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Tiryns. The palace construction is also characterized by a high level of skills.
Palace at Pylos was a typical building of the heroic era of precise consideration of
details.
H. Schliemann investigated fantastically rich ‘royal’ tombs (called ‘Treasury

of Atreus’ and ‘Tomb of Clytemnestra’ at Mykenah about 1250 BC) with a high
domed arch and a huge 120-ton monolith of overlapping entry. The interior was
decorated with carved images and reliefs (violent scenes of military battles and

hunting). Gold helmets, funeral masks and tiaras, gold and silver goblets, rich
clothes and jewelry, bronze weapons - all this has long been a symbol of luxury of
the Mycenaean era.

The Greek culture was not static, it substantially changed throughout the
history. We usually present the Grek gods in the guise of beautiful people as they
are embodied in the statues of the Greek classical era. However, in earlier times the

Greeks worshiped the same gods in the forem of animals, plants, even rocks and
other fetishes. The same applies to the mythological scenes: the myths evolved
gradually over the centuries. The ancient mythological motifs carried distinct
traces of the outlook of antiquity but were gradually displaced by more progressive

ones specific for a certain phase of social development. The Greeks worshiped the
presiding 12 Olympian deities (‘on the top of the world’ - Mount Olympus).

At the top of the hierarchy of the Olympic pantheon there was Zeus, the most
syncretic of all the divine image combining the religious beliefs and practices of
the Cretan culture (the supreme deity of the fertile forces of nature), and Achaeans
(heavenly god of thunder and lightning).

Hera, the sister-wife of Zeus, was the patron of family and maternal bonds
(the temple in her honor at Olympia was built much earlier than the Temple of
Zeus with the famous statue by Phidias, one of the seven wonders of the world).

Brother of Zeus, Poseidon was the lord of all waters, and ground, then the
mighty sea god, manager of earthquakes.
The sister of Zeus, Demeter was the goddess of nature and fertility, patroness

of the earth, the source of maternal strength. The myth about the kidnapping of her
beautiful daughter Persephone by ruler of the underworld Hades explained the
existence of the Greek calendar consisting of three seasons.

Hestia, the oldest of Zeus’ sisters, was extremely popular goddess - the patron
of the hearth. Her altars were in every village.
Favorite daughter of Zeus, Athena, the goddess of fair war, wisdom, patroness
of urban culture and crafts, was the main goddess of the cultural capital of the

ancient world – the Athens. In her honour there was built the famous temple - the
Parthenon.

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