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Aegean Civilizations

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Aegean Civilizations Topic s in Thi s Chapter Minoan Mentors The Mycenaeans , Greece's First Civilizat ion • The Aegean Dark Ag e The Helleni c Era ' The Rise of the Mainland Pow ers The Persian W ars: Crucibl e of a Civilizatio n -, Aegean Civilizations "} '(,~ !ld :.,fIH" b(! ,1humhle servant plow ing fields for the ow ner of a tiny fa1'111 than th e ." , .:;,' -". ',~;"I ' 11 t!w kingciO Ill 01the dead, - Achill es, The Odyssey KEY : Ouestion When does civilization in the West become "Western" civilization ? On his w ay home from the Trojan War, a Greek king nam ed Odysseus paid a visit to the mouth of the underw orld to con sult the ghost of Achilles, a friend w ho died in that war , Ach illes, w ho had been the greatest of Greece's heroes, used the occasio n to explain the fact s of death to Odysseus. He said that he w ould rather occupy the low est stat ion in the land of the living than the high est post in the w orld of the dead. Achilles ' passion for life and faith m the value of eart hly existence, w hich are imptied by this rema rk, help to explain the achievements of the Gree ks. The civ ilization they foun ded on the shores of the Aegean Sea transform ed the ancien t w orld, and it continues to influence the modern w orld. People still adapt the Greeks' arch itecture, im itate their sculpture, debate the theories of the ir phi loso­ phers, use the ir scientif ic vocabulary, and even go to the th eater to be entertained by their playwrigh ts The influen ce of the ancient Greek th inkers and artists has been so pervas ive that som e historians claim that the Greeks w ere the fou nders of W estern civ ilization. Ot hers caut ion that the Greeks did not develop in a vacuum - that they had clos e ties w ith Mi ddle-East ern sta tes and borrowed mu ch from the m , A controversial school of contem porary scho lars has gon e so far as to claim that mo st of Gree k civi lizat ion w as der ived from Egypt and Afr ica. 62 Aegean Civilizations 65 64 Chapter 3 •. _ ..:.'t<. ~ : :· ~>tr.r.1':. : . ".\"Black Advocate s for all these positions make their cases by listing specif ic things that the Sea Gree ks are said either to have borrowed or to have originated . Arguments of this kind are TH RACE: not very pers uasive, for a civi lization is more than its compone nt parts. The debate does, however, ill ustrate how difficult it is to draw hard and fast lines across the continuum of his­ tory, and it is a healt hy corrective to the belief that Western civili zation deve loped in isola­ tion and e ntirely from its own intellectual resources. The ancient Greeks' experience with civilization de monstrates how comp lex the inter­ action between people and environments can be . People inhabit two worlds simultane­ ously; one constructed by nature and one created in their minds . What they make of the form er depends to a great exten t on how they frame the latter. Different people react dif­ ferent ly to similar sets of challenges and oppo rtunities, and explanations for their behaviors are rooted in the mysteries of huma n psychology. Greek history illustrates the role that imagination and creativity play in the human strug­ gle for survival. for nature provided the Greeks with few resources. The Greek mainland was small (about the size of the state of Louisiana) and poor. It had no rivers li ke the Nile or 0 Euphrate s and no fields as productive as those of Egypt or Mesopotamia. Greek farmers ':l- . could wo rk only about 18% of their country's mountainous terrain. Greece's forests were Q) depleted in prehistory, and even the seas off its coasts we re not particularlyrich in fish. The ':l su ccess the Gree ks had in building a civil ization under such circums tances proves that en­ P vironmental reso urces alone are not enough to explain the rise of a great culture . The Gree ks made extraordinary use of what they wer e given by their homeland, but they also (J) profited from contacts with older civi lizations. The fame of Gree k civilization shou ld also not a> .JE:, """"'t(] obscure the fact that the role the Middle East played in the format ion of "the West" did not Q) ~ ,$1 end with the arrival of the Greeks. \£rCYTHERA """7ffiHHODES '" G7~ . ~ .. ,v ' ~-"" .~; ' <O-' Minoan Mentors .. ' . ~ ",; J ~Hacis _ "'~"- ' . - kro 100 MILES /Lf e d i What has long been regarded as the West's most influential ancient civilization ap- .,. 100 KILOMffiRS ranea n sea peared in the Aegean, the part ofthe Mediterranean that is bound by the island ofCrete on the sout h, Asia Minor on the east, and the Greek peninsula on the west and north. Map 3-1 The Bronze.Age Aegean Worl d Two distinct but related civi lizations (the Mino an and the It was the work of a people who called themselves Hellenes, but who are better known Mycenaean) arose in the Aegean region betwee n 2000 and 1200 B.C.E. Both we re maritime powers as Greeks, the name the Romans gave them. whose wealth derived from Medite rranean trade. The Greeks were introduced to civilization by the inhabitants ofancient Crete. Ar­ Q uestion: How would you expect Minoan civilization to differ from Mycenaean civiliza­ cha eolog ists have named th em Minoans after Minos, a legendary king of Crete. What tion given that the Minoans lived on an island an d the Mycenaean s on the mainland? they called themselves is unknown, for the documents they left us have not yet been de-: ciphered. Scholars speculate th at their lan guage was related to one of the Semitic ; tongues ofthe Middle East. If so, significant elements in their population may have mi- -: princes. His court was certainly magnificent. The multistoried palace at Knossos had grated fro m that region. about 300 rooms arranged around its great courtyards-as well as lavishly decorated re­ ception halls, ceremonial staircases, workshops, warehouses, and well-engineered ventila­ tion , drainage, and sewage disposal systems. The fact that it was not fortified suggests that Minoan Civ ilization Crete was inh abited as early as 7000 B.C.E., but the kind of its owner enjoyed mastery ofthe sea and had no fear of invasion (see Map monumental architecture that often signals the presence of a civilization did not appear . 3-1). Seafaring fu nded Min oan civilization . Egypt h ad an insatiable appetite for until about 2000 B.C.E. Crete's great buildings, un like those of Mesopotamia and Egypt, northern products such as wood and olive oil (the all-purpose lubricant, fuel , and were not temples or tombs. They were palaces for merchant-princes, ru lers whose major the chief source of fat in the ancient world's grain-based diet). Peoples such as the interest was trade, not conquest. Minoan civilization was forgotten until the ruins of the Minoans and Ph oenicians, whose island and coasta l homes oriented them to the sea, largest ofthese structures were discovered at a place called Knossos in 1899. No one knows were eager to serve the Egyptian market. Minoan merchants were active in Egypt as whether the ruler ofKnossos presided over all ofCrete or was on ly one ofseveral Minoan 66 Chapter 3 Aege anCivilizations 67 , ~ ....... early as the Middle Kingdom (2100-1700 B.C.E.), and Egypt greatly influenced Mi­ noan culture. Minoan trad e supported the aristocrats who lived in palaces, such as Knossos on Crete's northern coast and Phaistos on its southern rim. It also enabl ed the residents of the towns scatt ered about Crete and on neighboring island s to erect comfortable homes. Little is known about its impact on the Minoan peasantry, for few traces of their villages survive. Like other ancient peoples who se econom ic activities required them to ma in ­ tain inventories of goods, th e Minoan s invented a system of writing. Crete's scribes may have been inspired by Egyptian hieroglyph s, but by 1800 B.C.E., the y had evolved a distinctive scr ipt of their own . Schol ars have named it Linear A to distin­ guish it fro m a later versio n, Linear B, that the early Greeks adapted for writing their lan guage. Both scripts were dr awn (using traced lines rather th an cuneiform's imprinted wedges) on clay tablets and both were probably used exclusively for the purpose of compiling economic records. Because Linear A cannot yet be read, mo st of wha t we know abo ut Minoa n civilization comes from the study of its rui ned buildings. The frescoes that decorated the walls ofhomes and palaces provide windows into the Minoan world, for Mino an art was realistic. It described plants, animals, land­ The Mino an Bull-Leapers This much reconstruc ted fresco from the palace at Knossos illustrates scap es, and a vari ety of human activities. The paucity of military scenes in paintings what may have been a sport. a religi ous ritual. or an ill ustration of a myth . The participants leaped at and of weapons in graves has led some scholars to conclude that the Minoans were charging bulls.
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