Mycenaean Timeline

1750 BCE – 500 CE · 4 sites

All sites in this period

Continent Record

Oldest City in Europe

Mycenae

1750 BCE – 1100 BCE

Citadel of Agamemnon in the Argolid, its Lion Gate and Grave Circles defining our image of Late Bronze Age Greece. Mycenae commanded the isthmus approaches to the Peloponnese and left Linear B archives, tholos tombs, and Cyclopean walls that Homer already called famous.

322

Bronze Age

Coastline and hills of Ithaca island in the Ionian Sea

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Country Record

Earliest Known Site in Greece

Ithaca

1300 BCE – 500 CE

The Ionian island identified since antiquity as Odysseus's rugged homeland. Archaeological work at Pelikata hill, the Cave of the Nymphs, and Stavros village has recovered Bronze Age and Hellenistic remains that keep alive the question of how closely Homer's geography matches the real archipelago.

211

Bronze AgeClassicalHellenistic

Cyclopean masonry walls of Mycenaean Tiryns

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Continent Record

Oldest Fortress in Europe

Tiryns

1400 BCE – 1100 BCE

A Mycenaean citadel east of Argos famous for its Cyclopean walls, corbel-vaulted galleries, and the myth of Heracles. UNESCO lists Tiryns alongside Mycenae; its fortifications impressed ancient visitors so deeply that legend credited giants with the masonry.

Bronze Age

Mycenaean palace ruins at Englianos, Palace of Nestor, near Pylos

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Country Record

Oldest Complex in Greece

Palace of Nestor

1300 BCE – 1180 BCE

The best-preserved Mycenaean palace on the Greek mainland, built around 1300 BCE at Englianos near modern Pylos. Its archive of Linear B tablets, frescoed halls, and wine storerooms gave archaeologists a vivid picture of Bronze Age administration and made Nestor, Homer's wise elder king of the Odyssey, feel suddenly real.

211

Bronze Age