2311 AM · ≈ 1450 BCE · world history
Mycenaean Greece
Europe's first high civilisation: palaces, golden masks and Linear B writing.
Fortified palaces rise across the Peloponnese — Mycenae, Tiryns, Pylos. Their rulers hoard gold, trade by sea and keep accounts in a syllabic script deciphered only in the 1950s, which turned out to be Greek. Around 1200 BCE the palaces burn, and Greece enters four dark centuries.