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Mycenaean Society

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Mycenaean Society

Features of a Mycenaean society:
They came from Russia and to Greece in 2000 B.C.
It was generally quite stable, with a strict hierarchal system where the king was at the top of.
The kings built fortresses and castles on hilltops. and surrounded them with walls.
The economy was based on agriculture, with two major grains produced, wheat and barley.
The textile industry used mainly wool and linen, with different town specialised in different fabrics.
The Mycenaean learned a lot from the Minoans, including how to build better ships and good navigation skills. They would trade with each other, and the Mycenaean’s started to imitate their gold and bronze work.
The use and sale of more oil products (olive oil for cooking, lamp fuel and for a skin product) gave a lot of profit to the Mycenaeans, which made them very skilled traders.
In the Trojan war, the Mycenaeans attacked troy, however after the war breaking out, within 100 years there was no Mycenaean fortresses left.
The Dorians conquered the Mycenaeans as they had iron swords, which are much more durable compared to the Mycenaean bronze swords.
There was a dark age until about 800 B.C., where a lot of knowledge was lost.

The feature that impresses me the most is the use of oil products. They have discovered how versatile oil is, and that it can have many uses. It helped both men and women in their everyday lives, men used it for a fuel, and women as a beauty product and for cooking. It has been used throughout history, and we still use oil now in our day to day lives.

Henrich Schliemann

Henrich Schliemann was a German businessman and archeologist, and he is know for discovering the historical site ‘Hisarlik’ which is said to be the site of Troy. He has been called the ‘creator of prehistoric Greek archaeology’. Walls of houses were found in Hisarlik by Ferdinand Fouqué 8 meters under pumice. In 1871, Henrich started searching for Troy, as he believed it was the lowest level of the man-made mound. In 1873 he uncovered the forts and remains of the city, and discovered gold jewellery belonging to Priam. He wrote about his findings, and some people, including the prime minister of England, accepted his identifications. However, many people did not accept it.

He also went to Mycenae because it was known as the home to King Agamemnon, who was a leader of the Greeks that went to Troy to fight. He discovered deep shaft graves that were cut into the rock. Every body was dressed well, and had lots of gold wear, with gold masks covering their faces. When he looked at a Mycenaean grave shaft, he felt he had ‘gazed upon the face of Agamemnon’. These weren't the graves of warriors to went to fight in the Trojan war, as they date from the beginning of the Mycenaean civilisation (1800-1700 BCE).The walls of Mycenae were built later, in the 1400s BCE when shaft graves had already been there long before.

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