Midea (Argolid) in the context of "Mycenaeans"

Mycenaean Greece (or the Mycenaean civilization) was the last phase of the Bronze Age in ancient Greece, spanning the period from approximately 1750 to 1050 BC. It represents the first advanced and distinctively Greek civilization in mainland Greece with its palatial states, urban organization, works of art, and writing system. The Mycenaeans were mainland Greek peoples who were likely stimulated by their contact with insular Minoan Crete and other Mediterranean cultures to develop a more sophisticated sociopolitical culture of their own. The most prominent site was Mycenae, after which the culture of this era is named. Other centers of power that emerged included Pylos, Tiryns, and Midea in the Peloponnese, Orchomenos, Thebes, and Athens in Central Greece, and Iolcos in Thessaly. Mycenaean settlements also appeared in Epirus, Macedonia, on islands in the Aegean Sea, on the south-west coast of Asia Minor, and on Cyprus, while Mycenaean-influenced settlements appeared in the Levant and Italy.

The Mycenaean Greeks introduced several innovations in the fields of engineering, architecture and military infrastructure, while trade over vast areas of the Mediterranean was essential for the Mycenaean economy. Their syllabic script, Linear B, offers the first written records of the Greek language, and their religion already included several deities also to be found in the Olympic pantheon. Mycenaean Greece was dominated by a warrior elite society and consisted of a network of palace-centered states that developed rigid hierarchical, political, social, and economic systems. At the head of this society was the king, known as a wanax.

Dendra (Greek: Δενδρά) is a prehistoric archaeological site situated outside the village with the same name belonging to the municipality of Midea in the Argolid, Greece.

The site was inhabited during the Neolithic and Early Helladic periods, and is known for its Late Bronze Age cemetery. In the first half of the 20th century, the Swedish archaeologist Axel W. Persson excavated an unplundered tholos tomb and many Mycenaean chamber tombs, presumably belonging to the ruling classes of the nearby citadel of Midea. The finds from the site include the Dendra panoply, a set of Mycenaean bronze armour found in one of its chamber tombs, and the Dendra Octopus Cup from the tholos. From the Hellenistic into the Byzantine periods, it was the site of a village: local tradition recalled that it had once been known as "Sanga".

Midea (Greek: Μιδέα) is a village and a former municipality in Argolis, Peloponnese, Greece. It was named Gerbesi (Γκέρμπεσι) until 1928. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Nafplio, of which it is a municipal unit. The municipal unit has an area of 178.306 km, and a population of 4,966 (2021). The seat of the municipality was in Agia Triada.

Within the boundaries of the municipal unit are two significant archaeological sites dating to the Bronze Age or earlier. One is the site of Dendra located outside the village of the same name. The other is the citadel site of Midea. Both sites were originally excavated by the archaeologist Axel W. Persson between the 1920s and World War II.