Mycenaean Mythology

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The mythology Mycenaean describes the myths and legends of the Mycenaean civilization. It is an Aegean civilization of the Late Helladic (end of the Bronze Age) extending from 1650 to 1100 av. J.-C. approximately, the peak of which is approximately between 1400 and 1200 av. J.-C. It spread gradually from the south of mainland Greece to the Aegean world as a whole, which for the first time experienced a certain cultural unity. This civilization is particularly characterized by its palace-fortresses, its different types of painted pottery found all around the Aegean Sea, as well as its writing, linear B, the oldest known writing transcribing from Greek.

The past of the Greeks is only known for a long time by the legends of epics and tragedies. The material existence of Mycenaean civilization is revealed by the excavations of Heinrich Schliemann in Mycenae in 1876 and in Tiryns in 1886. He believes he has found the world described by the epics of Homer, theIliad and theOdyssey. Dans une tombe de Mycènes, il trouve un masque d’or qu’il nomme le « masque d’Agamemnon ». De même, on baptise « palais de Nestor » un palais fouillé à Pylos. We had to wait for Arthur Evans' research at the beginning of the XX^e century, for the Mycenaean world to acquire autonomy from the Minoan world which chronologically precedes it.