Mycenae (
Greek ?????a? Mukênai), is an
archaeological site in
Greece, located about 90 km south-west of
Athens, in the north-eastern
Peloponnese.
Argos is 6 km to the south;
Corinth, 48 km to the north. From the hill on which the palace was located one can see across the
Argolid to the
Saronic Gulf.
In the second millennium BC Mycenae was one of the major centres of Greek civilization, a military stronghold which dominated much of southern Greece. The period of Greek history from about 1600 BC to about 1100 BC is called Mycenaean in reference to Mycenae.
The reconstructed Mycenaean Greek name of the place is Mukanai (long a), which has the form of a plural, like Athanai. The change of a to e is a development of later Attic-Ionic.
Although the citadel was built by Greeks, the name is not thought to be Greek, but is rather one of the many pre-Greek place names inherited by the immigrant Hellenes. John Chadwick said
