Heinrich Schliemann’s excavations at Mycenae stand among the most significant archaeological undertakings of the nineteenth century. He had earlier established his reputation by excavating Homer’s Troy – although in a manner that was and remains highly controversial. Building on that, Schliemann turned his attention in the mid-1870s to mainland Greece. His goal: uncover the civilization that, according to Homer, produced the Trojan War’s heroes. His work at Mycenae not only unearthed spectacular treasures, but also opened a window onto an entirely new chapter of the ancient Greek world: the Bronze Age civilization that would later be named Mycenaean after that very site. Though his methods and interpretations were often flawed, the magnitude of his discoveries transformed archaeology and reshaped our understanding of early Greek history.
After Discovering Troy, Heinrich Schliemann Set Out to Discover Troy’s Destroyers
Before his excavations at Mycenae, Schliemann made some sensational discoveries at Hisarlik, in today’s Turkey: the ruins of Homer’s Troy. He next headed to Greece, to find even more evidence that Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey had a historical foundation. Having identified the city of King Priam, he now wanted to find the home of King Agamemnon, the Greek leader who commanded the expedition against Priam’s Troy. In the Iliad, Mycenae is described as a wealthy and powerful city, “rich in gold”. Schliemann took that description as a literal clue.
Heinrich Schliemann had already visited the site of Mycenae, located in the northeastern Peloponnese, several years earlier. The remains of its massive walls, the famed Lion Gate, and the tholos, or beehive-shaped tombs, had long been known to travelers and antiquarians. The great nineteenth century archaeologist Kyriakos Pittakis had even cleared parts of the Lion Gate in 1841. Systematic excavation had not yet been conducted, though. With permission from the Greek Archaeological Society, Schliemann began to dig there in 1876. He was full of confidence that he would uncover the Homeric king’s tomb.
The Shaft Graves of Mycenae
Heinrich Schliemann was greeted with both excitement and skepticism when he arrived at Mycenae. His reputation as Troy’s discoverer preceded him, but many scholars doubted his methods and sensational claims. Still, the Greek government, eager for discoveries that could connect modern Greece to its heroic past, supported his project. He began to excavate within the acropolis of Mycenae, an area enclosed by the massive Cyclopean wall – so named because the ancient Greeks believed the only the mythical giants, the Cyclopes, could have built them.
Not far inside the Lion Gate lay a circular enclosure outlined by upright stone slabs. Locals called it the “Agamemnoneion”, and believed it was the burial place of Agamemnon. Schliemann decided to focus his efforts there. After weeks of excavation, he and his team uncovered a series of deep shaft graves in November, 1876. Within, they found the remains of men, women, and children buried with astonishing quantities of gold and other artifacts. The graves – eventually numbered Graves I to V – contained weapons, jewelry, gold death masks, diadems, and ornate grave goods of a richness previously unknown in Greek archaeology.
“I Have Gazed Upon the Face of Agamemnon”
In one grave, Schliemann found several gold masks that covered the faces of the deceased. Upon discovering the most impressive one, a beautifully hammered gold sheet depicting a bearded face, he famously sent a telegram to the king of Greece declaring: “I have gazed upon the face of Agamemnon”. That dramatic statement was later proven incorrect. However, it captured the public imagination and became one of the most iconic moments in the history of archaeology. The gold mask, which Schliemann believed to belong to the legendary king, is now known as the “Mask of Agamenon”.
In reality, the mask dates to around 1550 – 1500 BC, several centuries earlier than the Trojan War’s traditional date. Still, the discovery revealed an advanced Bronze Age civilization that long predated classical Greece. The wealth found in the shaft graves was staggering. Schliemann uncovered gold cups, inlaid daggers, necklaces, seals, and ceremonial swords decorated with intricate scenes of hunting and combat. The artistry and craftsmanship displayed in those objects was remarkable. It demonstrated that the people of Mycenae had access to far-reaching trade networks, and sophisticated metallurgical skills.
A Remarkably Rich Haul
The striking finds included inlaid bronze daggers decorated with scenes of lion hunts, made with gold, silver, and niello inlay. The weapons showed influences from Minoan Crete and the Near East, and indicated a rich interchange of ideas and materials across the Aegean world. In addition, the graves contained gold diadems and headdresses that adorned the skulls of women. There were also numerous figurines, stone vessels, and amber beads from the Baltic – evidence of vast trade connections. All in all, Schliemann estimated that he had uncovered nearly fifteen kilograms of gold in total. It was an extraordinary haul that supported Homer’s description of Mycenae as “rich in gold”.
The finds were so spectacular that they instantly made headlines across Europe. They made Heinrich Schliemann an even bigger international celebrity, and inspired a renewed fascination with the Greek Bronze Age. As with his work at Troy, Schliemann’s methods at Mycenae were far from scientific. Although somewhat more cautious than before, he still tended to excavate quickly, driven by the desire to make dramatic discoveries. He kept detailed journals and photographs, which have proven invaluable to later scholars. However, his interpretation of the finds was deeply colored by his obsession with proving the literal truth of Homer.
Heinrich Schliemann Was Not Above Fudging the Data
Heinrich Schliemann tended to exaggerate or romanticize his discoveries. He insisted that the burials he uncovered belonged to Agamemnon, his wife Clytemnestra, and companions murdered upon the king’s return from Troy – events described in ancient Greek tragedies. However, the grave goods and the style of the artifacts make it clear that the burials were much older than Homer’s legendary heroes. Later excavations by Christos Tsountas, Alan Wace, and others confirmed that the shaft graves belonged to the Late Helladic I period, several centuries before the supposed time of the Trojan War.
Schliemann was not above altering dates, embellishing events, or making dramatic claims to attract attention. He would have been a natural click-bait king if the internet had existed in his day. Nonetheless, his excavation notes were remarkably thorough for his time, and laid foundations for the emerging field of Aegean prehistory. Despite his inaccuracies, Schliemann’s discoveries at Mycenae were groundbreaking. They revealed a civilization that until then had been almost entirely unknown. Before Schliemann, Greek history was thought to begin with the classical city-states of the first millennium BC. His finds pushed the origins of Greek civilization back another thousand years, into the Bronze Age.
Discovering the Mycenaean Civilization
Heinrich Schliemann’s excavations established a connection between archaeology and mythology. His discoveries at Mycenae, along with those later made by Arthur Evans at Knossos on Crete that shed light on the earlier Minoan civilization, revealed that Greece had been home to powerful palace-based cultures long before the rise of classical Athens and Sparta. The Mycenaeans had been a dominant a force in the Late Bronze Aegean. Their art, architecture, and writing, known as Linear B, were later linked to early forms of Greek.
Schliemann was wrong to equate the shaft graves with Agamemnon’s family. However, his intuition that myths preserved echoes of real events proved insightful. The Homeric poems may reflect distant memories of the Late Bronze Age world, even if the details are legendary. Schliemann continued to dig at Mycenae and other sites in Greece and Asia Minor throughout the 1870s and 1880s. He often worked with his collaborator and successor, German architect Wilhelm Dorpfeld, who introduced more careful stratigraphic methods. Together, they refined the understanding of Mycenae’s architectural layout and chronology.
Heinrich Schliemann Was and Remains a Highly Controversial Figure
Heinrich Schliemann died in 1890, and left behind not only immense treasures, but also a new field of study. Later archaeologists corrected his mistakes, refined his findings, and built upon his discoveries. Even with his flaws, Schliemann remains a figure of immense historical importance. His ambition, imagination, and energy transformed the understanding of early Greek civilization. His excavations at Mycenae stand as one of the turning points in archaeology’s history. Driven by his faith in Homer’s poetry, he unearthed a civilization that had lain buried for over three thousand years.
The shaft graves and their golden treasures revealed that Greece had a history long before the Parthenon and Athenian philosophers. Centuries before Socrates, Leonidas, and Herodotus, there was a rich and powerful Bronze Age culture at the heart of Greece. While Schliemann’s methods were imperfect and his interpretations often wrong, his excavations bridged the gap between legend and history. His work at Mycenae gave substance to the myths of the Greek heroic age, and helped uncover Western civilization’s origins. His belief that “Homer’s words were founded on truth” may not have been literally correct, but it led him to one of archaeology’s most dazzling triumphs. It was a discovery that still shines, like the gold of Mycenae, across the ages.
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Some Sources & Further Reading
Classical World, Vol. 91, No. 5, (May – Jun. 1998) – Heinrich Schliemann: Hero or Fraud?
Traill, David A. – Schliemann of Troy: Treasure and Deceit (1995)
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