Universal Encyclopedia
What was the Mycenaean civilization?
Warrior-kings in gold masks, the first Greek writing, and a war against Troy that may really have happened — then the Bronze Age ended.
Last updated: October 2026
The Mycenaean civilization was the first advanced culture of mainland Greece, flourishing from about 1750 to 1050 BCE from palace centers like Mycenae, Pylos and Tiryns. These were the warrior-kings of Homer’s Iliad: their Linear B tablets prove they spoke an early form of Greek, and their world ended in the Bronze Age collapse that produced the Greek Dark Ages.