|
|
Article: Mycenae's miracle; Ancient Greece.
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- March 11, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
GOLD loot and a bloody ancient family feud make Mycenae, a fortified hill in the Peloponnese, unique among Greece's Bronze Age sites. The visible remains are impressive too--walls made of giant boulders, a 3,500-year-old sculpture of stone lions in heraldic pose above the main gateway and nine outsize beehive-style tombs where prehistoric rulers were buried.
Yet many visitors come away feeling confused, not least because the museum that was recently built next to the ruins contains none of the dazzling gold artefacts from graves dug up in the 19th and 20th centuries. And what about King Agamemnon, leader of a victorious Greek expedition against Troy, who was ...