[3] In the second millennium BC, Mycenae was one of the major centres of Greek civilisation, a military stronghold which dominated much of southern Greece, Crete, the Cyclades and parts of southwest Anatolia.

Mycenae and Tiryns, which stand as the pinnacle of the early phases of Greek civilisation, provided unique witness to political, social and economic growth during the Mycenaean civilization.

A stringent legal framework was established to safeguard the integrity of the Mycenae and Tiryns sites against vandalism and other forms of damage and disturbance to the remains.

[12] The later form, Mykē̂nai (Μυκῆναι), was the result of a well-known sound change in Attic-Ionic, which shifted some instances of ā to ē. Mycenae, an acropolis site, was built on a hill 900 feet (274 metres) above sea level, some 19 kilometres (12 miles) inland from the Gulf of Argolis.

Situated in the north-east corner of the Argive plain, it easily overlooked the whole area and was ideally positioned to be a centre of power, especially as it commanded all easy routes to the Isthmus of Corinth.

[14] Pottery material spanning the entire Early Helladic was discovered 1877 by Panagiotis Stamatakis at a low depth in the sixth shaft grave in Circle A.

Further EH and MH material was found beneath the walls and floors of the palace, on the summit of the acropolis and outside the Lion Gate in the area of the ancient cemetery.

[15] The first burials in pits or cist graves manifest in MHII (c. 1800 BC) on the west slope of the acropolis, which was at least partially enclosed by the earliest circuit wall.

The presence of engraved and inlaid swords and daggers, with spear points and arrowheads, leaves little doubt that warrior chieftains and their families were buried here.

Some art objects obtained from the graves are the Silver Siege Rhyton, the Mask of Agamemnon, the Cup of Nestor and weapons both votive and practical.

At a conventional date of 1350 BC, the fortifications on the acropolis and other surrounding hills were rebuilt in a style known as Cyclopean because the blocks of stone used were so massive that they were thought in later ages to be the work of the one-eyed giants known as the Cyclopes.

In the temple built within the citadel, a scarab of Queen Tiye of Egypt, who was married to Amenhotep III, was placed in the Room of the Idols alongside at least one statue of either LHIIIA:2 or B:1 type.

[21] The main entrance through the circuit wall was made grand by the best known feature of Mycenae, the Lion Gate, through which passed a stepped ramp leading past circle A and up to the palace.

The ancient travel writer Pausanias, for example, visited the site and briefly described the prominent fortifications and the Lion Gate, still visible in his time, the second century AD.

It appears that the Mycenaean state was ruled by kings identified by the title 𐀷𐀙𐀏, wa-na-ka ("wanax") in the Linear B inscriptions at Knossos and Pylos.

indicate that large parts of Greece may have fallen under the sway of a single king, with various degrees of control over local vassals: a situation not dissimilar from the contemporary Hittite world, although the archaeological evidence remains ambiguous.

[43][44] From the history traced by Nilsson and Guthrie, the Mycenaean pantheon consisted of Minoan deities, but also of gods and goddesses who appear under different names with similar functions in East and West.

[45] Many of these names appearing in the Linear B inscriptions can be found later in classical Greece, like Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Athena, Hermes, Eileithyia and Dionysos,[46] but the etymology is the only evidence of the cults.

The Mycenaeans probably entered Greece with a pantheon of deities headed by some ruling sky-deity, which linguists speculate might have been called *Dyeus in early Indo-European.

At the end of the second millennium BC, when the Mycenaean palaces collapsed, it seems that Greek thought was gradually released from the idea that each man was a servant to the gods, and sought a "moral purpose".

It is possible that this procedure started before the end of the Mycenaean age, but the idea is almost absent or vague in the Homeric poems, where the interference of the gods is not related to the rightness or wrongness of men's actions.

He set the stage for future greatness by marrying Nicippe, a daughter of King Pelops of Elis, the most powerful state of the region and the times.

They claimed the right of the Perseids to inherit the various kingdoms of the Peloponnese and cast lots for the dominion of them, thus leaving the Atreids as the final rulers of Legendary Mycenae.

'[69] In the early 19th century, local tradition held that the Treasury of Atreus had been once explored by the agha of the nearby village of Karvati, who took from it a bronze lamp.

[75] Veli Pasha removed four large fragments of the semi-engaged columns beside the doorway, some of which he gave as a gift to Howe Browne, 2nd Marquess of Sligo, who visited him shortly after the excavations.

[77] In 1841, Kyriakos Pittakis, working on behalf of the Archaeological Society of Athens, cleared the approach to the Lion Gate and made a tentative exploration of the Tomb of Clytemnestra.

His goal was to find the grave of Agamemnon, the king of Mycenae and leader of the Greek army in the Trojan War as described in Homer's Iliad.

Modern archeological evidence has proven his claims of discovering Agamemnon's remains were most likely false, as the mask is dated more than 300 years before the events of the Trojan War.

[85] The Athens Archaeological Society is currently excavating the Mycenae Lower Town (as of 2011[update]), with support from Dickinson College and the Institute for Aegean Prehistory.

[85] The ASA continued excavation work on the site with efforts led by John Papadimitriou and Nicolas Verdelis in the late 1950s and early 1960s, as well as by George Mylonas from 1957 up until 1985.