Archaeological culture · c. 1750–1050 BCE (map's 'Mycenaean Greece' state takes over from 1500 BCE)
Early Mycenaean Greece
The Mycenaeans were the first Greek-speaking civilisation, named after Mycenae. Their rise shows in the rich shaft graves of Mycenae around 1600 BCE.
They later built palaces and walled citadels, and kept records in Linear B. The map shows their early heartland in the southern Peloponnese before 1500 BCE; after that the atlas draws Mycenaean Greece as a state, until the Bronze Age collapse around 1200–1100 BCE.
See Early Mycenaean Greece on the map in 1750 BCE
- On the map
- 1750–1501 BCE
How we know
From about 1450 BCE the Mycenaeans kept palace records in Linear B, an early form of Greek that can be read; the earliest phase shown here is known only from excavation.
Sites
- Mycenae citadel c. 1600–1100 BCE (Lion Gate c. 1250 BCE)