The Curse of Mycenae

The Royal House of the Atreids in Mycenae

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They have turned up pigments, carbonized wood, animal bones, shells, roof tiles and much pottery. In a June article in Popular Archaeology, the writer states:. But the greatest takeaway thus far has been the confirming evidence that Mycenae, more than its popular image as the fortified palatial abode of Agamemnon, was a large, complex urban center where a population made their living in trade, commercial production, agriculture, and all the other typical functions of an ancient culture, in space and time well beyond the politics and military campaigns of a prominent kingly reign.

This kilogram pound block of hand-worked stone very well may be a throne of ancient Mycenae, tragic royal houses immortalized by the ancient Greek epic poet Homer.

Find a Greek Myth

Photo by Christofilis Maggidis. Mark is a Writer for Ancient-Origins. His hobbies are writing and drawing. Register to become part of our active community, get updates, receive a monthly newsletter, and enjoy the benefits and rewards of our member point system OR just post your comment below as a Guest. By bringing together top experts and authors, this archaeology website explores lost civilizations, examines sacred writings, tours ancient places, investigates ancient discoveries and questions mysterious happenings. Our open community is dedicated to digging into the origins of our species on planet earth, and question wherever the discoveries might take us.

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Archaeologists have announced the discovery of a vaulted Mycenaean tomb near Amfissa, central Greece, containing human remains and a hoard of treasures. The 3,year-old tomb is the first of its Mycenae was once a very powerful kingdom in ancient Greece. King Agamemnon was considered to be one of the greatest leaders of his era not to be confused with the distorted, Hollywood portrayal of In , the traditional theory of who we are and where we came from got knocked on its head.

It was an exciting year. It was an exasperating year. It was a frustrating year. And it was a breathtaking time, all at once. But it was only the beginning. The symbol of the Swastika and its 12,year-old history. The swastika is a symbol used by of one of the most hated men on Earth, a symbol that represents the slaughter of millions of people and one of the most destructive wars on Earth.

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The origins of human beings according to ancient Sumerian texts. An Exotic Bloodline or Random Mutation? Greek mythology and human origins. Atreus retook the throne and banished Thyestes. Atreus then learned of Thyestes' and Aerope's adultery and plotted revenge.

He killed Thyestes' sons and cooked them, save their hands and feet. He tricked Thyestes into eating the flesh of his own sons and then taunted him with their hands and feet. Thyestes was forced into exile for eating the flesh of a human. Thyestes responded by asking an oracle what to do, who advised him to have a son by his daughter, Pelopia , who would then kill Atreus.

However, when Aegisthus was first born, he was abandoned by his mother who was ashamed of the incestuous act.

Greek & Roman Mythology - Greek Tragedy

A shepherd found the infant Aegisthus and gave him to Atreus, who raised him as his own son. Only as he entered adulthood did Thyestes reveal the truth to Aegisthus, that he was both father and grandfather to the boy. Aegisthus then killed Atreus, although not before Atreus and Aerope had had two sons, Agamemnon and Menelaus , and a daughter Anaxibia. Agamemnon married Clytemnestra , and Menelaus married Helen , her sister known later as Helen of Troy.

The Curse of the House of Atreus

Helen was taken away from Menelaus by Paris of Troy during a visit. Menelaus then called on the chieftains to help him take back Helen. Prior to sailing off to war against Troy, Agamemnon had angered the goddess Artemis because he had killed a sacred deer in a sacred grove, and had then boasted that he was a better hunter than she was.

When the time came, Artemis stilled the winds so that Agamemnon's fleet could not sail.

Myth Summary

A prophet named Calchas told him that in order to appease Artemis, Agamemnon would have to sacrifice the most precious thing that had come to his possession in the year he killed the sacred deer. This was his first-born daughter, Iphigenia. He sent word home for her to come in some versions of the story on the pretense that she was to be married to Achilles. Iphigenia accepted her father's choice and was honored to be a part of the war. Clytemnestra tried to stop Iphigenia but was sent away.

After doing the deed, Agamemnon's fleet was able to get under way. While he was fighting the Trojans, his wife Clytemnestra, enraged by the murder of her daughter, began an affair with Aegisthus. When Agamemnon returned home he brought with him a new concubine, the doomed prophetess, Cassandra. Upon his arrival that evening, before the great banquet she had prepared, Clytemnestra drew a bath for him and when he came out of the bath, she put the royal purple robe on him which had no opening for his head. He was confused and tangled up.

Clytemnestra then stabbed him to death. Agamemnon's only son, Orestes, was quite young when his mother killed his father. He was sent into exile.

In some versions he was sent away by Clytemnestra to avoid having him present during the murder of Agamemnon; in others Electra herself rescued the infant Orestes and sent him away to protect him from their mother. In both versions he was the legitimate heir apparent and as such a potential danger to his usurper uncle. Goaded by his sister Electra , Orestes swore revenge. He knew it was his duty to avenge his father's death, but saw also that in doing so he would have to kill his mother.

He was torn between avenging his father and sparing his mother. But a son who killed his mother was abhorrent to gods and to men'. When he prayed to Apollo , the god advised him to kill his mother. Orestes realized that he must work out the curse on his house, exact vengeance and pay with his own ruin.

After Orestes murdered Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus, he wandered the land with guilt in his heart.

After many years, with Apollo by his side, he pleaded to Athena. No descendant of Atreus had ever done so noble an act and 'neither he nor any descendant of his would ever again be driven into evil by the irresistible power of the past. This story is the major plot line of Aeschylus 's trilogy The Oresteia.

Plato in his dialogue The Statesman tells a "famous tale" that "the sun and the stars once rose in the west, and set in the east, and that the god reversed their motion, and gave them that which they now have as a testimony to the right of Atreus. The first English language translation of the Oresteia in contributed greatly to the development of the Romantic period in literature.

There is a possible reference to Atreus in a Hittite text known as the "Indictment of Madduwatta ". The indictment describes several army clashes between the Greeks and the Hittites which took place around the late 15th or early 14th centuries BC. The Greek leader was a man called Attarsiya, and some scholars have speculated that Attarsiya or Attarissiya was the Hittite way of writing the Greek name Atreus.

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