John Gets Lost: Mycenae

I've been fascinated with the neolithic up to and including the bronze age for years, what really appeals to me is there is so little that has been established for sure. The things we read and see are often just assumptions based on scant evidence and in some cases just someones opinion. The fact is that many of the finds from this period are discoloured, so to speak by modern ways of thinking. And when I say modern I'm thinking established pantheons of gods, monotheism and the existing understanding of labour divisions in society.

Basically I like making up my own theories.
More about that later, for now the touristy stuff:

The Plain of Argolis

The citadel on the climb upwards

The site of ancient Mycenae is a good distance from the ancient shore and surrounded by towering peaks and sheer drops on all but one side where the visitor still approaches along the modern road. I'm quite glad I got there slowly on foot because I got a fantastic impression of why the first builders chose this place; it is very easy to defend and very hard to attack.

The road continued on it's uphill gradient for 2km before reaching the first of the monuments.

looking pleased

Oh no! School trip with 90 uninterested noisy city kids!

Because low season is the best season as well as not sweating half my body-weight out on the climb up, I pretty much had the place to myself. One school trip could be easily avoided though I could here them for miles. Other coach trips came and went with alarming rapidity, the poor souls, what if some of them actually wanted to see the place? I guess that's why I'm doing this whole 'slow travel' thing.

The great walls

The iconic 'Lion gate'- it was incredible

Detail, see where the heads were attached?

Grave circle A, formerly outside the fortifications but brought inside with the second phase of construction

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grave_Circle_A,_Mycenae

The foundations of the palace area near the summit, the central hearth is under the little roof.

The palace foundation, I think they built in a big window overlooking the plain.

A gorge protects this side.

I must say, I love this picture.

The acropolis and the reverse side of the citadel were incredibly quiet, I could here a little birdsong, the wind moving around the rocks and through the plants and some goat bells from the mountainside across the gorge.

Inside the tunnel to the underground cistern.

The emergency exit

The beehive grave chamber with the best acoustic properties

In the tomb chamber closest to the lion gate I discovered that in the center of the chamber sound is reflected inwards to a focal point. The sounds my feet made on the gravel were eerily muffled but also concentrated in certain frequencies. This gave me an idea that perhaps the walls were built to reflect a certain kind of sound rather than white noise. Perhaps this was an attempt to re-create and better the acoustic properties of a earlier burial cave. Recent conversations I had with Alex during those long rainy camping nights about the use of sound in meditation and the opening of the human mind to new perceptions mixed together in my mind with my ideas about religious continuity, the worship of earth deities underground, caverns acting as a womb to return the dead and ancestor worship. It's good to think and come up with crazy theories! So here's mine:

The subterranean beehive tombs were constructed to provide a place to intern the heroic dead of a particular dynasty in the womb of mother earth, and most importantly, their essence could be contacted or even joined with in the dark caverns by certain members of the society during meditation that probably involved continuous low pitched humming/singing that focuses very well in the exact center of the tomb.

Sounds crazy but I had fun trying it out.