The Mycenaean Civilization (1600-1100 BC)

As brilliantly described in the Ancient Greek Thesaursus:
Greeks first settled on the Greek mainland about 2000 B.C. Geography played a large part in the formation of their society, as it does in all civilizations. Mountain ranges divide Greece into many small valleys. The resulting pattern of settlement, so different from that of Egypt, encouraged the Greeks to develop independent political communities without the direction—or oppression—of a central ruler. The broken coastline, indented with countless small harbors, invited the people to become sailors, traders, and warriors at sea. By 1600 enterprises by sea had transformed a number of the independent Greek communities into wealthy, fortified states. Chief among them was Mycenae; therefore the years from 1600 to 1100 B.C. are often called the Mycenaean Age.

Fabulous grave discoveries were made at Mycaneae on the mainland of Greece that reflect that the Mycenaeans were also wealthy like the Minoans on Crete but were considerably more warlike. Nonetheless, the island culture on Crete apparently did not decline primarily because of war but went downhill after the devastating volcanic eruption on Thera which significantly erodeded the economic and trading activities of the Minoans on Crete.

The height of Mycenean culture and wealth followed the volcanic catastrophe on Santorini and the decline of the Minoan civilization. The Mycenean civilization had thus supplanted the Minonan civilization as the predominant sphere of influence on the Greek Islands. The city-states during this period were probably generally independent. The only time these cities appear to have united was during the Trojan war. The origin of the Trojans is not totally clear, but pottery suggests a close trading and ties to the Greeks. One layer of the city of Troy, in modern Turkey, was destroyed by an enemy about 1250. In addition to the very specific evidence portrayed in the Illiad, archaeological evidence suggests that Homer's account of a successful Greek expedition against Troy is based on substantial historical truth.

As described in the Ancient Greek Thesaursus:
The war against Troy was the last feat of the Mycenaean Age. About 1300 or a little later, various marauders began to attack Greek ships and even mainland Greece. The identity of these warriors is still uncertain. Historians usually call them sea-peoples, and their homes were probably somewhere in Asia Minor. Whoever they were, they made trading by sea so dangerous that the export of Mycenaean pottery virtually ended. The raids by sea were temporarily destructive. But much more significant was a series of attacks by land, lasting roughly from 1200 to 1100. Near 1100, Mycenae itself was overrun and destroyed.

It is not completely clear who these land invaders were, however, ancient Greek tradition spoke of the "return of the sons of Heracles (Hercules)," which apparently meant the return of Greeks speaking the Doric dialect of Greek to their ancestral home in the Peloponnese. The same suggestions worked out a date for this event, at about 1100 B.C.

The Mycenaean civilization took it name after the discovery of Mycenae, the first site were this culture was identified. As shown by the excavations, the Mycenaean society was formed by an elite group organized around the judicial and executive authority of a single figure, with varying degrees of power. Their citadels were fortified with the “Cyclopean” walls, called this way because Greeks believed that only Cyclopes could have lift stones that large. The Mycenaean society had a great military strength and therefore conquered Crete and took the control of the Minoan trade network.

The Mycenaeans also used a written language called Linear B, a development of the former Minoan Linear A, used only for register the flow of goods and produce into the palaces. Between 1250 and 1150 B.C., a combination of peasant rebellions and internal warfare destroyed most of the Mycenaean palace and the Mycenaean civilization disappeared.