Wall the whole hill; put the ruler’s megaron on its summit, reached by a ramp from the main gate; keep stores, shrines and the ancestral graves inside the walls, and bring water within reach by a hidden stair.
Mycenae in the thirteenth century BC was a fortified hill of about three hectares. The Lion Gate opened at its north-west corner; inside it lay the old royal shaft graves, enclosed by a ring of slabs when the wall was extended round them; a ramp climbed past them to the palace, whose megaron stood on terraces at the top. Late in the century the wall was pushed out to the north-east to enclose a stair that descends through the rock to an underground cistern fed from a spring. Pausanias, a thousand years later, saw the walls, the gate with its lions and the spring called Perseia.
In a bonded masonry wall the courses above an opening corbel over it of their own accord, so the lintel carries roughly the triangle of wall with sides rising at 60° from its ends; everything above that triangle arches onto the jambs.
load ≈ equilateral triangle on the span: W ≈ 0.43 · L² · t · ρ g
Over a large lintel leave a triangular opening by corbelling the courses on either side, so that the wall’s weight passes to the jambs; close the triangle with a thin slab.
Build fortification walls of huge, roughly shaped limestone blocks, with small stones packed into the gaps between them; reserve cut ashlar for gates and façades.
Dig the tholos tombs of later rulers into the hillsides outside the walls, along the roads that approach the city, each entered by a long open passage.
Set the main gate back in a narrow court between the wall and a projecting bastion placed on the right hand of those who approach, so that an enemy at the gate has his unshielded side to the defenders.
Build the house on a levelled terrace with a socle of rubble stone, walls of mud brick in a timber frame, and a flat roof of reeds and clay; store oil and wine in the basement rooms against the hill.
Cite this page Chris Paton, “The citadel: the king’s hall on the summit”, The Textbook of Architecture, https://textbookofarchitecture.com/rule/mycenae-citadel. Text, drawings and models licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.