Mycenaean Greece was the Greek civilization of the late Bronze Age, centred on fortified palace centres such as Mycenae, Tiryns, Pylos and Thebes. It is named after Mycenae in the Argolid, where Heinrich Schliemann excavated rich shaft graves in 1876. The Mycenaeans were Greek speakers who kept palace records on clay tablets in the Linear B script, which Michael Ventris deciphered in 1952, and they traded widely across the Mediterranean and borrowed much from Minoan Crete. Their world was organised around kings and a bureaucracy. Around 1200 BCE the palaces were destroyed or abandoned in the wider upheavals of the Late Bronze Age collapse, and Greece entered a poorer age. Memories of Mycenaean heroes probably shaped the later epics of Homer.
Before and after
- from c. 1,650 BCE to 1,580 BCESixteenth Dynasty of Egypt
- c. 1,645 BCEEruption of Aniakchak
- c. 1,610 BCEEruption of Santorini
- from c. 1,600 BCE to 1,046 BCEShang dynasty
- from c. 1,600 BCE to 1,100 BCEMycenaean Greece
- from c. 1,580 BCE to 1,550 BCESeventeenth Dynasty of Egypt
- from c. 1,550 BCE to 1,292 BCEEighteenth Dynasty of Egypt
- from c. 1,550 BCE to 1,070 BCEEgyptian Empire
- from c. 1,531 BCE to 1,155 BCEKassites
More in Evolution & life
- from c. 3,200 BCE to 1,050 BCECycladic civilization
- from c. 2,600s BCE to 2,200s BCEBell beaker culture
- from 16th century BCE to 1st century BCENok culture
- from c. 1,200 BCE to 450 BCEHallstatt culture
- from c. 1,200 BCE to 800 BCEUrnfield culture
- from c. 100 CE to 700 CEMoche culture
The era
This moment belongs to the Ancient civilizations (3,200 BCE to 500 CE), writing, cities and empires. You can also browse everything in the 16th century BCE.