Know facts before exploring Greek ruins

MYCENAE, Greece — Pottery indicates people lived on this hill about 5,000 years ago. But neither the weight of that history nor the massive fortress ruins were enough to dissuade the teenagers here on a trip earlier this year from having a snowball fight.

They were within the stone walls of what had been the palace of King Agamemnon, who led the 10-year siege against Troy. But now, without a single diagram in place at Mycenae, it is difficult to visualize what once had been his mighty fortress. However, a ticket-seller hands out a small map to help tourists discern what this or that stone wall might have encompassed.

Legend says Perseus, son of mighty Zeus, had Mycenae built as his home.

Mycenae (pronounced my-SEE-nee; in Greek it is spelled differently and pronounced me-KEE-ness) sits atop an 860-foot-high hill, and ravines had been part of its defenses. Mostly, though, the defense had been a monumental wall built of huge blocks.

Mycenae was the capital of a powerful trading society, dating back at least to 1,600 B.C. The fortress was burned and abandoned about 1,100 B.C. While the sheer size of its outer walls meant the place was always known to locals, few archaeologists bothered with it until the 1870s. That was shortly after Heinrich Schliemann discovered large quantities of gold items in what he said were the ruins of Troy, hundreds of miles away in Asia Minor.

After that discovery, Schliemann came here — looking for what he thought must be the treasures of Agamemnon. In 1876, Schliemann uncovered within the fortress what is now labeled Grave Circle A; it held, among other things, an astonishing gold mask that still had flesh attached.

"I have looked on the face of Agamemnon," Schliemann wrote in a telegram, before hurriedly leaving with the wealth he had found.

It was Greek researcher Christos Tsountas who would spend parts of 15 years here, until 1902, uncovering the remains of the palace, its large cistern, many houses and enormous royal tombs hundreds of yards from the outside village. He also found more graves. As it turned out, the mask Schliemann found actually predated Agamemnon by three centuries.

The museum outside the fortress walls has no such breathtaking antiquities, most of which are in a museum in Athens. Instead, this museum focuses on pottery and other household objects uncovered here.