The well-known ancient town of Mycenae can be found by all lovers of history searching for traces of the ancient times and civilizations in the east of the Peloponnese Peninsula towards the interior. Mycenae was a significant centre of early Greek culture that flourished in the place during five centuries between 1600 and 1150 BC, until it perished for unknown reasons.

You can admire there the remains of the perimeter walls of the then massive fortification known under the name of Cyclopean masonry. The town is entered through the famous Lion Gate from approx. 1260 BC, with the beasts carved on the top. From the fortress, it was possible to control the immediate surroundings but also the mountain passes up to the Corinth Canal. Mycenae had an extraordinarily advanced architecture: its Royal Palace of which both the walls and floors were decorated with paintings, was surrounded by private houses, in some cases even three-storey ones.

A great part of the archaeological research in Mycenae was made by the legendary discoverer of Troja, Heinrich Schliemann. In 1876, he discovered shaft graves from the 16th century BC where he found 19 skeletons with plentiful funerary equipment including golden jewels, richly decorated bronze weapons, golden and silver receptacles, and, last but not least, he also discovered a golden mask he determined to be the mask Agamemnon (in fact it is several centuries older).

There are also hundreds of small caly plates depicting social and industrial habits.

Among the famous monuments in Mycenae, we can also find the Treasury of Atreus. It is the biggest of the beehive tombs built between 1400 and 1200 BC. They were circular constructions made of huge blocks meeting towards their top. Unfortunately, those tombs were completely burgled in the past and nothing of the funerary equipment has been preserved.

You can admire a considerable part of the finds from Mycenae in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens.