The Lion Gate at Mycenae - Illustration from Views of Greece by Edward Dodwell

The Lion Gate at Mycenae is an illustration from the collection Views in Greece from Drawings published by Edward Dodwell in 1821.

The Lion Gate at Mycenae is a monumental and symbolic entrance, guarded by two sculpted lions. These imposing remains, vestiges of the Mycenaean civilization, evoke the power and grandeur of an ancient kingdom, fascinating archaeologists and visitors from around the world.

The literal transcription of the notice accompanying this plate is reproduced below:

This gate served as the principal entrance to the acropolis of Mycenae, and still remains in much the same condition as it was eighteen hundred years ago, when Pausanias, who attributes its construction to the Cyclopes, visited it.

It is reached between two parallel walls, which form a sort of passage thirty and a half feet wide. This passage, when the besieged manned the heights of the walls, gave them a great advantage and provided them with powerful means of inconveniencing the besiegers who entered this narrow defile. The opening of the gate decreases at the top and is surmounted by a triangular niche composed of large crosspieces. It cannot be said whether it is unexcavated throughout its height, because the lower part is cluttered with a heap of earth and ruins. Its width at the top is nine and a half feet. The dimensions of the lintel are extraordinary: it is fifteen and a half feet long, six feet eight inches wide, and four inches thick. The walls are made of very hard pebble, extracted from a nearby mine. The Lions block is made of compact limestone, green in color, similar in appearance to the green basalt of Egypt.

This piece of sculpture is probably the oldest in Greece. It represents in half-relief a column between two Egyptian lions, whose hind paws rest on the lower part of the block above the lintel of the door, and whose front claws are extended on the pedestal of the column. It is conjectured that this column alluded to the Persian sun-cult, since Apollo and the sun are represented in this form. Some claim that it was the emblem of fire, and that it represented a pyratheion or fiery altar of which the lions were the guardians.

The lions are sculpted in the Egyptian style and resemble those painted on the oldest ceramic vases found in Greece. Their tails are thin, like those seen on the oldest sculptures from Egypt, Greece, and Etruria. Since their heads have been destroyed, it is impossible to know which direction they were facing.

The back of the gate is also of great interest, and exhibits two entirely different kinds of construction. The side which faces the plain of Argos is of rough Cyclopean masonry, while the other side is built regularly, like the front of the gate and the side walls which extend in front of it, and which appear to belong to a construction subsequent to the original Cyclopean construction.