chapter 15

MYCENAEAN
ARCHITECTURE

louise a. hitchcock

From the final Neolithic/Early Bronze to the end of the Bronze Age, Aegean and
Mycenaean architecture is characterized by both continuity and innovation, as well
as the adoption and adaptation of neighboring practices. The most obvious feature
of mainland architecture is that it is hall centered, dominated by a central rect-
angular hall or megaron, thereby combining both axiality and simplicity. It forms
the core element of the Mycenaean palaces, with additional rooms and courtyards
organized around it.
Construction techniques varied regionally and chronologically but include a
variety of techniques including mud-brick superstructures on a stone socle, drywall
masonry, rubble masonry, Cyclopean (massive unworked and partially worked boul-
ders) masonry, and ashlar masonry on a stone socle. Mud bricks were used to con-
struct upper-story walls and to make repairs. Terraces consisting of retaining walls
with fills were used to extend the habitable area on hillsides and serve as platforms
for buildings, typifying Mycenaean palatial architecture (Wright 1978, 54–107). The
use of local stone predominates in building. Ashlar was typically sand or limestone,
although saw-cut, dressed conglomerate blocks were used in special places such as
thresholds and the entrances of fortifications and tholos tombs. Conglomerate is
composed of naturally cemented-together pebbles, cobblestones, and other sedi-
ments, giving the worked blocks a colorful, variegated appearance. This type of
rock made up the Panagia Ridge in Mycenae and also occurs in Lakonia at Vaphio.
There was also a sparing use of decorative stone such as gypsum, which might refer-
ence Crete, in the palaces and other monumental structures such as tombs. Other
types of decoration include carved stone elements such as “horns of consecration,”
sparing use of carved relief, wall paintings, and painted plaster floors. Mycenaean

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architecture is also characterized by a liberal use of the corbel arch, which was used
to relieve the downward pressure on the lintel blocks of monumental doorways and
to create niches. Corbel vaults were used to build culverts in bridges, construct gal-
leries and passageways, and create the domed beehive or tholos tombs.

Neolithic Architecture
Late Neolithic–Early Bronze Age architecture on the mainland is characterized by
variations on a theme, namely the rectilinear hall. For example, the site of Dimini
in the plain of Thessaly in central Greece is dominated by a large central, mega-
roid-style building (Preziosi and Hitchcock 1999). It comprises a large hall with a
horseshoe-shaped hearth that is roughly centered, with four columns supporting
the roof as indicated by postholes. A forehall and smaller porch connected to the
hall by axially placed doorways were later additions. Rectangular Neolithic houses
might also be apsidal at one end and include a rectangular porch. Apsidal houses are
also well attested in the Middle Bronze Age (discussed later).
Neolithic houses were more frequently composed of just a small, single rectan-
gular room that contained a variety of internal features including bins, hearths, and
platforms. Hearths might be constructed out of stones that may or may not have
been coated with clay. Bins were constructed form stone slabs; pits coated with clay
served as storage areas. Rainy weather in many parts of Greece suggests that roofs
were slanted or gabled with a covering of clay and reeds. Neolithic houses typically
employed stone foundations that would have supported a mud-brick superstruc-
ture and postholes for wooden supports. House models give some indication as to
what houses may have looked like and reflect an interest in symbolically represent-
ing them. while the practice of making house models does not seem to continue in
later Bronze Age Greece (with the exception of the Menelaion), it did occur in Crete.
Other types of installations—such as pottery kilns—also characterize Neolithic
settlements.

The Mainland in the Early Bronze Age

Larger, hall-centered rectangular or megaroid buildings appear in significant num-
bers during the Early Bronze I from Troy and Poliokhni in the northeastern Aegean
and throughout mainland Greece. They were commonly entered on their short side,
with axially connected rooms. A variant of this form, the corridor house, is distin-
guished by a more complex internal arrangement. It is composed of large, square,
axially aligned halls that are encircled by long narrow corridors and/or stairways.

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The more elaborate and monumental corridor houses begin to appear on the main-
land later, in Early Helladic II (ca. 2900–2400 BC). Although once believed to be
limited to the “House of Tiles” at Lerna in the southwestern Argolid, more examples
of this form have been detected, most notably at Kolonna on the island of Aegina.
The House of Tiles was named for the enormous quantity of fired clay roof
tiles associated with the building. It was built of mud brick over a substantial
stone foundation course (ca. 12 x 25 m), with traces of wood-sheathed doorjambs
and stucco-plastered walls in some rooms. It was two stories high, as indicated by
traces of stairways, and may have had several verandas upstairs, partially covered
by a pitched roof, as suggested by Shaw (1990). The House of Tiles was preceded
by an earlier structure of similar type, House BG. These buildings sometimes
also incorporated elaborate clay hearths that are decorated with stamped-seal
impressions.
In addition, while monumental fortifications typify the mainland, they are well
known in the Cyclades during the EBA as well. These fortifications were character-
ized by thick, stone-built walls; round (Lerna, Kastri) or square (Troy, Poliokhni)
towers; heavily protected and/or hidden entranceways (Preziosi and Hitchcock
1999). Dwellings were characterized by groupings of rooms into what may have been
compounds for extended families, separated by alleys, streets, or courtyards. Burial
architecture was simple, consisting of rectangular cists lined with stone slabs.

Middle Helladic Architecture

On the mainland, cities were located on citadels from at least the Middle Helladic
period. Early examples of the prototypes for Mycenaean palaces may be proposed
for the MH through LH II periods. Among them, House D at Asine is the most
convincing. It is composed of a rectangular hall and porch but lacks the column
bases and hearth of a canonical megaron (see the following section). Other early
structures that are worthy of mention include a Middle Helladic building with hall
and porch at Eutresis; Building F at Krisa in Phocis, which was composed of a hall
with ancillary chambers and side corridor as early as LH I; a large LH II hall with
two preserved column bases at Kakavatos in Elis (Barber 1992); the MH settlement
at Kolonna on Aegina, where a reused ashlar block with double-ax “mason’s mark”
hints at a Cretan connection (Niemeier 1995); and a substantial MH building at
Plasi (Marinatos 1970), which features a rectangular hall rather than the apsidal hall
more common to this period.
The LH II building known as Mansion I at the Menelaion in Lakonia is the
earliest building of some importance on the mainland. It was a hall-centered
building with a porch and a forehall, as well as rear and side chambers accessed
by circulatory corridors. Its carefully rendered foundation beddings anticipate
the Mycenaean palaces of the 13th century BC. Mansion I and its successor,

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Mansion II, contain some of the earliest ashlar blocks on the mainland in the
form of reused poros blocks, which imply the presence of an earlier, hypotheti-
cal building dubbed the “Old Menelaion” (also Catling 1976–1977).

Characteristics of Mycenaean Palaces

Mycenaean palaces of the Late Helladic III period are best known from Pylos,
Mycenae, and Tiryns, while less typical variants are known from Midea and Gla.
Thebes and Orchomenos are only partially preserved, and the presumed Mycenaean
palace at Athens was obliterated by later structures. In terms of design, the main
Mycenaean palaces included a core set of recognizable architectural features and
modules arranged in a set pattern, additional recurring features that were deployed
in a varied syntax, and unusual elements that were site specific and formed the cen-
tral part of a larger compound that included buildings unique to each site. This is
most clearly illustrated at Tiryns and Pylos and to a lesser extent at Mycenae, where
much of the palace was lost over a precipice.
The core element of the Mycenaean palace is the megaron, or hall. This is gener-
ally not very large and would have fit easily within the central court at Knossos. It
consists of a hall, a forehall, and a porch of rectangular outline with two columns
in antis to support the roof. Both the forehall and the porch are approximately
one-half the depth of the inner hall. The internal arrangement of the megaron was
dominated by a monumental circular hearth decorated with painted plaster and
surrounded by four columns. The best-preserved hearth is at Pylos and is ca. 4 m.
in diameter with an inner ring of 3 m. It is decorated with a painted stucco design
depicting a running spiral motif around the top and a flame pattern around the
side. There, the columns probably supported a clerestory with a balcony to admit
light and draw off smoke through a two-part clay chimney found in the excava-
tions. The megaron frequently had rear chambers, with side corridors giving access
to smaller, square service rooms. All megarons incorporate variations of this basic
arrangement.
Most dominant among the additional recurring features alluded to earlier is a
smaller, subsidiary megaron that is frequently referred to as a “Queen’s” megaron by
analogy with Evans’s suggestions for Knossos. At Tiryns, this feature is located to the
northeast of the palace across a court, though still within the confines of the palace.
In contrast, at Pylos this feature is tightly incorporated into the fabric of the palace
and is located to the south of the east row of side chambers and on the east end of
the courtyard leading into the palace. An H-shaped propylon with a central doorway
and one or two columns between projecting antae is another characteristic feature.
Layers of plaster around the column bases at Pylos preserved impressions of fluted
wooden columns. The propylon gives access to a colonnaded courtyard that leads to
the palace at both Pylos and Tiryns. Tiryns had an additional outer courtyard and

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propylon, which initially formed the entrance to the citadel in LH IIIA1 and became
the inner part of a more complex entry system by LH IIIB. At Mycenae, the palace
and its associated structures was spread over multiple levels situated on three arti-
ficially constructed Cyclopean terraces. A lengthy passage separates the propylon at
Mycenae from the courtyard that fronts on the palace. A grand staircase also leads to
the courtyard. Soles (1995) regards this staircase, throne emplacements, and heraldic
decoration in Mycenaean palaces as a Knossian inspiration.
Beyond the commonalities in the megaron hall, propylon, court, and similar
construction techniques (discussed later), there is an extraordinary amount of vari-
ation in the appointments in the palaces, as well as in the rest of the compound.
Some examples include the storage jars for oil set into benches behind the megaron
and a decorated clay bathtub set into a clay bench behind the “Queen’s megaron,”
both at Pylos. In contrast, Tiryns boasts a colossal, sloping, monolithic black slab
with channel and mortises, which may be for washing or libation. The megaron at
Mycenae was decorated with a gypsum slab pavement, which may reference earlier
Minoan prestige architecture.
Many of the rooms deployed around the megaron at Tiryns are included within
the fabric of the building, while Pylos and Mycenae had a number of nearby but dis-
crete buildings that were functionally associated with them. At Pylos, these include
the Southwest Building, an earlier megaron-style building with a different orienta-
tion and many interconnected rooms that give the compound an indented west
façade, and the Wine Magazine, a rectilinear hall to the northeast of the palace,
where wine was stored. To the east of the palace at Mycenae and at another level lie
several buildings, including the Artisan’s Quarter, a square building that may have
served as an annex to the House of the Columns (also Maggidis 2008). The House of
the Columns was a colonnaded, court-centered building with a north-south orien-
tation and a west wing composed of what may be storage or workrooms. The many
differences in Mycenaean palatial compounds warrant a closer functional analysis.
Many of the building techniques employed in Mycenaean palatial architecture
are quite similar to those used earlier by the Minoans. These include the use of tim-
ber framing and a rubble core in the interior walls, which were usually covered with
plaster. The exterior walls of the palaces were constructed of ashlar blocks, many
containing dovetail mortises or clamp cuttings to secure them to the rubble core
and square dowels to hold horizontal timbers along the outer face of blocks, with
the occasional use of mortar. A few Minoan-style mason’s marks have turned up on
the mainland, notably on an ashlar block with a double ax found beneath the palace
at Pylos and two others on the dromos of the tholos tomb at Peristeria. Although
“horns of consecration” have also turned up at Pylos and at Gla, they are actually
more common in Cypriot architecture. Doors are indicated by cut-stone doorjambs
similar to those found in Crete, while the absence of these in some doorways sug-
gested to Blegen that hangings were also used (Blegen and Rawson 1966).
The floors of the Mycenaean palaces were coated with plaster that was deco-
rated by means of an incised grid of small squares painted with nonfigural patterns.
The absence of symmetry in the arrangement of the grid has been contrasted to

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earlier Minoan floor patterns that were executed with more precision and logically
related to the architecture (Hirsch 1977). The variegated stone of Minoan paved slab
floors has been suggested as possible inspiration for these floors. A similar painted
floor, but incorporating floral motifs, is known from the MBA Canaanite palace at
Tel Kabri, where there are also Aegean-style frescoes, suggesting that the Mycenaean
painted plaster floor had its origins in Crete or the Cyclades (Niemeier and Niemeier
1998). Another painted plaster floor of Minoan inspiration has been found at Tell
el Dab’a. Pedestals or platforms located opposite the hearths of the palaces indicate
that a throne (Linear B as to-no) stood there, while other pedestals near doorways at
Pylos may indicate guard stands. A narrow channel with depressions at either end,
perhaps for pouring libations, was cut in the floor at Pylos near the pedestal for a
throne. The Mycenaean palaces were also decorated with elaborate fresco programs,
which included processions, heraldic animals, and agonistic scenes.

Tombs
Although the round or tholos tomb seems to evolve independently from humble
beginnings in the western Peloponnese, the Late Helladic II period marks the
appearance of monumental beehive or tholos tombs of ashlar construction. Stone
architecture frequently symbolizes permanence, and Mycenaean tholoi may have
been modeled on MH tumuli based on the superimposition of one of the earli-
est Mycenaean tholoi at Voïdokoilia (Messenia) on an MH tumulus. The earliest
tholoi, built as free-standing monuments, were subject to roof collapse. Building
them into the hillside in order to support the vaulted dome solved this problem.
They dominated the landscape as unprecedented territorial and genealogical
markers of wealth and power (cf. Wright 1987). The most famous and elaborately
constructed tholos tomb is the so-called Treasury of Atreus at Mycenae.
The Treasury of Atreus consists of a great chamber (14.5 m. in diameter)
built into a cutting in the hillside and entered by a long corridor (dromos).
The corbeled dome of ashlar blocks is built of circular courses progressively
extending inward and upward to a central, round capstone. Traces of nails in the
interior are regarded as the remnants of bronze ornament (rosettes?). Although
robbed in antiquity, burials would have been placed in a side chamber. The
building originally had a sculpted façade that included two engaged columns
of greenish marble, finely carved with chevrons and spirals, and above the door
a façade of alternating red and white bands of running spirals and lozenges
between two smaller engaged columns. Behind the carved façade is the relieving
triangle over the massive lintel, its great size symbolizing the power to harness
resources (Frizell 1997–1998).
More characteristic in the Mycenaean world is the use of chamber tombs
carved into rock.

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Fortifications
The drive to fortify places such as Mycenae, Tiryns, Midea, Athens, Thebes, and Gla
occurred in stages rather than suddenly (Iakovidis 1983; Loader 1998; Scoufopoulos
1971). The beginnings of Mycenaean fortifications can be traced to earlier MH and
LH defensive structures in Messenia and Lakonia (Wright 1978, 162). The earliest
LH III fortifications were modest, lacking the elaborate features of the Tiryns gate
or the unique monumental sculpture of the rampant antithetic lions of the famous
Lion Gate and Great Ramp leading up the citadel at Mycenae. The fortification
walls tended to follow the contour of the acropolis and were built in sections, as is
especially evident in the west at Tiryns, where there are distinct offsets reminiscent
of the west façades of the Minoan palaces. Sections ranged to 8 m. in thickness and
reach a maximum preserved height of 13 m. Saw-cut and hammer-dressed con-
glomerate blocks were used for highly visible sections of the entrance systems, while
the bulk of the wall was constructed of unworked limestone boulders. Although
recent interpretations (Maran 2006) argue that Mycenaean fortification walls were
more about display, they certainly were also intended to help the city function as a
place of refuge during times of stress.
The initial fortifications begun in the 14th century in LH IIIA1 at Tiryns—and
twenty-five years later at Mycenae—surrounded only a limited portion of each site,
primarily encircling the megaron with simple entry systems: an H-shaped propy-
lon at Tiryns and an overlapping break reconstructed at Mycenae. By their third
phase, some eighty years later, around 1250 BC, both citadels had doubled in size,
encompassing a much larger area. At Tiryns, the famous corbel vaulted galleries
were added on the south and the east, and a complex series of ascending ramps and
gateways was also added on the east. It was at this time at Mycenae that the famous
Lion Gate with projecting bastion was constructed, and the west wall was extended
to enclose Grave Circle A and the nearby Cult Center.
At both sites, the entry systems would have served to spread out and diminish the
effectiveness of an attacking force. In the west wall at Tiryns, a sally port that progres-
sively narrowed inward would have served a similar purpose. At this time, the monu-
mental Great Ramp leading up the Acropolis at Mycenae was constructed over the
broken slabs of Grave Circle A and an earlier ramp of hard-packed earth and pebbles.
A new Postern Gate was added on the north, and a tower was built on the southeast
a short time later. Although undecorated, the design of the Postern Gate incorporates
the same features of the Lion Gate on a smaller scale, a slab of stone placed in the
relieving triangle of the corbeled arch over the lintel of the doorway.
Final changes enacted around 1200 BC saw the addition of sally ports, while
a further extension of the fortifications at Mycenae on the northeast enclosed
an underground cistern, reached by a zigzag underground staircase leading to
a rectangular shaft fed by an aqueduct from a nearby spring. It was coated with
plaster, allowing the water to rise into the lower passage. At Tiryns, tunnels lead-
ing out of the citadel also gave access to the water supply.

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 mycenaean architecture 207

Other Large Building Projects

Other large-scale building projects undertaken by the Mycenaeans included roads,
dams combining earthen embankments with Cyclopean walls, and drainage proj-
ects achieved by using the natural terrain combined with dykes utilizing Cyclopean
masonry to create canals that channeled the seasonal lake at Copais in Boeotia into
sinkholes (katabothroi).

Religious Architecture
The LC I Temple at Kea represents a regional development as indicated by its
unusual plan, spectacular hoard of wheel-made, terra-cotta statuettes of females,
and long history of importance to Aegean and later Greek religion. Its use contin-
ued into the Iron Age, and by at least the sixth century BC it had become a shrine
of Dionysos. Preserved remains form a long, narrow, trapezoidal structure built of
drywall masonry in which the northwestern wall angles inward toward the south.
The entrance was probably located at the eroded southeastern end. A rectangular
hall with several stone installations takes up the full southeastern end and opens
onto a rectangular hall at the northwestern end, which is divided into two small,
rectangular rooms on the northeast side. A small court at the west end is connected
to processional walkways along the north and south sides of the temple.
Other Aegean shrines, as typified at Phylakopi and at the Cult Center at Mycenae,
were usually double shrines, possibly influenced by and influencing Near Eastern
cult buildings (contrast Gilmour 1993; Negbi 1988). A possible Canaanite prototype
can be found at Tell Mevorakh, and there may have been Philistine successors as at
Tell Qasile and Tell Miqne-Ekron (cf. Mazar 2000). Mycenaean shrines are charac-
terized by rectangular halls with rear chambers, small benches and/or platforms for
the display of cult offerings, and a small rear chamber serving as a holy of holies or
storage area for ritual paraphernalia. They also had column supports. A spherical
stone baetyl was located in the court between the two shrines at Phylakopi, while the
Cult Center at Mycenae included a bathtub and fresco paintings.

Postpalatial Domestic Architecture

Following the destruction of the Mycenaean citadels in the LH IIIC or Early Iron
Age, rectilinear halls and various types of hearths characterized houses. At Tiryns,
a new east wall was built in the palace, which may have been reused, although its

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status as a palace is uncertain. The construction of chamber tombs was replaced by

the use of cist graves and cremation burials in jars, while the construction of small
tholos tombs persisted in Crete.

Conclusion
The houses and palaces of mainland Greece were characterized by their organiza-
tion around the rectilinear megaron hall. The palaces served as redistributive centers
and regulated access to prestige goods and imported commodities such as bronze,
ivory, and gold. These activities would have made it possible for craftsmen to obtain
needed staples in exchange for their wares. Although the Mycenaeans augmented
their traditional megaron and tholos plans with other types of buildings that may
have been adapted from abroad, it is possible to speculate that some of their con-
struction techniques were developed through the presence of Minoan builders who
found their way to the mainland as part of elite gift exchanges and/or as refugees
seeking new patronage after the fall of the Minoan palaces (Hitchcock 2008). The
sheer monumentality of Mycenaean fortifications, tombs, and public works sym-
bolized the power of the ruling elite. As in Crete, access became more restricted in
the Mycenaean palaces toward the end of their histories.

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