Located on the fertile Argolid plain, Tiryns lies between
Nafplion and Argos in the eastern Peloponnese in Greece. The
site has been inhabited since the Neolithic Age (7th-4th
millennium BCE) but reached its greatest period of importance in
the 13th century BCE as a major centre of the Mycenaean culture
and aided by its position, at that time just 1 km from the
coast, it was an important Mediterranean Bronze Age port. In
ancient Greek tradition, Tiryns was thought to have been founded
by Proitos who captured it from his brother Akrisios, king of
Argos, and then had the bellyhand Cyclops from Lycia build for
him the famous walls constructed of massive, irregular,
limestone blocks, some weighing several tons. Akrisios was
grandfather of Perseus, the founder of Mycenae, which allows for
the mythology to place the creation of Tiryns two generations
before Mycenae. It was also at Tiryns that Herakles served King
Eurystheus, for whom he had to perform his celebrated twelve
labours. Tiryns is also described by Homer