What is Mycenaean culture?
[[Image:Sites mycéniens.png|thumb|right|220px|Principal Mycenaean sites in Greece (site names in French)]] [[File:Fresco of two female charioteers from Tiryns 1200 BC.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Two Mycenean women out on a chariot... [[Fresco]] from Tiryns ~1200<small>BC</small>]] [[Image:Linear B (Mycenaean Greek) NAMA Tablette 7671.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Example of Linear B script]] The '''Mycenaean culture''' (around 1600–1100 <small>BC</small>) was an early [[Ancient Greece|Greek]] culture during the [[Bronze Age]] on the [[Greece|Greek]] mainland and on [[Crete]]. [[Image:Homeric Greece-en.svg|thumb|right|200px|Map of [[Greece]] as described in [[Homer]]'s [[Iliad]]. The geographical data is believed to refer primarily to [[Bronze Age]] Greece, when Mycenaean Greek would have been spoken.]] The name '''Achaean''' was used by [[Homer]] to describe them and occurs in the ''[[Iliad]]''. The term that is used is derived from [[Mycenae]], which is an important [[archeology|archaeological site]] about 90&nbsp;km from [[Athens]]. Other important Mycenaean sites are at Athens, [[Thebes]], [[Tiryns]] and Pylos. The [[Epic poetry|epic poems]] of [[Homer]], the ''Iliad'' and the ''[[Odyssey]]'', are Mycenaean in origin. The earlier [[Minoan civilization|Minoans]] [[trade]]d but did not conquer. The Mycenaeans traded and conquered.<ref>Castleden, Rodney 2005. ''The Mycenaeans''. Routledge, London. {{ISBN|0-415-36336-5}}</ref> == Language == '''Mycenaean ''' is the oldest known form of [[Greek language|Greek]]. It was spoken on the [[Greece|Greek]] mainland and on [[Crete]] in the Mycenaean period, from the 16th to the 12th centuries BC. The language is written on [[clay tablet]]s in a [[writing system|script]] called [[Linear B]]. Most of the tablets were found in [[Knossos]], in central Crete, and in Pylos in the southwest of the [[Peloponnese]]. Other tablets have been found at Mycenae itself; Tiryns and Thebes; and at Chania, in western Crete.<ref>{{cite book |author=Chadwick, John|title=The Mycenaean world |url=https: