Mycenae summary

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Below is the article summary. For the full article, see Mycenae.

Treasury of AtreusEntrance to the Treasury of Atreus, Mycenae, Greece.

Mycenae , Prehistoric city, northeastern Peloponnese, Greece. A natural rock citadel, it was the legendary capital of Agamemnon. It flourished during the Bronze Age, building the distinctive Mycenaean civilization. It was at its height in the Aegean c. 1400 bce and declined c. 1100 bce with the invasion of the Dorians from the north. Excavations at Mycenae began in 1840, but the most celebrated discoveries there were those by Heinrich Schliemann c. 1876. Ruins include the Lion Gate, acropolis, granary, and several royal beehive tombs and shaft graves.

Greece Summary

Greece, the southernmost of the countries of the Balkan Peninsula. Geography has greatly influenced the country’s development. Mountains historically restricted internal communications, but the sea opened up wider horizons. The total land area of Greece (one-fifth of which is made up of the Greek

Atreus Summary

Atreus, in Greek legend, the son of Pelops of Mycenae and his wife, Hippodamia. Atreus was the elder brother of Thyestes and was the king of Mycenae. The story of his family—the House of Atreus—is virtually unrivaled in antiquity for complexity and corruption. There are several different accounts

Map showing the countries of Europe with national capitals and surrounding bodies of water, including the Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, and Black Sea.

Europe Summary

Europe, second smallest of the world’s continents, composed of the westward-projecting peninsulas of Eurasia (the great landmass that it shares with Asia) and occupying nearly one-fifteenth of the world’s total land area. It is bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the west by the Atlantic

Heinrich Schliemann Summary

Heinrich Schliemann was a German archaeologist and excavator of Troy, Mycenae, and Tiryns. He is sometimes considered to be the modern discoverer of prehistoric Greece, though scholarship in the late 20th and early 21st centuries revealed that much self-mythologizing was involved in establishing