Mycenae Was Extra: Bronze Age Drama at Its Peak

Mycenae, the ancient Greek city that gave its name to an entire civilisation, is one of those places that seems to have been dreamt up by a bored mythology writer with a flair for drama and an obsession with lions, gold, and intergenerational trauma. Tucked into the rocky hills of the northeastern Peloponnese, Mycenae once ruled the waves, or at least shouted loud enough to convince Homer it did. Its crumbling walls, beehive tombs, and thoroughly murdered royals still echo with stories that swing between epic and completely bonkers.

Let’s start with the walls. Cyclopean masonry, they call it, because obviously humans couldn’t have managed it. According to legend, the gigantic stones of Mycenae’s fortifications were laid by the Cyclopes themselves – those one-eyed giants who moonlighted as stonemasons. It’s less likely that real-life Cyclopes were on payroll, and more likely that ancient people saw those massive stones and went, “Yeah, not touching that. Must be monster work.”

Then there’s the Lion Gate, the dramatic entrance to the citadel. Two lions (or lionesses, possibly) stand above the lintel, carved in relief, staring down like bouncers at a very exclusive Bronze Age nightclub. This is one of the oldest monumental sculptures in Europe still standing in situ, and it definitely brings the “don’t mess with us” vibe. No one is entirely sure what the lions mean. Power? Protection? Just a love for big cats? Whatever the case, it’s giving ancient alpha energy.

Mycenae’s heyday was roughly 1600 to 1100 BCE, but it didn’t go quietly. The Mycenaean civilisation collapsed in spectacular fashion, like a particularly expensive vase meeting a marble floor. Was it war? Earthquakes? Internal strife? Climate change? Possibly all of the above, a Bronze Age buffet of disasters.

But rewind a bit, to the wealth. Mycenae wasn’t just a fortress on a hill; it was dripping in treasure. When Heinrich Schliemann, that German businessman-turned-archaeologist with more enthusiasm than methodology, excavated Mycenae in the 1870s, he announced that he had “gazed upon the face of Agamemnon.” That golden funerary mask he uncovered? Stunning. Regal. Iconic. Also, possibly not Agamemnon at all. Bit awkward.

Still, the so-called Mask of Agamemnon became a symbol of ancient Greek royalty and archaeology’s mad dash for prestige. The gold was real, even if the attribution was optimistic. Schliemann had a flair for the dramatic – he also cut a trench straight through the middle of Troy. Subtlety wasn’t his thing.

Agamemnon, if he ever actually ruled from Mycenae, had one of the worst family dramas in pre-Netflix history. He sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia to get favourable winds to sail to Troy, got murdered by his wife Clytemnestra upon returning, and then his son Orestes killed mum in a vengeance arc that would make Shakespeare weep.

The Mycenaeans were big fans of Linear B, one of the earliest forms of Greek writing, which looks like a series of very stressed-out pictograms. Unlike the fancier hieroglyphs of Egypt, Linear B mostly consists of bureaucratic notes about grain storage and livestock. Glamorous.

They also built tholos tombs – giant, dome-shaped burial chambers that look like inverted ice-cream cones made of stone. The Treasury of Atreus is the Beyoncé of these tombs: huge, overachieving, and probably not actually used for treasury purposes. Walking into it feels like stepping inside the skull of a forgotten titan.

Trade? They were all over it. Mycenaean pottery has turned up as far afield as Egypt, Sicily, and even Britain, possibly after being passed along in an ancient game of shipping-container telephone. They weren’t shy about getting their goods out there.

And let’s talk death. They loved a good shaft grave. These were deep rectangular pits dug into the earth, lined with stone, and filled with the dearly departed plus their bling. Think of it as the Bronze Age starter pack for eternity. When Schliemann uncovered the Grave Circle A, he found gold masks, daggers, cups, and a good amount of skeletons. The archaeologists were thrilled. The skeletons, less so.

The citadel at Mycenae wasn’t just for the living. Ancestor worship was strong, and the dead loomed large. Literally, if you count the sheer size of their tombs. Every monument seemed built to scream, “We were important! Remember us!”

Mycenaean art is a curious mix of stiff figures and dramatic flair. Their frescoes feature chariot scenes, bull-leaping, and lots of spirals. No one has entirely figured out what the spirals mean, but they must have been hypnotic enough to keep getting painted everywhere.

They were warriors, no doubt about that. Mycenae wasn’t sending out peace treaties embroidered on silk. They had swords, helmets (including the famous one made from boar tusks), and a general vibe of “try us and see what happens.”

Religion-wise, we don’t know much, but some names from their tablets suggest they already worshipped early forms of later Greek gods: Zeus, Hera, and Poseidon make appearances. Poseidon, oddly, seems to have had top billing. Sea god supremacy, perhaps?

Mycenae had no ports. All their maritime dealings happened through distant coastal settlements. The high kings stayed up on their hill, above the messy waves and probably the smell.

There’s a curious lack of public architecture compared to later Greece. No temples, no agoras, no theatres. Mycenae was all about the palace, the tombs, the walls. It wasn’t a place for the people. It was a place for power.

Even their palace megaron – the central hall – set the blueprint for later Greek temples. It had a central hearth, surrounded by four columns, and was likely where kings held court, drank wine, and made questionable decisions.

Their collapse ushered in Greece’s so-called Dark Age. Writing vanished, trade collapsed, and cities shrank. Mycenae itself became a shadow. It lingered in memory more than in function, a ghost-city with a golden past.

Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey gave it a second life. Mycenae became Agamemnon’s stomping ground, a symbol of heroic age grandeur. Later Greeks revered it, even if they had no idea what half the ruins actually were.

Pausanias, the second-century CE Greek traveller, visited the ruins and marvelled at their antiquity, noting that the stones were too big to move. Still the Cyclopes narrative clung on. It’s the ancient version of “aliens built the pyramids.”

Today, Mycenae draws in tourists, archaeologists, and those who enjoy a healthy dose of ancient drama. The site still whispers of lost kings and whispered revenge. Also, the views are quite nice. Olive trees, rolling hills, a good sunset spot.

It’s part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site now. Which is ironic, considering how much heritage had to be looted, disturbed, and mislabelled to get it on the list. But here we are.

The beehive tombs echo. The lions still stare. And the stones haven’t budged in over 3,000 years. Mycenae might have fallen, but it never really left the stage. Like a diva who exits the opera but keeps singing in the car park, it remains larger than life, carved in gold and rock, surviving on a diet of myth, marble, and mild academic disagreements.