Tiryns (c. 1300 BC): The Cyclopean Walls of a Mycenaean Citadel

Tiryns is a Late Bronze Age citadel in the Argolid plain of southern Greece, a few kilometres north of the port of Nafplio. Between about 1400 and 1200 BC it was one of the strongest fortresses of Mycenaean Greece, ringed by walls of enormous stones that later Greeks believed only giants could have lifted. Its walls, vaulted galleries and painted palace make it, with Mycenae, the best-known example of Mycenaean military architecture.

Background and setting

The citadel sits on a long, low limestone ridge rising from the plain, close to the sea in antiquity. People lived there from the Neolithic period, and by about 2500 BC an unusual large round building stood on the summit. The Mycenaean fortress was built over this older settlement.

Tiryns lay within sight of other Mycenaean centres, including Argos, Midea and Mycenae. How these sites related politically is uncertain. Tiryns may have been an independent palace state or a port and stronghold subordinate to Mycenae.

The Cyclopean walls

The fortifications were built in several phases, mainly in the 14th and 13th centuries BC. The walls were made of huge, roughly shaped limestone blocks, many weighing several tonnes, with small stones packed into the gaps. In places the walls are around 7 metres thick, and they still stand to a considerable height.

Greeks of the classical age called this style Cyclopean. In myth, King Proetus brought Cyclopes from Lycia to build the walls. Pausanias, writing in the 2nd century AD, said the smallest stones could not be shifted by a pair of mules, and complained that Greeks admired foreign marvels such as the Egyptian pyramids while ignoring the walls of Tiryns, which he judged just as impressive.

Homer also knew the site as a fortress. In the Catalogue of Ships in the Iliad, Tiryns appears among the towns of the Argolid with an epithet usually translated as “of the great walls”.

Galleries and secret passages

Inside the eastern and southern walls are long corridors roofed with corbelled vaults, built by setting each course of stone slightly further in until the two sides met. Side openings led into small chambers, probably used as storerooms. Centuries of shepherds sheltering their flocks there have polished the lower stones.

In the 13th century BC the builders extended the walls northwards to enclose a lower citadel. They also built two underground passages that led beneath the walls to water sources outside, so the defenders could reach water during a siege.

The palace

On the summit of the upper citadel stood a palace laid out around courtyards, with a monumental gateway leading to a megaron, a great hall with a central hearth and a throne. Its walls were decorated with frescoes, among them a scene of bull-leaping and a procession of women.

Smaller rooms included a bathroom whose floor was made from a single great slab of limestone. The plan resembles the palaces at Mycenae and at Pylos, suggesting a shared Mycenaean idea of how a ruler’s residence should look.

Destruction and later history

Around 1200 BC the palace burned during the wider crisis known as the Late Bronze Age collapse. Some archaeologists have argued that an earthquake contributed to the damage, though this is debated. Unlike many centres, Tiryns was not abandoned at once. The settlement in the lower town grew for a time in the 12th century BC, and a new building was set up in the ruins of the old megaron.

In the classical period Tiryns was a small independent town. It sent men to fight against Persia at Plataea in 479 BC and is named on the Serpent Column at Delphi. In the 460s BC its larger neighbour Argos destroyed it and moved its people away.

Excavation

Heinrich Schliemann dug briefly at Tiryns in 1876 and returned with the architect Wilhelm Dörpfeld in 1884-1885, uncovering the palace plan. The German Archaeological Institute has worked there since, and in 1915 a hoard of gold jewellery and other objects, the Tiryns Treasure, came to light in the lower town. In 1999 Tiryns and Mycenae were inscribed together as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Timeline

• c. 2500 BC: A large round building stands on the summit of the ridge.
• 14th century BC: The first Mycenaean fortification wall is built.
• 13th century BC: Walls are rebuilt and extended; the galleries and lower citadel are added.
• c. 1200 BC: The palace is destroyed by fire.
• 479 BC: Men of Tiryns fight against Persia at Plataea.
• 460s BC: Argos destroys Tiryns.
• 1884-1885: Schliemann and Dörpfeld excavate the palace.
• 1999: Mycenae and Tiryns become a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Why it matters

Tiryns shows how much effort Mycenaean rulers put into defence and display. Its walls inspired the myths of the Cyclopes and the term Cyclopean masonry, and its galleries remain among the most remarkable Bronze Age structures in Europe.