Page 58 - All About History - Issue 29-15

The Truth Behind the Trojan War

Mycenaean
armour made of
Mycenaean Greece
bronze plates

A thousand years before the Parthenon, a remarkable civilisation
thrived in Greece and engaged with rivals across the Aegean Sea

Between 1450 and 1180 BCE, Greece was fortifications, drainage works and large vaulted
dominated by a series of warrior kingdoms, tombs. The city of Mycenae itself was eventually
of which the most important were Mycenae, walled and entered via the Lion Gate that still
Thebes, Tiryns and Pylos. We call their civilisation impresses visitors today.
Mycenaean. The inhabitants spoke Greek, as In the 15th century BCE, the Mycenaeans
shown by thousands of surviving texts written conquered Crete, the southwestern Aegean
in a syllabic script called Linear B, a predecessor islands and the city of Miletus on Turkey’s
to the later Greek alphabet. They worshipped the Aegean coast. Over the next several centuries,
same pagan gods that feature in the Iliad. they engaged in war, diplomacy, commerce and
Mycenaean kings lived in palaces decorated dynastic intermarriage with the kingdoms of the
with masterworks of art. Elite women eastern Mediterranean. They advanced eastward
were elegant and well dressed. Palace into Lycia (southwestern Turkey) and Cyprus,
officials supervised the economic provoked revolts in western Anatolia and pushed
life of the kingdom and collected into the islands of the northeastern Aegean.
taxes and tribute. Their There were various kingdoms in Western
engineers built roads, bridges, Turkey in the Late Bronze Age, but by far the

Mycenaean
Greece
(1400-1100 BCE)

The Lion Gate was the
main entrance of the
Bronze-Age citadel of
Mycenae, southern Greece
The Greek Gods

The Olympians, the gods thought to inhabit Mount Olympus in central
Greece, figure prominently in the myths of the Trojan War

Zeus Hera Poseidon Hades Ares Aphrodite Apollo
King of the gods Queen of the gods God of the sea God of the God of war Goddess of love God of music, art,
Claimed to be neutral Zeus’s wife, she Easily angered, he Underworld Worshipped for war, and beauty truth, and prophecy
in the Trojan War, but constantly punished lost patronage of Lived in the Underworld. but was sometimes Patron of Troy and in The twin of Artemis, he
really favoured the his lovers for his Athens to Athena, Although not evil, he considered too particular of Prince Paris, was associated with the
victory of the Trojans. infidelity, while she so sent a monster to didn’t let the dead bloodthirsty and and Aeneas – her son by arts, knowledge, and the
remained pure. attack it. escape justice. extreme. the mortal Anchises. oracle of prophecy.

58