Mycenae

Writing this blog has been fun and gave me an opportunity for a different kind of reflection on what I might otherwise have simply seen, heard, felt and casually left behind.

Knowing that many of you were following it was supportive, motivating and this too felt good.

Each day was its own experience and this simple yet profound cartoon became my theme for each day.











My visit to Mycenae was another special day.

This picture is taken at the Lion Gate, the entrance to the ancient citadel of Mycenae - yet another place I had only dreamed of visiting, never expecting to actually walk this place.










Mycenae and Troy both figure prominently in our own history. Lines drawn from these ancients reach all of us who belong to 'western civilization'.


This is an aerial view of Mycenae. The Lions Gate is bottom left, where the shadowed area is just before Grave Circle A [the round circle site]







Mycenae was a city state mentioned by Homer.

Homer, and all his  characters and places, were considered myth until the late 1800's when Heinrich Schliemann, a German self-made millionaire, who was also self educated, concluded they may be real places waiting to be found.

Mycenae, [1400-1100 BCE] and what took place there, and preserved through Homer,  laid the foundation for Greek art and literature and the Greek ancient and classical cultures define our heritage.

This is what the sit looked like about 1200. It was from here that the epic Battle of Troy was launched, a war that now appears to have been a real historical event, and the outcome of which influenced everyone.

Through his fascination with Homer, Schliemann observed there was simply too much detail in these epic poems to be just fiction. 

This is an amazing time in history. Similar observations were being made by many observant people at this period of history. These decades of the mid to late 1800's were the years many smart people were making new conclusions based on the evidence around them. 

Darwin had just published the "Origin of the Species," Hegel had a seminar class that had three rather bright students in it: Karl Marx, Sigmond Freud and Feuerbach.  Many people were concluding that a formal education for their children was a good idea. The concept of childhood as a phase of critical development, and thus unique opportunity, was first described in terms that we would recognize in the 1870's

The story of the recovery of knowing about Mycenae a couple of 1000 years after its 'loss' is a true detective story.

Schliemann looked at the details of Homer's sagas of the Iliad and the Odyssey, focused on the details, travelled to the Aegean, explored, asked questions, kicked over dirt, actually purchased the  sites with greatest potential, hired local labourers, taught them archaeological techniques that he was developing on the spot including the importance of 'in situ' interpretation and dating.

He discovered the Mycenaean and Minoan civilizations and artifacts that still amaze us today. Here I am beside the "mask of Agamemnon" in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. This was found in the shaft graves in the royal tombs in Grave Circle A.

Other graves sites uncovered at Mycenae include the tholos tombs.

Tomb of Aegisthos ( c. 1500 BC), the Lion Tholos Tomb (c. 1350 BC), the Tomb of Clytemnestra (c. 1220 BC).

  These great royal tombs were 'beehive' shaped caverns dug   into the sides of hills and, we think, reopened from time to time as members of royalty died.



  Look at the size of this stone I'm leaning on below!












The dead were buried with incredible wealth of gold and other treasures, yet, like the tombs of Egypt, many were found and robbed over the centuries.


















These tombs, of which there are four found so far, are about 40 ft in diameter and about 50 ft high!

See me - bottom left, dwarfed by these walls. Ground level is where the large ring of stone is placed.

The cistern at Mycenae was an amazing place I would like to visit again when I have a flashlight. It begins inside the fortress walls but goes down through the mountain to a spring far below and outside the walls.


One advantage of traveling in the winter is that, in most cases, I was either alone or with very few others at these sites. The disadvantage is that some things do not have the light on, or a guide with a handy flashlight!

When I came across the cistern entrance it was black inside. The tunnel goes down and turns several times. I couldn't resist the invitation of this intriguing entrance.

Not having a light, I would take a picture with the camera's flash on -  using the flash of light to see the next couple of steps and go down, repeating this several times.

 Finally, after three turns and deep into the pitch black, I could see this in front of me, but had no idea what it was,

...so thought maybe I should go back up.

Oh well. It was fun.

Finally, these are two new friends I made in Athens.

Dimitrios, an American-born Athenian with a deep interest and pride in Greek history and archaeology,  took the day off work to drive me to Mycenae.

His daughter, Valentina, 11, and just beginning to learn English, took the day off school to come spend a rare day hanging out with her dad.

She was astounded by her own history and went back to class with stories of her homeland she had not known.

Sharing this day of exploration with my new friends made it a truly exceptional experience and I am so grateful to them for sharing their country with me.