Visual and Material Sources

Archaeology and the world of Homer

Mycenaean civilisation flourished in mainland Greece during the Late Bronze Age, approximately 1600–1100 BC. Its palaces, fortifications, tombs and objects help us investigate the society later remembered in Homer’s poems. Archaeology is not simply an illustration of those poems: the remains come from different dates, and a familiar heroic name does not prove that an object belonged to that hero.

Two important centres were Mycenae and Tiryns, in the Argolid. Their fortified citadels protected palaces and other buildings, but also displayed the resources and authority of their rulers. Their architecture therefore has two connected meanings: practical protection and an impressive statement of power.

Mycenae: walls, entrances and royal authority

Mycenae’s citadel occupies a hill overlooking the Argive Plain and routes to neighbouring settlements. This position helped its inhabitants observe movement below. Within the fortifications were the palace, administrative buildings and some houses; settlement and burial areas also extended outside them.

The Cyclopean walls averaged about 6 m thick. They used huge limestone blocks, roughly shaped and packed with smaller stones and clay. Their mass made the citadel difficult to breach, while high walls were difficult to climb. Building them also required organised labour and access to substantial resources. The name recalls the later Greek belief that only the mighty Cyclopes could have moved such stones.

The walls developed in stages. An initial circuit was constructed around 1350 BC. Around 1250 BC, enlargement towards the south and west brought Grave Circle A inside the citadel and added the monumental Lion Gate. The north-eastern extension later protected access to water and included a sally port. The whole defensive system was therefore not built at once.

The Lion Gate, built around 1250 BC, was the main entrance in the north-western wall. Its opening is approximately 3 m wide and 3.1 m high. Four large conglomerate blocks form the threshold, two side posts and lintel. Double wooden doors could close the opening. Visitors approached uphill through a confined passage; a guardroom lay inside. This arrangement controlled entry and prevented attackers from advancing on a broad front.

Above the lintel is a relieving triangle, covered by a limestone slab bearing the lion relief. Leaving this triangular space reduced the masonry load directly above the lintel. The relief’s central feature is interpreted as a Minoan-style column associated with an altar or pedestal. Lions could suggest strength and royal authority, intimidate attackers, or act as religious guardians. These are interpretations of the sculpture’s meaning, rather than a known explanation left by its makers.

The palace at Mycenae

A ramp-road led from the Lion Gate, past Grave Circle A and through the lower citadel, towards the palace on the summit. The palace occupied artificially levelled terraces supported by massive stone construction. Its position made it prominent and placed it behind the citadel’s defences.

At its centre was the megaron, a rectangular roofed building approached from the main court. Entry progressed through three spaces: an open porch, a vestibule and the main hall. The main hall contained a circular hearth about 3.7 m across, surrounded by four wooden columns on stone bases. Its plastered walls carried frescoes, and its floors were decorated. The throne is not preserved; its position is reconstructed on the southern side of the hall.

This was more than a large residence. The surrounding storerooms, workshops and domestic quarters show that the palace combined residence, administration, production and ceremonial activity. A visitor’s movement through entrances and increasingly important spaces also emphasised the ruler’s status. Much of the surviving foundation work belongs to the palace’s final period before destruction by fire around 1200–1190 BC and further destruction later.

Water and counter-attacks at Mycenae

Walls alone could not keep a population safe during a siege, when enemies surrounded a stronghold and tried to force its surrender. The defenders also needed water without having to leave their protected position.

Mycenae’s underground cistern was reached from inside the north-eastern fortified extension. A corbel-vaulted entrance led into a descending staircase carved through the rock. The descent included landings and further sections, reaching water deep below the surface; the lowest section had hydraulic mortar on its walls. The important relationship is between the protected entrance, the underground passage and the water supply: defenders could reach water without exposing themselves outside the walls.

The extension also contained a sally port. Unlike the main entrance, this small opening allowed defenders to emerge unexpectedly and counter-attack besiegers. Water access helped the citadel endure an attack, while the sally port provided a way to take action against the attackers.

Grave Circles A and B: earlier burial monuments

The grave circles belong to an earlier phase of Mycenaean society than the great palatial fortifications. Both enclosed shaft graves, but their dates, locations and later treatment differ.

Grave Circle B, outside the citadel to the west, contains burials of the seventeenth and sixteenth centuries BC. Its low rubble enclosure was about 28 m across. It contained fourteen large shaft graves and twelve smaller, shallow graves, identified by Greek letters.

Grave Circle A, south of the Lion Gate, contained six major shaft graves, numbered I–VI, with nineteen bodies. Its sixteenth-century burials were marked by stone stelai and contained exceptionally rich gold and jewellery. Originally outside the fortifications, it was enclosed by the expansion around 1250 BC. Its later monumental double ring used upright stone slabs capped with horizontal slabs.

Bringing this much older burial area inside the citadel gave it continued prominence beside the main entrance. It suggests that the later rulers valued the memory and prestige of earlier elites. However, the later enclosure must not be confused with the date of the burials themselves. The individual grave goods provide further evidence about wealth and funerary treatment, distinct from the architecture of the circles.

Tholos tombs outside Mycenae

A tholos tomb has a circular chamber with a high, corbelled roof, reached through a dromos and a doorway opening into the chamber. Each stone course projects slightly inwards beyond the one below, gradually closing the roof. Earth covering the structure makes it part of the hillside. Such monumental construction required skilled work and considerable labour, demonstrating the importance of the people buried there.

The Tomb of Aegisthus, built around 1500 BC, is an early example. Its dromos is about 22 m long and 4.5 m wide. The original passage and chamber used untrimmed stones; a more carefully worked decorative façade was added later. Its chamber is approximately 13 m across, but the upper roof has collapsed.

The Treasury of Atreus, built around 1250 BC, is a tomb despite its name. A dromos approximately 36 m long and 6 m wide leads to its monumental doorway. The chamber is about 14.6 m across and 13.5 m high, with thirty-three horizontal rings of stone narrowing towards the top. A small rock-cut side chamber adjoins it. Carefully fitted blocks and surviving traces of colourful façade decoration show both engineering skill and an intention to impress.

The Tomb of Clytemnestra, built around 1220 BC, lies west of the Tomb of Aegisthus. Its dromos is about 37 m long and 6 m wide, lined with carefully cut conglomerate blocks. Its entrance has a triple lintel and relieving triangle. The chamber is about 13.5 m across; its upper part has been restored to a height of about 13 m.

These names connect the monuments with famous mythical figures, but they do not identify the actual occupants. Nor should the three tombs be treated as contemporary: the Tomb of Aegisthus is several centuries earlier than the other two.

Tiryns: controlling the approach

Tiryns occupied a rocky hill overlooking the surrounding plain and routes through it. Its palace stood in the highest part, the Upper Citadel, with inhabited areas extending below. A palace complex existed by the fourteenth century BC; the fortifications were enlarged during the thirteenth century.

On the east side, the Cyclopean ramp rose towards the main entrance. The uphill approach made entry less easy for attackers, and the narrow gate restricted the numbers who could pass through together. Successive guarded entrances created further obstacles before the palace court.

The narrow spaces between gates are often called killing boxes. Attackers could be trapped between closed gates while defenders on the surrounding walls or bastions threw missiles or fired arrows down at them. The defensive advantage came from the attackers’ confined position and the defenders’ position above them, not simply from the existence of high walls.

Tiryns also had a western entrance. The western staircase was protected by a watchtower and a curved extension of the wall, or bastion. A sally port could enable a counter-attack. Two parallel underground tunnels in the north-west provided access to subterranean cisterns, helping maintain the water supply during a siege. Like Mycenae, Tiryns combined barriers, protected water and opportunities for active defence.

Tiryns’ galleries, palace and tomb

The galleries were corridors built into the massive walls on the southern and eastern sides of the Upper Citadel, with rooms opening off them. They could reach about 30 m in length. Their walls were corbelled inwards to form pointed roofs. Storage was an important use: food and possibly weapons could be kept close to the defences. This reduced the distance supplies had to be moved and placed weapons near where defenders might need them.

The palace’s megaron contained the royal throne and had richly decorated floors and frescoed walls. Tiryns’ surviving fresco fragments include a boar hunt, women in chariots and a procession of women. These belong to Tiryns and should not be confused with the prescribed Mycenaean Lady fresco from Mycenae. A bathroom with a huge limestone floor slab and an organised drainage system provides additional evidence of palatial engineering and comfort.

Outside the city walls was a tholos tomb built into a hillside, with a circular chamber and corbelled roof. Approximately 6 m high and 6 m across, it was substantially smaller than the Treasury of Atreus. Tiryns therefore also had monumental burial architecture, although Mycenae offers more numerous and larger examples.

Objects: connecting evidence with its findspot

The prescribed objects extend the picture beyond buildings. Findspots matter: an object deposited in a grave has a different archaeological context from a wall painting or an administrative tablet.

The dagger blade showing a hunting scene, also known as the Lion Hunt Dagger, comes from Shaft Grave IV of Grave Circle A at Mycenae. It dates to the second half of the sixteenth century BC and is catalogued as National Archaeological Museum 394. The bronze blade carries gold and silver decoration in bands of niello, a dark material that contrasts with the precious metals. One side depicts a lion hunt; the other shows lions seizing antelopes. The hunters attack the lions with long thrusting spears and a bow, and their large body-shields include figure-of-eight shields, with outlines resembling the numeral 8, and rectangular tower shields. This gives concrete evidence of equipment associated with the Shaft Grave period and links elite hunting with the weapons and protective equipment also used by warriors. Combining these materials to create small figurative scenes demonstrates specialist craftsmanship. Its burial context connects hunting imagery with elite status. Such imagery can express courage and power as well as provide information about activity; it should not automatically be treated as a straightforward record of one event.

The Mycenaean Lady: reading a surviving fresco

The Mycenaean Lady holding a necklace, National Archaeological Museum 11670, is a thirteenth-century BC fresco from the House of the Chief Priest at Mycenae’s Cult Centre. Its religious setting matters when interpreting the figure: rich appearance alone does not establish that it is an ordinary portrait.

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Look first at the figure’s head. Her face is shown in profile, facing left, with a strongly outlined eye and dark, elaborately arranged hair, including curls above the forehead. The upper body is presented more frontally. Her clothing has broad reddish borders and yellow-brown areas, contrasting with the pale skin and blue-grey background. Necklaces ornament her chest, and jewellery is visible around the raised wrist. The raised hand on the left holds the necklace named in the fresco’s title.

These details make the figure richly adorned and show the painter’s attention to dress, jewellery and line. The combination of a profile face with a more frontal torso is an artistic convention, not a photographic view. In its religious context, the jewellery and gesture may have ceremonial significance, but they cannot by themselves identify the woman or prove her exact role.

The surviving painting is fragmentary: cracks run through it, its edges are irregular and much of the original composition is missing. We can therefore analyse the surviving figure’s appearance more confidently than reconstruct the complete scene or its action.

Fresco painters worked on layers of damp plaster, so the colours became fixed as the plaster dried. Pigments included haematite for red, ochre for yellow and carbon for black. Preparing a wall surface, arranging the design and applying colour required specialist skills. Decorated buildings consequently provide evidence of both craftsmanship and the resources devoted to visual display.

Gold objects from Grave Circle A

The gold death mask of Agamemnon was found in Shaft Grave V, Grave Circle A. It represents a man with a full pointed beard, a curling moustache, clearly formed ears and arched eyebrows. Lines across the eyelids give the impression of closed eyes, although the modelling also suggests open eyelids. These facial details distinguish it from a simple, flat gold covering. It was made from a single sheet of gold, heated and hammered into shape, with details subsequently worked using a sharp tool.

The mask belongs to the sixteenth century BC, centuries earlier than the setting traditionally associated with the Trojan War. Schliemann’s identification with Agamemnon is therefore not reliable. The valuable material and burial context are evidence of high status and elaborate treatment of the dead, not proof of a named king’s identity.

The prescribed gold pyxis, also from Shaft Grave V, was a wooden box decorated with applied gold foil. The surviving decoration includes lions pursuing deer and palm trees. Gold-covered wood shows how different materials could be combined to produce a luxurious object. Examine the upper illustration, object 172, on catalogue page 277 of Beyond Babylon: the flattened surviving foil is not the original complete box. Look for the palm trees at the left and the pursuing animals across the foil. These natural forms provided an elaborate decorative scene, but the surviving covering does not show the complete shape of its wooden container.

The prescribed gold rhyton is the lion’s-head rhyton from Shaft Grave IV, Grave Circle A. Its animal-head form, including the worked mane and locks, distinguishes it from the decorated box covering of the pyxis and the bowl-shaped krater. A rhyton is a pouring vessel, often associated with libations: offerings made by pouring liquid. The use of gold and the elaborate animal form connect this vessel with luxurious craftsmanship and display.

The Warrior Vase and the Pylos tablet

The Mycenaean Warrior Vase, or Warrior Krater, comes from the House of the Warrior Krater at Mycenae, immediately south of Grave Circle A. It dates to the twelfth century BC. As a krater, its vessel type was used to mix wine and water. Its imagery depicts warriors departing and, on the other side, attacking with raised spears. A woman at the edge of the departure scene raises her hands, interpreted as farewell, prayer or blessing.

The vase offers evidence about representations of warfare and its effect on the community. Its smaller shields offered less body coverage than tower or figure-of-eight shields, but were lighter and less cumbersome. Artistic imagery is selective, however: it cannot establish that every Mycenaean soldier was equipped identically. The museum identifies the object as Π 1426 in its account, The face of farewell.

The prescribed Linear B tripod tablet, PY Ta 641, comes from Pylos, not Mycenae or Tiryns, and dates to the thirteenth century BC. It represents ‘tripod’ through both syllabic writing and an ideogram. The syllabic signs record the sounds of the word; the ideogram depicts a tripod cauldron, identifying the kind of object. Together they show that these were practical written records, not just decorative marks. Palace archives demonstrate administrative organisation.

The tablet also helped confirm the decipherment of Linear B. Michael Ventris announced in 1952 that the script recorded an early form of Greek, and then worked with the classicist John Chadwick to develop and test his readings. In 1953, the newly discovered tripod tablet provided a particularly persuasive check: the signs read as ti-ri-po-de appeared alongside a picture of a tripod cauldron. The agreement between the Greek word and the pictured object supported the proposed sound values. The picture did not simply replace the writing; the two ways of recording the object helped verify one another.

Comparing what makes the sites impressive

Mycenae’s hilltop setting, Lion Gate and large tombs provide strong evidence of monumental display. Tiryns is especially striking for its integrated defensive arrangements, corbelled galleries and palatial engineering. Both sites had walls, palaces, water access and small defended exits, so comparison requires more than listing features.

A judgement also depends on what ‘impressive’ means. Mycenae’s gate may be especially impressive as sculpture and a statement of authority, while Tiryns’ galleries demonstrate sophisticated use of the thickness of its fortifications. Stronger defences offered protection, but their construction may also suggest a greater perceived need for security. Practical effectiveness, craftsmanship, appearance and historical significance are related but different grounds for evaluation.