They also engaged in piracy all the way from south Italy to eastern parts of the Mediterranean Sea. The empire also got its power from the armaments that it had manufactured from the bronze metal. With their weapons and excellent soldiers, they were able to conquer and bring under their control a number of empires including Crete. From the archaeological remain of their arts, ornaments and flirtations it could be deduced the Mycenaean society was more warlike than the other empires around it during its time. The pattern of settlement that they used in which the homesteads and estates were built around fortified hills also ensured and favored security as such settlements symbolized unity among the members of the society.
From the trading activities people of the Mycenaean society were evidently flourishing with wealthy and this was recorded from the expensive items such as bronze weapons, 2583 storeroom goblets and golden jewelry that were owned by members of the upper class. .
In as a much as the Mycenaean empire was such strong and powerful commanding all that much wealth from the region, it collapsed in 1200 BC and the people were scattered all over and across the seas. There are not clear and strong supportive reasons for the collapse of the empire though so many arguments have been put forth in a bid to explain the reasons for the no longer existence of the once giant unit. Among the reasons include invasion of the region by external attackers, internal conflicts due to social and ethnic divisions, climatic changes and natural calamities such as earthquakes among other misfortunes that hit the society.
This article explains in details how each of the above reasons is argued to have in one way or the other led to the collapse of the empire with weight given to internal conflicts and invasion from external raiders as they were thought to be the main driving forces behind the occurrence while there were divergent views on the impact of the other reasons.