Mycenaean Greece · About 1600-1100 BC

Mycenae: Greece in the age of heroes

Fortress palaces, gold masks and tablets full of sheep counts: the Mycenaeans were the Greeks of the Bronze Age. Students explore Mycenae, Pylos and Troy, and ask how much of Homer's Trojan War really happened.

Teach it live New Open on the map
Length
50 minutes
Ages
11–14
On the map
3 steps, 1250 BC to 1184 BC
Live lesson
7 rounds, 3 on the map
Worksheet
Two A4 pages, with Classroom
You need
A projector; phones for live

Live lesson · new in Classroom

Teach it live. The class answers on their phones.

Put the board on the projector. Students join with a six-digit code, no account needed, and tap the map: where was the frontier, where did the grain come from. Their pins drop in together when you reveal, and the closest student takes the round.

€19 per month: every lesson live, every worksheet, cancel anytime. Rome at its height runs live for free.

A live lesson on the projector: the class's pins on the map around Alexandria, the closest students listed beside it A student's phone: the question and a map to tap
7 rounds
3 places to find on the map, quiz questions, a class vote and a one-line answer.
About 15 minutes
Run it as the map step, or to open the discussion. You move on with the space bar.
A report
Every answer, per student and per round, to read back or print after the lesson.
1

Introduction

5 min

Read aloud

Fortress palaces, gold masks and tablets full of sheep counts: the Mycenaeans were the Greeks of the Bronze Age. Students explore Mycenae, Pylos and Troy, and ask how much of Homer's Trojan War really happened.

By the end of the lesson, students can

  • Locate the main Mycenaean palaces and Troy on the map.
  • Explain what Linear B tablets reveal about how a Mycenaean palace worked.
  • Weigh the evidence for and against a real Trojan War.
2

Explore the map

15 min

Project the map, or let students follow on their own devices. Each step opens the map at the right year and place.

a

1250 BC

The citadel of Mycenae

Open the map in 1250 BC and zoom in on the northeast Peloponnese. Mycenae sits on a hill above the plain of Argos. Why would a king build his fortress here?

Open this view on the map
b

1250 BC

Palaces of Greece

Zoom out. Other palaces stood at Pylos, Tiryns and Thebes. Turn on Cities: which famous later Greek city already existed?

Open this view on the map
c

1184 BC

Across the Aegean to Troy

Jump to 1184 BC, the date some ancient Greeks gave for the fall of Troy. Turn on Historical Events and find the siege of Troy. How much of the legend do you think is true?

Open this view on the map
3

Class discussion

15 min

Pick two or three. They run from what happened to why it mattered.

  1. Later Greeks believed giants, the Cyclopes, had built the walls of Mycenae. Why might they have thought so?
  2. Schliemann called a gold mask "the Mask of Agamemnon", but it is centuries older than any Trojan War. Why did he want it to be Agamemnon?
  3. Linear B tablets are lists of sheep, wool, bronze and chariot wheels. What do they tell us about how a palace worked?
  4. Homer's poems were written down centuries after the palaces fell. Can a poem be a source for history?
  5. After about 1200 BC the palaces burned and writing was forgotten in Greece. How can a people forget how to write?
4

Game round

10 min

Play one round of Rule History as Ramesses II, who ruled Egypt while the Mycenaean palaces flourished. Discuss: Egypt kept its writing and records through the crisis that followed, while Greece lost writing for centuries. Why might that be?

Open Rule History
5

Worksheet

5 min

This worksheet comes with Classroom

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