Who were the Mycenaeans?

Question

Who were the Mycenaeans? what were the high points of their civilisation, and what is thought to have brought their ultimate downfall?

Answer 1

They were Homer's Greeks of the Iliad and Odysesy and were the basis of Greek Mythology heroes.

Historically they were a late bronze-age warrior society which dominated Greece from 1600 - 1100 B.C.

The high points of their civilization were the stout walls of Mycenea and the gold funeral mask beleived to be Agemenom (however you spell it). But keep in mind they were mainly a fighting piratical bunch who lived for plunder and sacking cities rather than building lasting monuments or contributing to scientific knowledge. They overthrew the more advanced Minoans of Crete and sacked Troy twice.

The invasion of the Dorians is beleived to have brought about their inevitable downfall - I say inevitable because their society consisted of a small warrior aristocracy over a societal pyramid which supported it. The warrior society needed conquests to survive and support itself so it was bound to fall eventually.

By the 1100s Mycenean civilization was weak enough perhaps from internal pressures that the Dorians were able to overrun them and destroy their cities.

Some scholars believe the Sea Peoples who plagued the Egyptians and Middle East coast were partly made up of Myceneans fleeing the destruction of their homeland.

Answer 2

Between 2000 and 1600 BCE mainland Greece and the Peloponnese were invaded by a new people, the Greeks. They were warrior-herdsmen, looking for new pastures for their herds. These Achaeans were an Indo-European people whom the Hittites called the Ahiyawa. As they came into Greece they ceased their semi-nomadic lifestyle and settled in Thessaly, Boetia, Attica, Argolis and Messenia. Each city was ruled by a king from the warrior/landowning aristocracy, called the wanax. The cities began to trade in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean. These people are known today as the Mycenaeans, and their culture thrived between 1400 and 1200 BCE.
_________________

Answer 3

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycenaeans