50 Euros Archaeological Site of Tiryns

Tiryns, the Mycenaean citadel on the Argolid plain, was already considered ancient by the classical Greeks — Homer called its walls the work of the Cyclopes, and the sheer scale of the corbelled galleries embedded in the fortification blocks made that attribution plausible to anyone standing inside them. Schliemann excavated the site in 1884, one year after finishing at Troy, and found the palatial remains that confirmed Tiryns as a major Bronze Age administrative center predating Mycenae itself in some structural phases.

This issue belongs to the Bank of Greece's ongoing archaeological sites series, each struck in fractional gold at relatively low mintages aimed squarely at the collector market rather than circulation.