αρχαία Ελλάδα (Ancient Greece) The Birthplace of Western Civilization Marshall High School Mr. Cline Western Civilization I: Ancient Foundations Unit Three AB
The Island of Crete The reason why Crete became the location of the first European civilization has much to do with its location, which made the island a natural focus of long distance trade routes. Crete had a very prosperous trade economy based on the Mediterranean Triad of wheat olives and vines. Mountain sheep herding was also easily done at this time, and grain, olive oil, wine and wool are all easily stored and transported. The most distinctive feature of the Minoan civilization that occupied the island is it s capitals, the palaces of over half a dozen small kingdoms that arose on the island around 2000 B.C.
The Island of Crete The palaces incorporated large storehouses where grain, wine and olive oil were kept in huge pottery jars. This verifies the political fact that control and distribution of surplus food, and other products obtained from trade and naturally on the island, such as cloth and metals, was the main factor in the state formation of the Minoans on Crete. The need to manage these resources led to the creation of a writing system, which the earliest Minoan form was hieroglyphic and may have been inspired by the Egyptians, whom they conducted intensive trade with. However, the symbols are distinctively Minoan. A syllabic script was later developed, known as Linear A, however neither it, nor the hieroglyphic script has ever been translated, and as a result the ethnic origins of the Minoans has yet to be determined.
The Minoan Civilization The development of Minoan civilization was a bit different than in the Near East or Egypt as they had no alluvial flood plain or great rivers which could be tapped for irrigation. The Triad Trade was their sole means of obtaining resources for development, and the Mediterranean was the equivalent of their Tigris Euphrates and Nile. By 2000 B.C. Crete s prosperity and dense population had led to the development of towns and small kingdoms centered on magnificent palace complexes at Knossos, Phaistos, Mallia and Khania. As well as being residences for the rulers, the palaces also acted as religious, economic and administrative centers. They also housed workshops, shrines, audience chambers and storerooms. The great central courtyards were probably the scene of religious festivals and communal feasting.
The Minoan Civilization The size and complex plans of the palaces probably gave rise to the later Greek legend of the labyrinth in which King Minos (from whom the Minoans take the name of their civilization,) kept the minotaur, a halfhuman, half-bull monster. The Minotaur was the child of an illicit and unnatural coupling between the wife of Minos, and a bull, known as the Bull of Crete, sent by the god Poseidon (lord of the sea) to Minos so Minos could sacrifice it to Poseidon. After seeing what a fine specimen the bull was though, Minos kept it, and sacrificed another bull instead. This upset the gods, and Aphrodite, the goddess of love made Pasiphae, the wife of Minos fall in love with the bull, and convince the craftsman Daidalos to build a wooden cow she could hide in and have relations with the bull. The child she bore had a bull s head, and a human body. To secure the monster, Minos had Daidalos build an inescapable maze known as the labyrinth, to keep the Minotaur (bull of Minos) trapped for eternity. Hercules was sent to kill the Bull of Crete, and when he succeeded the bull was placed as a constellation in the heavens (Taurus)
The Minoan Civilization The story of the Minotaur is an indication of the importance of the Bull Cult in Minoan civilization. Frescoes on the walls of Cretan palaces shows worship rites of this religion, and such games as bull leaping.
The Minoan Civilization There are frescoes at the palace in Knossos that illustrate youths leaping over the bulls in a ritual game, where there were three type of leaping. Type I: the acrobat approaches the bull from the front, grabs the horns, and somersaults backwards Type II: the acrobat approaches the bull from the front, dives over the horns without touching them and pushes himself with his hands from the bull's back into a backward somersault Type III: the acrobat is depicted in mid-air over the bull's back, facing the same way as the animal
The Minoan Civilization
The Minoan Civilization Stone bull horns are a common religious item found, as is the figure of a goddess often shown holding snakes.
The Minoan Civilization The Minoan civilization was essentially a thalassocracy or a maritime colonial empire. Minoan success depended on overseas trade. They exchanged their broad range of exotic goods with Egypt, southwest The Minoans lived in undefended coastal cities and had a large fleet which ensured their security and made up their trading empire. The period of Minoan dominance in the Aegean is sometimes called "the Minoan Peace," due to the fact that there was no need for city walls. There is no evidence that the Minoans engaged in warfare, or acted aggressively with other cultures. They were a trading culture. The sea was critical to their prosperity and survival. The Minoan fleet appears to have been a trading fleet, but with weapons for defense from pirates. There is nothing in our knowledge of the Minoans to suggest that they were ever an aggressive military power, but with a large fleet they apparently felt safe enough to leave their cities unfortified in a world where warfare was constant.
The Minoan Civilization
The Minoan Civilization
The Minoan Civilization One focus of the Minoan commercial trade was the Greek mainland, where the Minoans dominated the poor residents of the rocky landscape, known as the Mycenaean's. The legend of how Theseus killed the minotaur states that Theseus was a hostage from Athens who had gone to convince Minos to lower the heavy tribute he had laid on Athens. Might this be a relic of a time when Crete really did dominate the Greek mainland? Close contacts between the Minoans and the mainland led to a variety of developments between them, including: The quality of material culture increased The mainland was drawn more into an international economic and diplomatic network centered on the Mediterranean. The mainland citizens were exposed to the other cultures of civilization They learned how to build great fortified palaces, hybrids of the Minoan palaces and the imposing strongholds of the Hittites. They also learned how to write, taking the Linear A script and modifying it for their own uses, creating the Linear B script.
The Minoan Civilization Around 1700 B.C. the Minoan palaces were destroyed by fire, possibly due to wars between the kingdoms of the island. All of the palaces were rebuilt, but as only Knossos regained its former splendor, it would seem that it had conquered the whole island. An explosion of the volcanic island of Thera (today Santorini) caused an ash cloud that covered Crete. As a result of the volcanic explosion, a series of five tsunamis swept across the island of Crete in intervals of about one every half hour, effectively destroying the maritime nature of Crete, and thus the basis of their civilization. The interior of the island carried on, but it was no longer a power, and was subject to conquest due to its new weakness, and continued strategic location, and there were invaders waiting to take advantage of these things.
The Mycenaean Civilization These invaders were the Myceneans, who probably referred to themselves as Achaeans The Mycenaean's were in intimate contact with the Minoans, and developed a civilization based loosely on theirs. While their palaces were smaller than the Minoans, they did serve the same function. They were relative newcomers to Greece, having migrated from the Balkans around 2000 B.C. They take their name from Mycenae, a hilltop citadel which features prominently in Homer s epics as the capital of King Agamemnon, who led the Greeks in the Trojan War. Mycenaean Greece was a land of fortified settlements, each a power center ruled by a petty king who controlled the surrounding countryside with a small band of warrior elite aristocracy supporting him. According to a list preserved in Homer s Iliad, called the Catalog of Ships, the king of Mycenae was recognized as having an ill defined primacy over the other kings.
The Mycenaean Civilization War was central to Mycenaean society. Like most early Indo European peoples, the battle chariot was a central weapon transporting warriors who would then dismount to fight with spear, sword or dagger. For protection they used large, ox hide shields, distinctive helmets covered with boar s teeth, and rarely, crude bronze armor. Mycenaean towns had strong walls built of massive stone blocks that gave rise to the legends of their building being completed by the Cyclopes, one eyed giants, rather than men. They had bastioned gateways, and tunnels to underground springs that provided a source of water when under siege. In the 15 th century B.C. the Mycenaean's started to expand their territory across the Aegean conquering Crete around 1450 B.C., raiding Egypt and the Hittite Empire, and establishing colonies on Rhodes and the coast of Anatolia. It is also possible that the Trojan War happened during this period.
The Mycenaean Civilization It is possible that the Trojan War happened during this period, based on the contextual historical, and architectural evidence. The bulk of the non archaeological evidence comes from the epic poems composed by Homer, The Iliad and The Odyssey. Long thought of as fanciful mythology, there is a great deal of historical information that can be gleaned from it, which has been substantiated by the amazing archaeological finds of Dr. Heinrich Schliemann who discovered the ruins of the City of Troy, long thought to be a myth, and the city of Mycenae, capital of King Agamemnon.
For a very long time, scholars believed that the stories of the Iliad and the Odyssey were just that - stories. But one man, named Heinrich Schliemann, was certain that Troy and Mycenae were real places. He believed that Greek epic, when combined with the historical accounts of Herodotus and the geographical accounts of Strabo, provided enough detail to find these ancient cities of myth. Schliemann was not so much what we would call an archaeologist - more of a treasure hunter. Most archaeologists today would not want Schliemann in their clubhouse. Yet Schliemann's discoveries shook the world nevertheless. After years of searching, Schliemann found Troy, yet the Troy he found did not match the description in the Iliad. This Troy was built centuries later. The Troy he sought was buried beneath several layers of cities. It seems the Greeks were not the first to burn Troy to the ground, nor would they be the last.
In his fervor to find the Troy of the Iliad, Schliemann destroyed the cities above it, making no effort to protect or even catalog their contents. Heinrich Schlieman It is this behavior that gets so many archaeologists angry at Schliemann, especially since he was wrong about the dating of layers and dug past the Troy of the Iliad and five more layers of city before being satisfied. However, archaeological methods had not yet been established, so we really cannot hold Schliemann too accountable. The City of Troy today
Schliemann's Discovery of Mycenae Having successfully found Troy, Schliemann felt confident that he could locate Mycenae as well, and oh, did he. The city he found was wondrous. (I've been there myself, and I must say, it's breathtaking.) Unlike Troy, which had been rebuilt and rebuilt several times after the Bronze Age collapse, Mycenae was already a ruin and tourist attraction by Roman times. As a result, Schliemann was unable to mess things up as he did in Troy. The first thing he discovered was a circular graveyard in which he found precious artifacts, including the Cup of Nestor and the Funeral Mask of Agamemnon. Since Schliemann was a treasure hunter and his wife a goldsmith, the historical accuracy of these artifacts has been called into question.
The circular graveyard at Mycenae Nestor s Cup The funeral mask of Agamemnon
Schliemann's Discovery of Mycenae However, their discovery sent generations of real archaeologists to the site, and their work revealed an amazingly well preserved city. Mycenae was built atop a hill. Like so many cities of this age, the center of the city was a Megaron, a gigantic throne room, roofed and pillared with a central hearth open to the sky. The city was protected by a wall made of massive stones, some weighing over 100 tons, with only one entrance, the famous Lion Gate of Mycenae. Later Greeks gave this architecture the name Cyclopean, assuming that only the giant Cyclopes could have built with such large stones. Mycenae also had a subterranean spring, dug deep into the bedrock, to provide the city with water in case of a siege.
Schliemann's Discovery of Mycenae Outside the walls, archaeologists found massive burial chambers called tholos tombs. These tholos tombs were likely used after the circular shaft graves Schliemann had discovered became full. Their distinct beehive shape makes them unique in Western civilization. It also made them easy to find and easy to identify. Unlike the shaft graves, which maintained most of their treasures, the tholos tombs had been pillaged long before archaeologists got there. Overview of Bronze Age Greek History From their discoveries at Mycenae and elsewhere, archaeologists have come up with the following outline of Bronze Age Greek history: Mycenaen civilization seems to have begun around 2300 BC.
The entrance to a Tholos Tomb at Mycenae
Overview of Bronze Age Greek History They were heavily influenced by the Minoans, a civilization on the Island of Crete that dominated the eastern Mediterranean for many years and may have received tribute from the Mycenaeans. From the Minoans, the Myceneans learned how to write, using the old Minoan alphabet, Linear A, to write in Greek, which we call Linear B. By 1700 BC, Mycenae was a powerful city in its own respect and began to build the citadel that Schliemann discovered. Around the 15th century BC, Minoan Civilization collapsed, probably due to the explosion of Thera, a volcanic island. The ensuing tsunami seems to have shaken up the entire eastern Mediterranean. In the power vacuum left by the Minoans, Mycenae rose in power.
Overview of Bronze Age Greek History From 1400-1200 BC, Mycenae expanded its rule, eventually conquering Crete for themselves and sacking the city of Troy. Mycenae engaged in trade as far south as Egypt, as far west as Spain and as far east as Asia Minor. Yet Mycenae was no better equipped to survive the Bronze Age collapse than anyone else. By sea, the invasion of the sea peoples tore Mycenae's maritime empire to pieces. By land, a mysterious people known as the Dorians invaded from the north. Like the rest of the civilized world at the time, Mycenae could not withstand such a sustained assault and became another victim of the Bronze Age collapse.
Mycenaeans Greek Myth Characters During their two centuries of supremacy, the Mycenaeans had accomplished much. They established the essentials of Greek myth and religion. Pretty much every god of the later Greek pantheon appears in Mycenaean art, shrines, or records. The Mycenaeans also spread the Greek language and their take on the Phoenician alphabet around the known world. Yet perhaps Mycenae's greatest legacy to the Greeks would be its history, which generations of chaos reduced to myth. These myths featured historical figures of the Mycenaean world: Atreus, Agamemnon, Orestes, Clytemnestra, Pelops, Theseus, Perseus, Odysseus, and Achilles. Later Greeks would worship these Mycenaean heroes just as fervently as they did the Mycenaean gods.