uluburun shipwreck, off the coast of southern Anatolia, displays the established trade routes that supplied the Mycenaeans with all the raw materials and items that the economy of Mycenaean Greece needed, such as copper and tin for the production of bronze products.

Mycenaean Greece swords have been found as far away as Georgia in the eastern Black Sea coast.

Mycenaean Greece products penetrated further into Sardinia, as well as southern Spain.

Sporadic objects of Mycenaean Greece manufacture were found in various distant locations, like in Central Europe, such as in Bavaria, Germany, where an amber object inscribed with Linear B symbols has been unearthed.

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The uniformity of Mycenaean religion is reflected in archaeological evidence with the phi- and psi-figurines that have been found all over Late Bronze Age Greece.

Mycenaean Greece was a chthonic deity, connected with earthquakes, but it seems that he represented the river spirit of the underworld.

Mycenaean Greece was the personification of the magic-song which was supposed to "heal" the patient.

Mycenaean Greece beads have long been an aspect of Mycenaean Greece culture that is shrouded in a significant amount of mystery.

Mycenaean Greece society is believed to have been largely patriarchal, but women could exert social and economic power through titles and positions of power, like that of a priestess, though religion was not the only place that a woman could gain social authority.

In general Mycenaean Greece palaces have yielded a wealth of artifacts and fragmentary frescoes.

The principal Mycenaean Greece centers were well-fortified and usually situated on an elevated terrain, like on the Acropolis of Athens, Tiryns and Mycenae or on coastal plains, in the case of Gla.

Military nature of the Mycenaean Greece Greeks is evident from the numerous weapons unearthed, the use of warrior and combat representations in contemporary art, and the preserved Greek Linear B records.

Mycenaean Greece armies were initially based on heavy infantry, equipped with spears, large shields and on some occasions, armor.

Later in the 13th century BC, Mycenaean Greece warfare underwent major changes both in tactics and weaponry and armed units became more uniform and flexible, while weapons became smaller and lighter.

The Mycenaean Greece Greeks produced in large quantities a variety of diversely-styled vessels such as stirrup jars, large bowls, alabastron, krater and stemmed cups resembling champagne glasses.

Mycenaean Greece drinking vessels such as the stemmed cups contained single decorative motifs such as a shell, an octopus or a flower painted on the side facing away from the drinker.

The Mycenaean Greece Greeks painted entire scenes on their vessels depicting warriors, chariots, horses and deities reminiscent of events described in Homer's Iliad.

Mycenaean Greece period has not yielded sculpture of any great size.

The earliest Mycenaean Greece burials were mostly in individual graves in the form of a pit or a stone-lined cist and offerings were limited to pottery and occasional items of jewellery.

The most impressive tombs of the Mycenaean Greece era are the monumental royal tombs of Mycenae, undoubtedly intended for the royal family of the city.

The so-called "souvlaki trays" used by the Mycenaean Greece Greeks were rectangular ceramic pans that sat underneath skewers of meat.

Ventris's discovery of an archaic Greek dialect in the Linear B tablets demonstrated that Mycenaean Greece Greek was "the oldest known Greek dialect, elements of which survived in Homer's language as a result of a long oral tradition of epic poetry.

Mycenaean Greece Greeks were pioneers in the field of engineering, launching large-scale projects unmatched in Europe until the Roman period, such as fortifications, bridges, culverts, aqueducts, dams and roads suitable for wheeled traffic.

The Mycenaean Greece civilization was in general more advanced compared to the Late Bronze Age cultures of the rest of Europe.

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