The material for study is constantly
accumulating, and constant progress is being made in classifying
and interpreting this material. A civilization antedating the
Homeric poems stands now dimly revealed to us. Mycenae, the city
"rich in gold," the residence of Agamemnon, whence he ruled over
"many islands and all Argos," [Footnote: Iliad II, 108] is seen to
have had no merely legendary preeminence. So conspicuous, in fact,
does Mycenae appear in the light as well of archaeology as of
epic, that it has become common, somewhat misleading though it is,
to call a whole epoch and a whole civilization "Mycenaean." This
"Mycenaean" civilization was widely extended over the Greek
islands and the eastern portions of continental Greece in the
second millennium before our era. Exact dates are very risky, but
it is reasonably safe to say that this civilization was in full
development as early as the fifteenth century B.C., and that it
was not wholly superseded till considerably later than 1000 B.C.
It is our present business to gain some acquaintance with this
epoch on its artistic side.
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