The Archaeological Site of Tiryns

Tradition says that the citadel was founded by the prince of Argos, Proetus, who, pursued by his brother, Acrisius, fled to Lycia and returned bringing with him the Cyclops who constructed these enormous walls. The fortification of the hill, completed at the end of the 13th century BC, surrounds the citadel with a total perimeter of approximately 750 m. The impressive walls, built of stones even larger than those of Mycenae, are up to 8 metres thick and 13 m high. They can rightly be regarded as a creation that goes beyond the human scale, as reveals the word “cyclopean” – built by Cyclops, the mythical giants from Lycia.

Five kilometers east of the citadel, a unique technical achievement of antiquity has been located. In this area is an enormous embankment, originally lined with boulders at its ends – some boulders can still be seen today – built to divert the rainwater of the Manesis torrent that flowed towards Tiryns and caused floods in the Early Bronze Age. In parallel with the construction of the dam, a diversion channel was opened towards the southwest, which carried the waters south of Profitis Ilias hill into the bed of another torrent (Ramadani). The dam should be dated in the 13th century BC, that is the period of Tiryns’ heyday, and is comparable to the Mycenaeans’ large-scale drainage works in Lake Kopais, Boeotia.