Mycenaean Greece
Mycenaean Greece was the last phase of the Bronze Age in ancient Greece, spanning the period from approximately 1750 to 1050 BC. It represents the first advanced and distinctively Greek civilization in mainland Greece with its palatial states, urban organization, works of art, and writing system. The Mycenaeans were mainland Greek peoples who were likely stimulated by their contact with insular Minoan Crete and other Mediterranean cultures to develop a more sophisticated sociopolitical culture of their own. The most prominent site was Mycenae, after which the culture of this era is named. Other centers of power that emerged included Pylos, Tiryns, and Midea in the Peloponnese, Orchomenos, Thebes, and Athens in Central Greece, and Iolcos in Thessaly. Mycenaean settlements also appeared in Epirus, Macedonia, on islands in the Aegean Sea, on the south-west coast of Asia Minor, and on Cyprus, while Mycenaean-influenced settlements appeared in the Levant and Italy.
The Mycenaean 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 economy. Their syllabic script, Linear B, offers the first written records of the Greek language, and their religion already included several deities also to be found in the Olympic pantheon. 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. At the head of this society was the king, known as a wanax.
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 decentralized forms of socio-economic organization. Various theories have been proposed for the end of this civilization, among them the Dorian invasion or activities connected to the "Sea Peoples". Additional theories such as natural disasters and climatic changes have also been suggested. The Mycenaean period became the historical setting of much ancient Greek literature and mythology, including the Trojan Epic Cycle.
Chronology
The Bronze Age in mainland Greece is generally termed as the "Helladic period" by modern archaeologists, after Hellas, the Greek name for Greece. This period is divided into three subperiods: The Early Helladic period was a time of prosperity with the use of metals and a growth in technology, economy and social organization. The Middle Helladic period faced a slower pace of development, as well as the evolution of megaron-type dwellings and cist grave burials. The final phase of the Middle Helladic period, known as Middle Helladic III, roughly overlaps with the beginning of the Late Helladic period, which corresponds to the era of Mycenaean Greece.The Late Helladic period is further divided into LHI and LHII, both of which coincide with the middle phase of Mycenaean Greece, and LHIII, the period of expansion, and decline of the Mycenaean civilization. The transition period from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age in Greece is known as Sub-Mycenaean.
Based on recent research, Alex Knodell considers the beginning of Mycenaean occupation in Peloponnese in Middle Helladic III, and divides the whole Mycenaean time into three cultural periods: Early Mycenaean, Palatial Bronze Age, and Postpalatial Bronze Age.
| Ceramic period | Dates BC |
| Middle Helladic III | 1750/1720–1700/1675 |
| Late Helladic I | 1700/1675–1635/1600 |
| Late Helladic IIA | 1635/1600–1480/1470 |
| Late Helladic IIB | 1480/1470–1420/1410 |
| Ceramic period | Dates BC |
| Late Helladic IIIA1 | 1420/1410–1390/1370 |
| Late Helladic IIIA2 | 1390/1370–1330/1315 |
| Late Helladic IIIB | 1330/1315–1210/1200 |
| Ceramic period | Dates BC |
| Late Helladic IIIC | 1210/1200–1170/1160 |
| Late Helladic IIIC | 1170/1160–1100 |
| Late Helladic IIIC | 1100–1070/1040 |
Identity
The decipherment of the Mycenaean Linear B script, a writing system adapted for the use of the Greek language of the Late Bronze Age, demonstrated the continuity of Greek speech from the second millennium BC into the eighth century BC when a new Phoenician-derived alphabetic script emerged. Moreover, it revealed that the bearers of Mycenaean culture were ethnically connected with the populations that resided in the Greek peninsula after the end of this cultural period. Finally, the script records the advent of an Indo-European language in the Aegean region in contrast to unrelated prior languages spoken in adjoining areas. Various collective terms for the inhabitants of Mycenaean Greece were used by Homer in his 8th-century BC epic the Iliad in reference to the Trojan War.Homer interchangeably used the ethnonyms Achaeans, Danaans, and Argives to refer to the besiegers, and these names appear to have passed down from the time they were in use to the time when Homer applied them as collective terms in his Iliad. There is an isolated reference to a-ka-wi-ja-de in the Linear B records in Knossos, Crete dated to, which presumably refers to a Mycenaean state on the Greek mainland.
Egyptian records mention a T-n-j or Danaya land for the first time, during the reign of Pharaoh Thutmoses III. This land is geographically defined in an inscription from the reign of Amenhotep III, where a number of Danaya cities are mentioned, which cover the largest part of southern mainland Greece. Among them, cities such as Mycenae, Nauplion, and Thebes have been identified with certainty. Danaya has been equated with the ethnonym Danaoi, the name of the mythical dynasty that ruled in the region of Argos, also used as an ethnonym for the Greek people by Homer.
In the official records of another Bronze Age empire, that of the Hittites in Anatolia, various references from to 1220 BC mention a country named Ahhiyawa. Recent scholarship, based on textual evidence, new interpretations of the Hittite inscriptions, and recent surveys of archaeological evidence about Mycenaean–Anatolian contacts during this period, concludes that the term Ahhiyawa must have been used in reference to the Mycenaean world, or at least to a part of it. This term may have also had broader connotations in some texts, possibly referring to all regions settled by Mycenaeans or regions under direct Mycenaean political control. Another similar ethnonym, Ekwesh, in twelfth century BC Egyptian inscriptions has been commonly identified with the Ahhiyawans. These Ekwesh were mentioned as a group of the Sea People.
History
Early Mycenaean period and Shaft Grave era (c. 1750–1400 BC)
Scholars have proposed different theories on the origins of the Mycenaeans. According to one theory, Mycenaean civilization reflected the exogenous imposition of archaic Indo-Europeans from the Eurasian steppe onto the pre-Mycenaean local population. An issue with this theory, however, is the very tenuous material and cultural relationship between Aegean and northern steppe populations during the Bronze Age. Another theory proposes that Mycenaean culture in Greece dates back to circa 3000 BC with Indo-European migrants entering a mainly-depopulated area; other hypotheses argue for a date as early as the seventh millennium BC and as late as 1600 BC. A 2017 genetic study conducted by Lazaridis et al. found: "the Minoans and Mycenaeans were genetically similar, the Mycenaeans differed from Minoans in deriving additional ancestry from an ultimate source related to the hunter–gatherers of eastern Europe and Siberia, introduced via a proximal source related to the inhabitants of either the Eurasian steppe or Armenia." However, Lazaridis et al. admit that their research "does not settle th debate" on Mycenaean origins. Historian Bernard Sergent notes that archaeology alone is not able to solve the issue and that the majority of Hellenists believed Mycenaeans spoke a non-Indo-European Minoan language before Linear B was deciphered in 1952.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. Towards the end of the Middle Bronze Age, a significant increase in the population and the number of settlements occurred. A number of centers of power emerged in southern mainland Greece dominated by a warrior elite society; while the typical dwellings of that era were an early type of megaron buildings, some more complex structures are classified as forerunners of the later palaces. In a number of sites, defensive walls were also erected.
Meanwhile, new types of burials and more imposing ones have been unearthed, which display a great variety of luxurious objects. Among the various burial types, the shaft grave became the most common form of elite burial, a feature that gave the name to the early period of Mycenaean Greece. Among the Mycenaean elite, deceased men were usually laid to rest in gold masks and funerary armor, and women in gold crowns and clothes gleaming with gold ornaments. The royal shaft graves next to the acropolis of Mycenae, in particular the Grave Circles A and B, signified the elevation of a native Greek-speaking royal dynasty whose economic power depended on long-distance sea trade.
During this period, the Mycenaean centers witnessed increased contact with the outside world, especially with the Cyclades and the Minoan centers on the island of Crete. Mycenaean presence appears to be also depicted in a fresco at Akrotiri, on Thera island, which possibly displays many warriors in boar's tusk helmets, a feature typical of Mycenaean warfare. In the 16th and early 15th century BC, commerce intensified, with Mycenaean pottery having been found in the southern Italian islands of Lipari and Vivara, the western and southern coasts of Asia Minor, Agia Eirini in Cyprus, Tel Lachish and Tell el-Ajjul in Palestine, Byblos in Lebanon, and Saqqara and Gurob in Egypt.
Early Mycenaean civilization from the Shaft Grave period generally showcases heavy influence from Minoan Crete in regards to e.g. art, infrastructure and symbols, while also maintaining some Helladic elements as well as some innovations, and some West Asian influences. A difference between Mycenaean and Minoan civilizations is complexity and monumentality; Mycenaean craftmanship and architecture are more simplified versions of Minoan ones, but are more monumental in size. Later phases of the Mycenaean civilization showcase more sophistication, eventually coming to surpass Minoan Crete after a few centuries.
At the end of the Shaft Grave era, a new and more imposing type of elite burial emerged, the tholos: large circular burial chambers with high vaulted roofs and a straight entry passage lined with stone.