Ancient Greek History Page 6

Mycenaean Greece & The Trojan Wars

There are no conventions on to how to really spell Mycenae or Myceneae or Myceni. In fact, the word comes from Mykites which are mushroom or yeast spores and were used along with barley and wheat molds as hallucinogens in sacred rituals such as the Eluesian mysteries and others. Today in modern demotic Greek mykites can even refer to athletes foot. Today, in English 'Mycologists' are people who study mushrooms. Mushrooms as I am sure you know can kill you if you eat the wrong kind.

But back to Helen.... and her Mycenaean times. You remember Helen of Troy? The trophy bride that King Agamemnon launched a thousand ships for in Homer's Iliad. That's supposedly, Agamemnon's golden death mask left , dug up in Mycenae by Enrich Schlieman, the father of modern archeology below right. Nobody can prove it really is him however and others say its 200 years earlier than the Trojan wars.

She was initially Helen of Argos, and married not to Agamemnon but to his brother Menelaous. But the Trojan prince, Paris, "stole her away"..... She must have been pretty hot. Perhaps she just embodied the ancient Greek ideal of physical beauty which was a far cry from today's fashion models.

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