After we went to the Heraion, we made our way over to the site or Tiryns, another large Mycenaean palace. This was a particularly exciting trip because my archaeology professor knew the German team excavating the site and so arranged for one of them to give us a special guided tour. Since Tiryns is a pretty big site and a lot of it is unlabelled and not open to the public, this was a very good thing.
I'm not generally into taking pictures while people are talking, especially when those people are archaeologists who are taking time out of their busy schedule to show a lot of kids (many of whom are acting extremely rude and uninterested) around a site that they obviously find important and fascinating, so I don't have too many pictures of Tiryns, which is sort of tragic. It was a very nice site. It is like a lot of other Mycenaean sites that one can go to see- Cyclopean masonry, a funny layout that prevents easy visibility (this is a big deal with Minoan palaces as well- you walk up a huge staircase and the door is tiny and over to the side or something) and, in this case, big blocks from gates that are made out of the same stone as the ones at Mycenae. Coincidence? No, probably not.
A corbelled vault! This is a pretty long passageway to have one, and it must have looked very fancy-schmancy to the people living there. (Please note the technical vocabulary.)
Look, Cyclopean Masonry! Tiryns had some mighty big walls, and gets referred to in Homer as "mighty-walled Tiryns."
My group exiting through a secret passage or something. By this time, we had already all climbed over some of those ubiquitous "public keep out" barrier ropes, and the few tourists who were there (some older ladies and what appeared to be a boy scout troupe) were rather unhappy that we were getting to see those areas and they were not. At least we were in there legally this time! I think I've lost track of the number of archaeological sites where we have stepped over those ropes without official permission from the archaeological team.
I'm not generally into taking pictures while people are talking, especially when those people are archaeologists who are taking time out of their busy schedule to show a lot of kids (many of whom are acting extremely rude and uninterested) around a site that they obviously find important and fascinating, so I don't have too many pictures of Tiryns, which is sort of tragic. It was a very nice site. It is like a lot of other Mycenaean sites that one can go to see- Cyclopean masonry, a funny layout that prevents easy visibility (this is a big deal with Minoan palaces as well- you walk up a huge staircase and the door is tiny and over to the side or something) and, in this case, big blocks from gates that are made out of the same stone as the ones at Mycenae. Coincidence? No, probably not.
A corbelled vault! This is a pretty long passageway to have one, and it must have looked very fancy-schmancy to the people living there. (Please note the technical vocabulary.)
Look, Cyclopean Masonry! Tiryns had some mighty big walls, and gets referred to in Homer as "mighty-walled Tiryns." 
My group exiting through a secret passage or something. By this time, we had already all climbed over some of those ubiquitous "public keep out" barrier ropes, and the few tourists who were there (some older ladies and what appeared to be a boy scout troupe) were rather unhappy that we were getting to see those areas and they were not. At least we were in there legally this time! I think I've lost track of the number of archaeological sites where we have stepped over those ropes without official permission from the archaeological team. 
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