Just an hour drive from our anchorage in Epidaurus, we transported ourselves back to the Bronze Age—to 1300 BC, where there once stood a great Mycenaean palace.
Remnants of the great wall remain, but it is now hemmed in by olive groves. During the Bronze Age, Mycenae was a powerful kingdom, perhaps echoed in Homer’s Iliad.
The ruins in Mycenae make the Parthenon in Athens look like new construction—those towering Athenian columns didn’t begin to rise from Greek dust until the early 400 BC’s.
A huge palace once stood here behind fortified walls where two carved lionesses guarded the entry gates. These magnificent felines are the earliest piece of sculpture relief in all of Europe. The archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann’s famous photos outside these gates bewitched us into making this trek to see it for ourselves. And when it came into full view, in front of our own eyes, the rising sun splashing gold into its high arch—ohhhhhhh. The thrill of this cannot be explained.
Just outside the huge slabbed wall is a beehive shaped burial tomb called, “Tholos Tomb” though it’s often referred to as the “Tomb of Agamemnon”, because everyone seems to like a Homer epic. But this place was Epic enough to be its own masterpiece.
Archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann’s famous photos outside the Lion Gate
