Discover Mycenae
There will be herodotus who will accompany you on this path
THE BIRTH OF MINOTAUR
Bull leaping scenes are believed to have decorated the walls above cerimonial bull rings. Mythical bulls like the minotaur played important roles in Minoan iconography.
According to myth, the half man, half bull Minotaur was born after Queen Pasiphae slept with a bull sent by the gods as punishment upon her. Minos did the monster in a Labyrinth constructed by Daidalos.
Daidalos
The story of Daidalos comes from Ovid. Another olders versions exist in ancient Greek sources.
Daidalos was an important figure in Greek mythology. Daidalos was banished from athens.
In Krete he was hired by Queen Pasiphae to construct an artificial cow. Daidalos helped facilitate the birth of Minotaur.
Minos conscripted Daidalos to build the labyrinth.
Ikaros the son of Daidalos used wings built by his father and flew too close to the sun, thus plummeting into the sea.
Reparation
King Minos's son Androgeos was killed in Athens by the same bull that impregnated his mother. Minos demand that Athens send seven noblemen and seven virtuous women to knossos every year. Men and women would be cast into the labyrinth to be eaten by minotaur.
The Minotaur's death
One of the Athenian youths chosen to be imprisoned in the Labyrinth. Before entering the Labyrinth, Theseus met King Minos's daughter, Ariadne, who fell madly in love with him. Ariadne provided Theseus with a thread he could unravel to help him find his way back out of the maze.
Theseus entered the Labyrinth, killed the Minotaur and escaped the maze.
After successfully killing the Minotaur, Theseus set sail for Athens with Ariadne, but stopped in Naxos for a long celebration. In another version of the story. Theseus deliberately left Ariadne behind.
When Theseus realized what he'd done to Ariadne, he was so distraught that he forgot to change his ship's sails from black to white. When his father King Aegeus saw the ominous black sails on Theseus's ship, he presumed his son was dead and, fraught with grief, threw himself into the sea.
Mycenaean civilization
Mycenaean warriors roamed the seas on twenty to fifty-oared galleys. Knowledge about their various ventures abroad can be traced back to many sources, such as cargo from Bronze Age shipwrecks and Egyptian pharaonic artifacts discovered in Mycenaean palaces.
The Lion Gate
The entrance to Agamemnon's citadel is the lion gate. It is impressive for both its height and for the intimidating rendering on its relief which depicts two lions standing on either side of a column. The lion’s heads have been lost to time. The gate was most likely meant to greet a triumphant king returning home from successful military campaigns.
Grave circle
The artifacts found in the Grave Circles are noteworthy for their monetary value, but also because some of them feature detailed fighting scenes that help historians better understand the life of early Mycenaean elites.
Even going so far as to proclaim a gold mask archeologist found to be "The Death Mask of Agamemnon".
It's estimated that the people in the graves were members of the first Mycenaean dynasty. The graves later became a place of worship for Mycenaman kings, who raised walls to protect them. These walls helped preserve several incredible artifacts.
Habitations
Mycenaean would have been rather dark and poorly ventilated. As a result, most household activities probably took place in the courtyard, while sacrifices and feasting occurred in the megaron hall. Houses were built everywhere from the top of the palace's hill near the king's residence, to the slopes and terraces within the walls, to the nearby hills outside the citadel. The people who lived inside the citadel were those with high status in either the military, religious, or administrative sectors of the kingdom. This is reflected by the ceramic and metal vessels inside the houses, as well as their painted plastered walls.
Megaron Palace
The Megaron Palace was an architectural wonder in its time. The hill the palace was built on was steep and rugged, so some of the buildings had to be placed on artificial terraces supported by walls. In 1200 BCE the quake destroyed much of this structure. Megaron Palace had a grand entrance called the Propylon. Once inside, there was the palace’s main hall called Megaron where the king received the traveler. The most beautiful part of the palace was the plain of Argolis and the gleaming Aegean Sea.
King Agamennon
Despite attempts to link buildings and artifacts from Mycenae with legendary agamemnon there is no conclusive proof of a historical Mycenaean king who could have inspired the Homeric character. Nevertheless some Hittite letters mention a Great King of Ahhiyawa which is believed by modern scholars to be the inspiration from Homer’s Troy. Agamemnon led the Greeks in the sack of troy. He was an arrogant ruler, overly ambitious and a fearsome warrior. He sacrificed Iphigenia and Clytemnestra was not pleased with her husband. When he returned to Mycenae he had mounds of riches and his new concubine Cassandra. It is not known how Agamemnon died.
