ABSTRACT
Not only the scholarly world but the entire European world of letters was astonished and excited by Heinrich Schliemann’s discovery of a large and wealthy city on the mound of Hissarlik, which others before him had argued was the site of ancient Troy.1 Yet more amazing was the wealthy citadel he found at Mycenae, a settlement small in the historical age2 but according to Homer the palace, “rich in gold,”3 of Agamemnon. The monumental Lion Gate stood above ground for all to see, and Schliemann’s excavations found a powerful citadel and rich burials with golden deathmasks and jewelry. Schliemann, a man of fertile imagination, is said to have
exclaimed, 4 the sites where Homer and the mythographers had located the main centers of power in the heroic age revealed palaces of wealth and intricacy, quite unlike anything known from classical Greece. To the Greeks themselves these buildings had been marvels of mythical dimensions, “cyclopean” walls and a “labyrinth,” built by people greater than themselves for purposes shrouded in mystery. The excavations found frescoed walls, storehouses that had once held stores of food, highly worked golden jewelry, and well-painted ceramics. As scholars came to grips with the discoveries, it was widely doubted whether the ruined palaces had been built by Greeks at all.
