αρχαία Ελλάδα (Ancient Greece) The Birthplace of Western Civilization Marshall High School Mr. Cline Western Civilization I: Ancient Foundations Unit Three AB * European Civilization • 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. * European Civilization • 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. * European Civilization • 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. * European Civilization • 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 half- human, 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) * European Civilization • 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.” * European Civilization • 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 * European Civilization • The Minoan Civilization * European Civilization • The Minoan Civilization • Stone bull horns are a common religious item found, as is the figure of a goddess often shown holding snakes. * European Civilization • 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. * European Civilization • The Minoan Civilization * European Civilization • The Minoan Civilization * European 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. * European Civilization • 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. * European Civilization • 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. * European Civilization • 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 15th 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.