The Mycenaeans
"In 1876 archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann excavated a circle of shaft graves on the acropolis of ancient Mycenae. The finds were spectacular: the burials of men wearing gold death masks and gold funerary armor and accompanied by an array of weapons; women adorned with massive gold crowns and jewelry; babies wrapped in sheet gold foil. Thus began the discovery of the Mycenaeans. But who were this warrior elite? Could they have been Homer's Achaean heroes, as Schliemann so passionately believe? Was Mycenae the legendary city of Agamemnon? This fully illustrated account, based on the latest research, investigates the complex, wealthy, and influential culture of the Mycenaean -- the creators of a powerful Aegean civilization that rose and dramatically fell between about 1600 and 1000 BC. Employing the evidence from the ruins of fortress-palaces, brightly painted shrines, grave goods, pottery spread across foreign lands, and Linear B tablets, the author sets out to separate myth from reality and piece together the lives of a forgotten people."--Jacket
Print Book, English, 2007
J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 2007