Arys🏺🪶 Profile picture
Nov 22, 2022 11 tweets 7 min read Read on X
Mycenae, one of the most important centers of #BronzeAge Greece. At its peak in 1350 BCE, the citadel and lower town had a population of 30,000 people.

According to #mythology Mycenae was ruled by the House of Atreus and his descendants are known as Atreidae.
#Archaeology
Mycenae developed into a major power during 1550 - 1450 BCE when the Cretan (Minoan) hegemony over the Aegean started to decline. Mycenaeans took over Crete, the islands and expanded even in small parts of W. Anatolia. They replaced the Minoans as the maritime power.
Mycenaeans created the first organized bureaucratic civilization of mainland Europe and they were using the Linear B syllabic script, the earliest attested form of Greek. The oldest Mycenaean writing found dates to about 1400 BCE.mnamon.sns.it/index.php?page…

researchgate.net/figure/a-The-b…
The Mycenaean world wasn't united into one state but dominated by a warrior elite society, consisting of a network of palace-centered states ruled by the wanax (Άναξ), the King👑.

Lion Gate of Mycenae ©Alamy
Nomenclature: How did the Mycenaeans called themselves?

Perhaps the closest we can get to understanding a concept of unity among Greek-speaking communities in the late Bronze Age is from Homer and comparing it with the "Ahhiyawa" term which is
attested in Hittite inscriptions. In Homer the Mycenaeans were referred as Achaians.
If we accept that the Homeric epics preserve Mycenaean places and names, it seems possible that Mycenaean-era dwellers on the Greek mainland might have thought of themselves as part of "Achaia".
Mycenae was destroyed as part of the Bronze Age Collapse around 1200 BCE. The causes of this major event is still unknown and highly debated.
It was partly rebuilt after, though it was no longer the center of a centralized literate bureacuracy.
The site remained sparsely populated for the next centuries. People of Mycenae are among those men who fought against the Persian invasion of Greece while some sites continued to be inhabited until the Hellenistic period. During the Roman period, Mycenae was totally abandoned.
But it seems that during that period of the Pax Romana, famous sites connected with the Homeric Epics were popular touristic destinations. Pausanias (2nd c. CE) visited the site and briefly described the prominent fortifications and the Lion Gate, still visible in his time.
The first excavations at Mycenae were carried out by Greek archaeologist Kyriakos Pittakis in 1841 and later in 1876, a complete excavation by Heinrich Schliemann.

Homer was right, Mycenae was indeed "Golden".
©part of the golden artifacts unearthed from tombs in Mycenae
Sorry if you thought I was going to make a thread about Troy or the House of Atreus or any event related with all the drama of this house...no no
Maybe some other time❤

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More from @ArysPan

Jun 18, 2023
In 2022 a treasure trove found in a desert cave in Israel, dating back to King Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175-164 BC).

According to the Israeli Antiquities Authority represents the "first evidence in the Judean Desert for the Maccabean revolt" against the Greek Seleucid Empire. Image
The Seleucid Empire covered large swaths of the Middle East and Central Asia but its power started to diminish.

King Antiochus IV Epiphanes which is referred to in Jewish sources as "The Wicked" is known for banning Jewish practices and traditions. Image
In the year 167 BC started a major Jewish rebellion against the Empire and against Greek influence on Jewish traditional life.
The Seleucid King Antiochus IV Epiphanes launched a massive campaign against the rebels. Image
Read 5 tweets
May 22, 2023
Ancient Greek geographic terms

𝘏𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘢 "western land" (Lit., land of the Setting Sun) initially the Italian peninsula and later Iberia & Western North Africa.

𝘈𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘢 "eastern land" (Lit., land of the Rising Sun), the peninsula of Asia Minor (modern Turkey).  1680s map - The Mediterran...
Both term are influenced from a Greek point of view. Anatolia initially meant the lands in the east in general but it came to be traditionally associated with Asia Minor, and remains in use in various occasions even today.
Anatolḗ (Ἀνατολή, means the East & the rising sun). Image
Hesperia comes from the word Hespēra (Έσπέρα, the time just before the sun is going to set/evening) and is associated with Hésperos, the Evening Star (planet Venus). A son of the dawn goddess Eos and brother of Atlas (according to some versions of the myths). Image
Read 5 tweets
May 19, 2023
Statues of Egyptians Gods guarding the four entrances around a pyramidal structure? A fish pond with marble oil lamps next to roman baths by the sea and just few km away from Athens?

That's the "sanctuary of the Egyptian Gods" of Herodes Atticus (160 AD) in Nea Makri, Attica Image
The worship of Isis and Osiris adopted by the Greeks after Alexander's conquest of Egypt. Isis can be identified here with the goddess Demeter or Aphrodite, while Sarapis, the Hellenized form of Osiris, was equated with powerful gods of the Greek pantheon. Image
This tradition continued in the Roman period and many prominent Romans, as the Emperor Hadrian. Hadrian had built a Serapeion on an artificial islet at Tivoli, close to Rome, modeled on the Serapeion of the town of Canopus on the Nile Delta.
Read 7 tweets
May 13, 2023
Oh the modern counter attack.

Let's put this straight once again since the "historian" Luka is somehow fails to do so.

1) There's no fall of Rome, it's the fall of Western Rome.

2) Charlemagne, the Frankish King is not considered a continuation of the Western Roman Empire.
Merely reveals the aspirations of the Papacy to unhinged itself from the grips of Constantinople and re-create from scratch a long gone title of "Roman Emperor" in the West, one much more closer to the Papacy, to serve better for its political/religious ambitions.
Whatever cultural inheritance Rome left in the West is an open debate, especially in the modern academia, a very interesting talk truly, but not a political one...there's no, not even one historian to really keep ignoring the finality of the fall of the empire in the West and
Read 4 tweets
May 12, 2023
Child on a swing (aiora)

Attic red-figure chous, attributed to the Eretria Painter. Probably from Koropi (Attica), 430-425 B.C.

National Archaeological Museum, Athens Image
The vase features a scene associated with the Aiōra (Swing) ritual, which probably took place in Attica during the Anthesteria festival, in honor of Dionysus.

The swing ritual is connected with the myth of Erigone, daughter of Icarius. Icarius had been initiated by the god Image
Dionysos into the art of wine making; nevertheless, he met his death at the hands of his compatriots who, not having experienced the consequences of drinking, thought he had poisoned them. Erigone, unable to cope with the loss of her father, hanged herself from a tree!
Read 5 tweets

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