In Greece, the invasion of the Mycenaeans in the seventeenth century BCE brought a chariot-borne aristocracy to southeastern Europe. The Mycenaean Greeks were part of the larger Indo-European migrations who spread from their original location in the steppe region north of the Black Sea to India, Persia, and Europe. The Mycenaeans entered Greece from the north and successfully challenged the Minoans, a seaborn civilization based on Crete, for mastery of the Aegean. By 1400 BCE, the Mycenaeans established a number of city-states in Boeotia and Attica on the mainland and in the Argolid region of the Peloponnesus especially noted for their fortified palace centers built on hills surrounded by large stone walls. These Bronze Age palace-citadels formed a loose confederation of independent states including Tiryns, Pylos, Thebes, and Orchomenos, with the city-state of Mycenae the primary hegemon. These early urban fortifications exhibit a sophisticated understanding of military architecture, a sophistication that required technical specialization and division of labor and reflected and enforced a complex social hierarchy.

Origins of the Mycenaeans

The Mycenaean civilization was a Late Bronze Age civilization (c.1700-c.1100 BCE), one which peaked between the fifteenth and thirteenth centuries BCE.  At its height, it controlled a mainland and maritime empire that stretched throughout the Peloponnesian peninsula in southern Greece, north into Attica, and across the Aegean to include the Cycladic Islands and the large island of Crete to the south. During this period of expansion, the Mycenaeans first traded with and later dominated the Minoan civilization, based on the island of Crete, which went into precipitous decline after the catastrophic volcanic corruption on Thera (modern Santorini) around 1500 BCE, with Minoan cultural influences continuing to shape Mycenaean civilization. Both the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations were early thalassocracies (sea powers), with the latter taking over the former’s networks throughout the eastern Mediterranean and trading with Anatolia, Cyprus, the Levant, and Egypt.

Emergence of Complex Social Hierarchy

Like other contemporary and later Indo-European peoples, the Mycenaean culture was controlled by a military aristocracy, ruled by a wanax or king and his family who ruled his territory as a city-state from the safety of his hilltop citadel. The wanax held enormous power over all of the social classes, from the priests, military leaders and soldiers, merchants, craft persons, down to the free farmers and slaves.  As the head of the city-state, his duties were related to palatial administration, warfare, diplomacy, economics, and religion, but he was also the largest landowner, pulling revenues from this land to help maintain his power. Next in importance to the wanax was the lawagetas who seem to have been the commanding general and major landowner, although the precise relationship between king and general is still a matter of academic speculation. Both of these men commanded the military aristocracy known as the eqeta (sometimes heqetai or “companions”), who themselves were probably small landowners with control over their own agricultural workers and slaves. Little is known from the archaeological and written record concerning how these early Mycenaean rulers consolidated their power in this pre-palatial era. Specifically, whether internecine warfare led to the consolidation of territory into a handful of rival and prosperous city-states by the late fifteenth century BCE, or whether the development of a wanax-led chariot-borne warrior aristocracy was due to outside threats.

Although historians do not have any descriptions of Bronze Age Mycenaean battles in contemporary writings, there is ample evidence for the war chariot being the centerpiece of their warfare. Tablets written in Linear B (the Mycenaean Greek language) found at Knossos on Crete show inventories of fully equipped chariots along with chariot bodies, wheels, bridles, and other accessories, presenting the possibility of the Mycenaean Cretans fielding a force of perhaps 200 chariots. The Mycenaean chariot was a light machine pulled by a team of two horses in the style of the Egyptian rather than the heavier Hittite models. Mycenaean war chariots were most likely supported on the battlefield by both heavy infantry armed with thrusting spears, sword and dagger and light infantry archers and javelineers. The most common body armor consisted of linen shirts fitted with bronze scales, though excavations at Mycenae revealed a bronze armor cuirass with a helmet made of boars’ tusks. Shields are represented in the art of the period as either oblong, tower-like shields, or the narrow-waisted figure-of-eight shields, both capable of covering the defender from chin to ankle. Battle itself probably took place on the handful of flat plains found throughout the Peloponnesus, Boeotia, and Attica.  Again, history is silent concerning how these war chariots were used. It is possible they were simply an expensive conveyance to the battlefield for the warrior elite, or perhaps they were utilized in a manner similar to chariot warfare in Anatolia and the Near East, but on a smaller scale due to the limited resources of the Greek city-states and the mountainous terrain involved, with victor or vanquished either returning or retreating back to the protection of their hilltop palace-citadels.

Emergence and Defensive Characteristics of Hilltop Citadels

Modern scholars debate the function of the earliest Mycenaean fortified palace complexes, particularly whether they were an expression of power and control over native populations, or whether they served as a necessary refuge from external attack.  What is known, however, is how the architects of Mycenaean citadels understood the role of elevation and terrain in maximizing the defensive potential of their chosen site. The largest of these palace complexes at Mycenae, Tiryns, Thebes, and Orchomenos shared similar characteristics. Each was built on a hill, ideally flat-topped and of moderate elevation and adaptable to fortification. The flat summit would be the location of the palace citadel, usually attached to the curtain walls built close by. Sometimes, the hilltop location was sufficient to protect the palace without additional curtain walls, as in the case of Pylos in the southwestern Peloponnesus.  However, all sites required a secure water source, and ideally, it was close to the natural resources needed to build the complex (rock quarries and forests). Mycenaean fortification walls were usually built along the edge of a sharp change in elevation in the local topography so that the masonry of the circuit wall combined with the natural contours of the site to create an even more formidable obstacle for attackers. Scholars have identified three different types of Mycenaean citadel based on location: the “island acropolis,” the “promontory acropolis,” and the “recess acropolis.” The first of these, the “island acropolis” rises in a plane enclosed by mountains and the sea, usually at the head of a bay in order to control commerce and military movements from land to sea.  Examples of this type of citadel include the large site at Tiryns and smaller sites at Athens, Gla, and Iolcus. The “promontory acropolis” palace citadel is situated at a higher elevation directly overlooking the sea and a strategically important harbor.  Examples of this type of urban fortification are the smaller sites of Aulis and Asine. The “recess acropolis” are palace centers which nestle in one corner of a plain butted up against the mountains and control the land routes passing from one plain to the next.  Mycenae, Thebes, and Orchomenos are the most important examples. However, none of these Mycenaean palace complexes were constructed directly on the coast, owing to the prevalence of piracy in the ancient world. This reluctance to build directly on the shore would continue into the Classical era (c.1000-BCE-c.500 CE), with major cities like Athens and Rome built inland.

The Mycenae Palace Complex

The largest and most important of these Mycenaean fortified palace complexes is the namesake of the civilization, the site of Mycenae in the northeastern Argolid region of the Peloponnesus. Located nine miles from the Gulf or Argolis, the walled hilltop city and the village below together boasted a population of perhaps 30,000 people at the peak of Mycenaean civilization in the mid-fourteenth century BCE. The site was famously excavated by the German amateur archaeologist and treasure hunter Heinrich Schliemann (1822-1890), who took a break from his excavations at Troy (Ilium, the namesake of Homer’s Iliad) to begin excavating at Mycenae in 1876 under the supervision of the Greek archaeologist Panagiotis Stamatakis (c.1840-1885). Schliemann excavated the shaft graves there, and famously found the golden funerary mask which he misnamed the “Mask of Agamemnon” because of that Mycenaean king’s association with the palace citadel in Greek mythology (the mask is actually from an older era of Mycenaean civilization). He would continue to excavate at nearby Tiryns and Orchomenos until his death in in 1890. Schliemann’s well-publicized archaeological digs, popular publications, and numerous newspaper articles captured the imagination of the literate world, making famous the newly discovered ruins of Troy and Mycenae, Bronze Age citadels referenced by the Greek poet Homer in his Iliad and Odyssey. 

Top photo: Artistic reconstruction of the hilltop palace citadel at Mycenae showing the varying heights and widths of the circuit walls. Source: Wikipedia. This image is ubiquitous on the internet. In the Public Domain; click to enlarge.

Second photo from top: Map of important Mycenaean palace complexes and other settlements, c.1400-c.1100 BCE. Source: Wikipedia. In the Public Domain; click to enlarge.

Second photo from bottom: The misnamed funerary Mask of Agamemnon found at Mycenae. The mask dates to a period before the time of the Greek siege of Troy and was erroneously attributed to Agamemnon by Heinrich Schliemann. National Archaeological Museum of Athens. Source: Wikipedia. In the Public Domain; click to enlarge.

Bottom photo: The famous Lion Gate and Cyclopean Walls at Mycenae. Source: Wikipedia. In the Public Domain; click to enlarge.

Situated on a triangular-shaped hill ranging from 130 to a 160 feet in height and covering an area of seven-and-a half acres, the Mycenae fortified complex is protected by a circuit wall that runs nearly 1000 yards following the contours of the rock. The southeastern approach of the triangle is protected by a deep escarpment, while the entire hill gently slopes down to the northwest, the location of the famous Lion Gate, itself an architectural wonder. The Lion Gate is a ten feet by ten feet square doorway with an eighteen-ton lintel topped by two ten feet high heraldic lions and a column altar. The height of the circuit walls varies depending on topography, between fifteen feet and thirty-four feet, but reaching as high as thirty-nine feet on the southwest side. The width of the wall also varies depending on location, from as little as ten feet to as much as forty-six feet in the southeast side of the fortress, allowing for the presence of sentries and perhaps chariots or other vehicular conveyances. The interior of the walls contains a granary, an underground cistern, a royal circular cemetery, individual upper-class homes, and the palace citadel itself.  The centerpiece of Mycenaean palaces was the megaron, a rectangular great hall built out of stone and wood. The megaron had a fixed hearth surrounded by four wooden columns and was approached throughout columned porch via an anteroom. This great hall’s configuration became the forerunner of later Greek temples.

Mycenae is famous for its Cyclopean Walls, a characteristic of many Mycenaean fortifications.  First identified by the Roman author Pliny the Elder (24-79 CE) and attributed to the Athenian philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BCE), the term Cyclopean Walls takes its name from the classical Greek notion that the massive limestone boulders used to construct the walls were put in place by giant Cyclops. It is an appropriate term based on the size and shape of these limestone boulders, many weighing several tons. Interestingly, the way these walls were constructed changed over the hundreds of years of Mycenaean civilization, beginning as unwrought stones of various sizes fitted together without the use of mortar or clay to bind them, with smaller pieces of limestone filling the gaps. However, by the time of the construction of the famous curtain walls of Mycenae, two different types of cyclopean walls emerged, one characterized by polygonal stones which fit together with precision, and the second by stones of unequal size, but the same height fit together to create a curtainwall. In some places, ashlar construction was utilized consisting of two exterior faces of boulders with a rubble interior made up of small rocks and earth. The main approach to the citadel was always from the lowest and most gently sloping side, allowing for easier access by foot, horseback, chariot, or wagon.  At Mycenae, this main approach was guarded by the impressive Lion Gate. In fortifications of all eras, gates are always the weakest part of the defensive system, and the Mycenaeans took great care in protecting these entranceways by either placing the main approach route along the curtainwall length itself, or by projecting a massive bastion to the right of someone entering the gate. Moreover, the number of gates was usually limited to a main gate and a secondary gate or postern for added security. Interestingly, new defensive elements were added near the end of the history of the palace citadel complex, including more sally ports (small exits, sometimes hidden, where defenders can exit the fortification for tactical advantage or escape) to a northeastern extension, perhaps an indication of a greater threat level at the end of Mycenaean civilization. The defensive characteristics founded Mycenae were also found in other Mycenaean palace citadels across the Aegean world, but as imposing as they were, their sophistication paled in comparison to Hittite, Old Assyrian, and New Kingdom Egyptian fortifications from the same period.

Effectiveness against Siege Techniques

Parallel to their fortification designs, Late Bronze Age siege techniques in the Greek world were not as advanced as those in the ancient Near East, so the presence of spearmen and archers manning imposing Cyclopean Walls was an effective deterrence to attack under most circumstances. The earliest forms of siege warfare utilized ladders to scale enemy walls, while mobile sheds protected attackers moving forward to operate battering rams against gates. These forms of attacks are clearly indicated in the primary sources from the Near East, but less is known concerning Aegean warfare due to a dearth of textual and archaeological information. The absence of powerful siege engines from Bronze Age warfare generally meant powerful walls and secure gates were often sufficient to withstand a siege, providing provisions and access to water held out. The Greeks would continue to lag behind their Near Eastern neighbors in both fortification and siegecraft for centuries, catching up slowly in the Hellenic Period (c.500-338 BCE) and adopting many Eastern technologies and tactics under Macedonian rule in the Hellenistic Era (338-30 BCE). Still, the mighty walls of the Mycenaean palace citadels protected the wanax and his warrior aristocracy for generations, until a new wave of attackers emerged to accelerate the end of the Bronze Age.

Decline and Fall of the Mycenaean Civilization

Archaeological evidence points to the Mycenaeans increasing the size of the walls around their palace citadel complexes near the end of the thirteenth century BCE. Perhaps there was increased fighting among the Mycenaean city-states, or perhaps there was a foreign invasion of Greece. Meanwhile, some scholars believe that a disastrous foreign expedition against Troy weakened the Mycenaeans collectively. All of these things could be true.  However, there is evidence of a new wave of iron-wielding barbarian invaders attacking the Aegean from the north, known to history as the Dorians. The Dorians were tribal Greek speaking forerunners to later Greeks who populated the mainland area and the Peloponnesus. They are associated with demigod Heracles (Hercules) and are often portrayed as part of the “‘Sea Peoples” invasions and migrations which sailed around the eastern Mediterranean and invaded Anatolia, Syria, Palestine, Cyprus, and Egypt toward the end of the Bronze Age. In Greece, Pylos was destroyed c.1200 BCE. Mycenae was destroyed around 1190 BCE. Other palace-complexes were burned or abandoned over the next century. By c.1100 BCE the Mycenaean civilization ended, ushering in a 300-year Dark Age in the Aegean region (c.1100-c.800 BCE). Some of these minor Mycenaean sites were re-inhabited in the following centuries (Athens and Thebes), becoming important city-states during Greece’s Classical era, while others never again regained their cultural importance.

Legacy

The magnificent ruins of the Mycenaean palace citadel complexes with their Cyclopean Walls inspired the later Classical Greeks as tangible reminders of their own heroic history and connection to the gods. Beginning in the eighth century BCE, Homer began to write down the exploits of famous Greeks from clearly identifiable Mycenaean cities. Agamemnon of Mycenae and Nestor of Pylos are important protagonists from this “Age of Heroes” in his Iliad and Odyssey, two of the most famous and influential works in the Western literary tradition. And after their rediscovery in the late nineteenth century by famous archaeologists like Heinrich Schliemann and Panagiotis Stamatakis, these magnificent ruins continue to inspire visitors today with two of these hilltop citadels, Mycenae and Tiryns, protected as UNESCO Cultural Heritage Sites. 

Suggested Readings:

Chadwick, John. The Mycenaean World. Cambridge University Press, 1976.

Cline, Eric H. 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed. Princeton University Press, 2014.

Drews, Robert. The Coming of the Greeks: Indo-European Conquests in the Aegean and the Near East. Princeton University Press, 1988.

Fields, Nic. Mycenaean Citadels, c.1350-1200 BC. Osprey, 2004.