In the grand scheme of things, you probably haven’t heard of the Mycenaeans. That’s okay, we all get that Ancient Greek democracy and theatre overshadows everything and all.

The Mycenaeans were the people who lived in mainland Greece between approximately 1750 to 1050 BCE. They represent the first distinctively Greek civilisation in mainland Greece. They had palatial states, urban organisation, distinctly Olympian gods, and the first Greek writing system. This was the last of the Greek Bronze Age, when the city states of Sparta and Athens started to emerge.

When it comes to the timeline of placing the Greek myths in some form of historical context, the Trojan War is considered the end of the Golden Age of Heroes. The Trojan site dating to this period shows signs of destruction from enemy attacks, contemporary to the Late Bronze Age collapse of 1150 BCE. Other key moments include the palace of Knossos, and the Mask of Agamemnon. The Classical Greeks themselves believed the Mycenaeans were the heroes of their myths. This is as historically true as the legends of King Arthur.

I realise a lot of what I’m covering is either related to the Trojan War in some way, or 19th century archaeology. But as with the legends of King Arthur, there’s nothing to say that any of this happened to someone, at some point. So let’s jump right in.

The Mycenaeans Fought in The Trojan War

First up, who hasn’t heard of the Trojan War? That ten-year war leading to Odysseus taking another ten years to cross the Aegean on his way home. The debate over whether Achilles and Patroclus were gay lovers. That Trojan War. Anyway, there exists in Turkey an archaeological site called Troy, whereupon layers and layers of city were all built up on top of each other. For each successive layer, there’s a number assigned to it. And what’s interesting is that one layer in particular shows signs of violent destruction.

In the Late Greek Bronze Age, the archaeological site was once a thriving coastal city consisting of a steep fortified citadel and a sprawling lower town below it. During the Mycenaean period of Greece, c. 1180 BCE, Troy’s architecture shows consistency with aspects mentioned in Homer’s Iliad. The signs of destruction ending this sublayer, known as VIIa, make it a strong contender as a candidate for the historical setting of the siege of Troy.

The destruction is roughly contemporary with the collapse of the Late Bronze Age, a common marker of the end of the Greek Age of Heroes. There are other potential markers at this site for the historical basis of the mythological Troy. The site had extensive foreign contacts and treaties, particularly with Mycenaean Greece and the Hittite empire, and a prime position at the mouth of the Dardanelles.

The timing of the destruction of Troy VIIa is a coincidence too great to ignore, especially considering the other factors surrounding the archaeological studies. The Iliad isn’t the only piece of evidence suggesting there was a Troy, but it is the one most people have heard of.

The Palace at Knossos

Now, if I had to pick an ancient civilisation to visit, I’d pick the Minoan era. They’re the near contemporaries of the Mycenaeans, and the Mycenaeans conquered their stronghold of Knossos around 1450 BCE. In 1900, the British archaeologist Arthur Evans began long-term excavations of the site. He developed a concept of the civilisation based on the layering of the palace. He named the people Minoans, and the king who owned the palace Minos. You might have heard of King Minos, he tried to feed Theseus to the Minotaur.

Much of the modern reconstruction of the palace is inaccurate, because of Arthur Evans. From what we do know, there was a rectangular courtyard, and one section was up to five stories high. Ancient Greek writers Homer and Herodotus mention that a King Minos rules Knossos, though they don’t give dates for his reign.

With Theseus and the Minotaur, no-one has come up with a credible theory uniting all the evidence currently gathered. The Mycenaeans left symbols of the double axe known as a labrys all over the site as a sort of apotropaic mark. This is a mark which prevents the object from being “killed”, axes were a motif of the Shrine of the Double Axe. There’s also mention of a “mistress of the Labyrinth” in a recording for the distribution of a jar of honey. Again, this is the double axe, not an actual maze. Beyond the “labyrinthine” nature of the ruins of the palace complex itself, nothing suggests there was a maze featuring a Minotaur. We don’t even know what the people called themselves, because we haven’t yet decoded the writing system.

The Palace at Knossos is large and really old. It was excavated by a guy who saw what he wanted to see.

The historical Minoans, over hundreds of years, built a rather complex palace which may have inspired the later Greeks to write about the labyrinth housing the Minotaur. The presence of a labrys axe decorating the walls may also be the reason for the name. But there’s still a lot we don’t know about the palace itself. And we won’t know until the writing system is translated in its entirety.

The Mask of Agamemnon, a Treasure of the Mycenaeans

In 1876, an archaeologist named Heinrich Schliemann discovered a golden funeral mask in a shaft tomb designated Grave V, at the site Grave Circle A, in Mycenae. He discovered eight men in Grave Circle A, all with weapons in their graves, but only five had masks; those were in Grave IV and Grave V. The was gold and carefully worked artifacts, suggesting honour, wealth, and status. Schliemann named the mask after the legendary Greek king Agamemnon of Homer’s Iliad. Schliemann took this as evidence the Trojan War was a real historical event. These days, you need a lot more detail to make such claims. But this was the 19th century, and that’s all it took.

The mask itself is a single sheet of hammered and chiselled gold and is three dimensional rather than flat and with differing facial features to the other masks. Modern research dates the mask to between 1550–1500 BCE. The Trojan War is said to have taken place in the 12th or 13th century BCE, 300 to 400 years later.

If Agamemnon didn’t own the mask, what does this tell us about the Mycenaeans themselves? Such a mask requires skill, and these skills aren’t cheap. Whoever the man was, he had money. And the presence of weapons in a grave suggests he was also a warrior. Around this time, the city of Mycenae held the centre of Aegean power. It’s probable this man had influence. We might even say he’s of a similar status to Agamemnon in an earlier time.

While the death mask found in a shaft grave predates the Trojan War by almost half a millennium, it’s still a genuine find. The owner of the mask had power and influence during the height of the Mycenaean age, despite not being a legendary king.

Homer’s Iliad Was About the Mycenaeans

I’ve mentioned Homer’s Iliad a few times now, so let’s discuss it. Scholars attribute this epic poem to a man named Homer, written around the 8th century BCE. Yes, this is the same Homer as the guy who was thought to have written the Odyssey. He sets the piece during the end of the Trojan War. In terms of dating the poem, and then the events the poem describes, I’ll do my best. The Greek historian Herodotus tells us Homer was 400 years before his time, which places Homer at c. 850 BCE. We know the poem talks about the collapse of the Late Bronze Age, which is 400 years before Homer wrote the poem. Most scholars believe Homer wasn’t an eyewitness to the events. Others believe Homer is the moment oral tradition becomes written tradition.

The problem lies with how much physical evidence there is to find to compare to the written sources. This is what Heinrich Schliemann was attempting to do in the 19th century. He wanted to compare the physical remains to Homer’s Iliad and find the overlap of myth and legend. It wasn’t Schliemann who found the connection between the site of Troy and a historical conflict of the 12th century BCE. Though this connection does suggest something happened which may have inspired the events the Greeks believed real. It’s worth noting the similarities between scenes and events in Mesopotamian texts such as The Epic of Gilgamesh.

And yet, places did exist where Homer sets them, such as the city at the mound of Hissarlik.

The city of Troy itself was a bustling, regionally important citadel of political interest to Mycenaean Greeks. The name itself is circumstantial evidence. Troia comes from a contemporary Hittite document referring to the only major Bronze Age city attested in the archaeological record. This is the city on the mound of Hissarlik.

For the Mycenaeans themselves, Homeric names appear in Linear B script found on tablets from both Knossos and Pylos. Achilles is a shepherd, not a king or warrior.

The question of events from the Iliad having taken place in history is less of the yes-no variety and more how much is the historical text is true. We can place a pin on a map for many of the places mentioned which also existed in the Mycenaean period. There’s even record of the names, though not with the same roles in society. We’re limited by the surviving archaeology in determining the accuracy of the text. It’s down to the interpretation of everyone involved.

Conclusion

I hope I’ve explained everything well, it was a lot to cover in such a short amount of time. Let’s recap briefly. The Mycenaeans predated the guys we know of as Ancient Greeks, but it was the regular ancient Greeks that started the whole belief that the Mycenaeans were the heroes of the myths.

This culminated in the writing of Homer’s Iliad. People thought to be a real history book until the 19th century, when Heinrich Schliemann and Arthur Evans went to prove how accurate it was. They mislabelled everything they found. Two of these finds were the Palace at Knossos on Crete, and the Mask of Agamemnon found in a grave in Mycenae. Neither one dates entirely to the Age of Heroes. Archaeologists are still fixing these errors through more modern accurate dating methods.

The Mycenaeans were the precursors of the people we consider Ancient Greek. What they left behind shows us just how Greek they were. But as with the legendary King Arthur, the events in Homer’s Iliad haven’t been proven to have happened exactly as described. We have Troy. We have a date for the siege Troy. What we don’t have is anything to suggest it was Achilles who besieged the city and led to the coming of the Greek Dark Ages.

As I said earlier, there’s nothing to say it didn’t happen to someone at some point, it just wasn’t Achilles, or Theseus, or King Agamemnon.

Resources and Links

• “An Introduction to the Ancient World” by L. de Blois and R.J. van der Spek