The Mycenaean Civilization flourished in the Late Bronze Age (c. 1700-1100 BCE), peaking from the 15th to the 13th century BCE. The Mycenaeans extended their influence throughout the Peloponnese in Greece and across the Aegean from Crete to the Cycladic islands. They are named after their chief city of Mycenae in the Argolid of the northeast Peloponnese.

The Mycenaeans were influenced by the earlier Minoan civilization (2000-1450 BCE) which had spread from its origins at Knossos, Crete to include the wider Aegean. Architecture, art and religious practices were assimilated and adapted to better express the perhaps more militaristic and austere Mycenaean culture. The Mycenaeans came to dominate most of mainland Greece and several islands, extending trade relations to other Bronze Age cultures in such places as Cyprus, the Levant, and Egypt. The culture made a lasting impression on later Greeks in the Archaic and Classical periods, most tangibly in their myths of Bronze Age heroes like Achilles and Odysseus and their exploits in the Trojan War.

Major Mycenaean Centres

The Mycenaeans were indigenous Greeks who were likely stimulated by their contact with Minoan Crete and other Mediterranean cultures to develop a more sophisticated sociopolitical culture of their own. Major Mycenaean centres included Mycenae (traditional home of Agamemnon), Tiryns (perhaps the oldest centre), Pylos (traditional home of Nestor), Thebes, Midea, Gla, Orchomenos, Argos, Sparta, Nichoria, and probably Athens. In time, the Mycenaeans would even establish themselves on Crete and especially at Knossos, thus superseding the Minoans as the dominant culture in the southern Aegean by the second half of the 15th century BCE.

The largest city (although not a capital city in any sense) was Mycenae, built on an impressive citadel and hill over 278 metres (912 ft.) above sea level where there are remains of large 'palace' buildings and hundreds of tombs and shaft graves, including nine large stone tholos tombs (1600-1300 BCE).

Beyond trading relations, the exact political relationship between the over 100 Mycenaean centres spread across Greece is not clear. Despite this lack of clarity, there were many shared cultural features across sites which makes the term Mycenaean culture a useful one. Such shared features include architecture, frescoes, pottery, jewellery, weaponry, and of course, the Greek language and writing in the form of Linear B

The Megaron

A large palace complex has been found at many of the Mycenaean centres. These complexes, whilst displaying some site-unique developments, display several important architectural features in common. The complexes were built around a large rectangular central hall or Megaron. The Mycenaean Megaron was the precursor for the later Archaic and Classical temples of the Greek world and consisted of an entrance porch, a vestibule, and the hall itself.

Mycenaean Trade

That the Mycenaean civilization had trading contact with other Aegean cultures is evidenced by the presence of foreign goods in Mycenaean settlements such as gold, ivory, copper and glass and by the discovery of Mycenaean goods such as pottery in places as far afield as Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Levant, Anatolia, Sicily, and Cyprus.

Mycenaean Art

In art, as expressed in fresco, pottery, and jewellery, the Minoan love of natural forms and flowing design was likewise adopted by the Mycenaean artisans but with a tendency to more schematic and less life-like representation. This new style would become the dominant one throughout the Mediterranean. Geometric designs were popular, as were decorative motifs such as spirals and rosettes.

Mycenaean Religion

Little is known for certain regarding Mycenaean religious practices beyond the importance given to animal sacrifice, communal feasting, the pouring of libations and offerings of foodstuffs. The presence of double axe carvings and horns of consecration in art and architecture suggest strong links with the Minoan religion, although these symbols may have been adopted because of their political resonance.

Collapse & Legacy

The reasons for the demise of the Mycenaean civilization, which occurred in stages from c. 1230 BCE to c. 1100 BCE, are much debated. We do know that several sites were destroyed between 1250 and 1200 BCE, ushering in the so-called Post-Palatial period when the centralised system of palace control declined. There is evidence of a different degree of destruction across sites, and some places escaped the chaos altogether. Some sites were then reinhabited but sometimes seemingly on a smaller scale and with less wealth than previously, while other sites actually became larger and more prosperous than ever. By around 1100 BCE, however, most Mycenaean sites had been reduced to mere villages.

Suggestions from scholars to explain the general collapse of the Mycenaean culture (and other contemporary ones in the Mediterranean) include natural disaster (earthquakes, volcanic explosions, and tsunami), overpopulation, internal social and political unrest, invasion from foreign tribes such as the Sea Peoples, regional climate change or a combination of some or all of these factors. With the mysterious end of the Mycenaean civilization and the so-called Bronze Age Collapse in the ancient Aegean and wider Mediterranean, there came the 'Dark Ages' (another extreme label for a period which was perhaps not as dark as all that) and, although some sites began to revive from the 10th century BCE, it would take several more centuries before Greek culture would finally regain the heights of the Late Bronze Age.

The Mycenaean civilization would so inspire the later Archaic and Classical Greeks from the 8th century BCE onwards that the Bronze Age period came to be seen as a golden one when people respected the gods, warriors were braver and life was generally less complicated and more decent. Legendary names like Agamemnon, Menelaus, Achilles and Odysseus - all Mycenaean Greeks - would be given immortal life in sculpture, on painted pottery and epic literature such as Homer's Iliad which told the story of the great Trojan War, very possibly a myth based on a real conflict or series of conflicts between the Mycenaeans and Hittites.

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