Greeks have idealized the Myceneans in epic poems and classic tragedies that glorify the exploits of king Agamemnon and older heroes who went in out of favour with the Greek gods.
Mycenean Greece or Mycenean civilization was the last phase of the bronze age in Ancient Greece (c. 1600-1100 BC). It represents the first advanced civilization in mainland Greece, with its palatial states, urban organization, works of art and writing system. Among the centres of power that emerged, the most notable were those of Pylos, Tiryns, Midea in the Peloponnese, Orchomenos, Thebes, Athens in Central Greece and Iolcos in Thessaly. The most prominssightte was Mycenae, in Argolid, to which the culture of this era owes its name. Mycenean and Mycenean-influenced settlements also appeared in Epirus, Macedonia, on islands in the Aegean Sea, on the coast of Asia Minor, the Levant, Cyprus and Italy.
The Mycenean Greeks introduced several innovations in the fields of engineering, architecture and military infrastructure, while trade over vast areas of the Mediterranean was essential for the Mycenean economy. Their syllabic script, the Linear B, offers the first written recordsogf the Greek language and their religion already included several deities that can also be found in the Olympic Pantheon. Mycenean Greece was dominated by a warrior elite society and consisted of a network of palace states that developed rigid hierarchical, political, social, and economic systems. At the head of this society was the king, known as Wanax.
Mycenean Greece perished with the collapse of Bronze Age culture in the Eastern Mediterranean, to be followed by the so-called Greek Dark Ages, a recordless transitional period leading to Archaic Greece where significant shifts occured from palace-centralized to de-centralized forms of socio-economic organisation (including the extensive use of iron). Various theories have been proposed for the end of this civilisation, among them the Dorian invasion or activities connected to the "Sea People". Additional theories such as natural disasters and climatic changes have been also suggested. The Mycenean priod became the historical setting of much ancient Greek literature and mythology, including the Trojan Epic Cycle.
The decipherment of the Mycenean Linear B script, a writing style adapted for the use of the Greek language of the Late Bronze Age, demonstrated the continuity of Greek speech from the 2nd millennium BC into the 8th century BC when a new script emerged. Moreover, it revealed that the bearers of Mycenean culture were ethnically connected with the population that resided in the Greek peninsula after the end of this cultural period. Various collective terms for the inhabitants of Mycenean Greece were used by Homer in his 8th century BC epic, the Iliad, in reference to the Trojan War. The latter was supposed to have happened in the late 13th to early 12th century BC, when a coalition of small Greek states under the king of Mycenae, besieged the walled city of Troy. Homer used the ethnonyms Achaeans, Danaans and Argives, to refer to the besiegers. These names appeared to have passed down from the time they were in use to time when Homer applied them as collective terms in his Iliad. There is an isolated reference to a-ka-wi-ja-de in the Linear B records in Knossos, Crete dated to c. 1400 BC, which most probably refers to a Mycenean (Achaean) state on the Greek mainland.
Mycenean civilisation originated and evolved from the society and culture of the Early and Middile Helladic period in mainland Greece inder influences from Minoan Crete. Towards the end of the Middle Bronze Age (c. 1600 BC) a significant increase in the population and the number of settlements occured. A number of centers of power emerged in southern mainland Greece dominated by a warrior elite society, while the typical dwellings of that era were an early type of Megaron buildings. Some more complex structures are classified as forerunners of the later palaces. In a number of sites, defensive walls were also erected.
Meanwhile, new types of burials and more imposing ones have been unearthed, which display a great variety of luxurious objects. Among the various burial types, the shaft grave became the most common form of elite burial, a feature that gave the name to the early period of Mycenean Greece. Among the Mycenean elite, deceased men were usually laid to rest in gold masks and funerary armour, and women in gold crowns and clothes gleaming with gold ornaments. The royal shaft graves next to the Acropolis of Mycenae, in particular the Grave Circles A and B signified the elevation of a native Greek-speaking royal dynasty whose economic power