Mycenaean Sites: Explore Citadel Walls, Palaces and a Bronze Age Bridge

Mycenaean construction survives most visibly in the massive walls of mainland Greek citadels. The collection also includes palace remains, a stone bridge and museums holding Bronze Age material. These places preserve different parts of the world of the later second millennium BC, often beneath buildings and settlements of subsequent periods.

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Mycenae’s gateways and defensive circuit

The Fortifications of Mycenae follow the rocky outline of the citadel above the Argolid plain. Large limestone blocks form much of the circuit, with smaller stones packed into the gaps. The term Cyclopean masonry describes this exceptionally large-block construction, named through later Greek tradition.

The Lion Gate became the principal entrance during a thirteenth-century BC enlargement. Projecting walls protected the approach, while other entrances served different parts of the enclosure. Much of the circuit remains, although the upper courses and sections affected by collapse have been lost. Following its changes explains how the citadel expanded around buildings and burial places already present on the hill.

Teichos Dymaion above the coastal lagoons

Teichos Dymaion occupies a hill near Cape Araxos in the western Peloponnese. Its Mycenaean wall protected the exposed approaches, while steep ground and the adjacent lagoon gave protection on another side. Large blocks, gateways and surviving stretches of the circuit remain prominent.

The fortress was reused in later Greek, Byzantine and medieval periods. Its Bronze Age enclosure therefore needs to be distinguished from subsequent repairs and occupation. Compared with Mycenae’s inland setting, the hill overlooks coastal waters and lagoons as well as agricultural land.

A stone bridge on a Bronze Age road

The Kazarma Mycenaean Bridge, also called the Arkadiko Bridge, carried a road across a small watercourse. Its limestone blocks form a compact crossing with a narrow opening below the roadway. Projecting courses bring the sides together over the channel, while large masses of masonry support the approach.

The surviving bridge belongs to a wider Bronze Age road network in the Argolid. Its purpose was practical: maintain a crossing while allowing water to pass beneath. The structure offers a different application of large-block masonry from the fortifications, using the weight and arrangement of stone to support a route.

Palace remains beneath Thebes

The Cadmea of Thebes was a Mycenaean palatial center beneath the later and modern city. Excavated remains are dispersed rather than forming an open citadel on the scale of Mycenae. Palace structures and fragments of fortification establish its Bronze Age phase.

Thebes continued to develop long afterward. Some surviving gates and walls belong to later Greek periods, including Hellenistic work, and should not be presented as Mycenaean simply because they occupy the same citadel. The individual article separates these layers of the urban site.

Explore Mycenaean remains

Use the map and grid to locate the archaeological sites and museum entries. Open each article for its surviving Bronze Age features, the evidence for their function and the later history of the place.

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