Who were the Mycenaeans?

The Mycenaean civilisation occupied much of modern-day central Greece and flourished between 1600 and 1100 BCE. Unlike the earlier Minoan settlers of the area whose society expanded and prospered through trade, the Mycenaeans advanced theirs through military conquest. One of the most notable examples of the Mycenaean expansion through war is recorded in Homer’s The Iliad, where the king of Mycenae, Agamemnon, and the united forces of Greece took the city of Ilium (Troy) in north-west Anatolia (Turkey). Another advance saw the Mycenaeans capture the island of Crete.