Greek history (II)

Cycladic and Minoan civilization

Reconstruction of the Proto-Greek area: circa 3rd millenium BC

One of the earliest civilizations to appear around Greece was the Minoan civilization in Crete, which lasted from about 2700 (Early Minoan) BC to 1450 BC, and the Early Helladic period on the Greek mainland from ca. 2800 BC to 2100 BC.

Little specific information is known about the Minoans (even the name is a modern appellation, from Minos, the legendary king of Crete).[4] They have been characterized as a pre-Indo-European people, apparently the linguistic ancestors of the Eteo-Cretan speakers of Classical Antiquity, their language being encoded in the undeciphered Linear A script. They were primarily a mercantile people engaged in overseas trade, taking advantage of their land's rich natural resources. Timber was then an abundant natural resource that was commercially exploited and exported to nearby lands such as Cyprus, Syria, Egypt and the Aegean Islands. During the Early Bronze Age (3300 BC through 2100 BC), the Minoan Civilization on the island of Crete held great promise for the future.

Cape Sounion

The Mycenaean Greeks invaded Crete and adopted much of the Minoan culture they found on Crete. The Minoan civilization which preceded the Mycenaean civilization on Crete was revealed to the modern world by Sir Arthur Evans in 1900, when he purchased and then began excavating a site at Knossus.

The Proto-Greeks are assumed to have arrived in the Greek peninsula during the late 3rd to early 2nd millennium BC.The migration of the Ionians and Aeolians resulted in Mycenaean Greece by the 16th century BC.[8][9] The transition from pre-Greek to Greek culture appears to have been rather gradual. Some archaeologists have pointed to evidence that there was a significant amount of continuity of prehistoric economic, architectural, and social structures, suggesting that the transition between the Neolithic, Helladic and early Greek cultures may have continued without major rifts in social texture.[10]

Mycenae

On Crete, however, the Mycenean invasion of around 1400 BC spelled the end of the Minoan civilization. Mycenaean Greece is the Late Helladic Bronze Age civilization of Ancient Greece. It lasted from the arrival of the Greeks in the Aegean around 1600 BC to the collapse of their Bronze Age civilization around 1100 BC. It is the historical setting of the epics of Homer and of most Greek mythology. The Mycenaean period takes its name from the archaeological site Mycenae in the northeastern Argolid, in the Peloponnesos of southern Greece. Athens, Pylos, Thebes, and Tiryns are also important Mycenaean sites.

Mycenaean civilization was dominated by a warrior aristocracy. Around 1400 BC the Mycenaeans extended their control to Crete, center of the Minoan civilization, and adopted a form of the Minoan script called Linear A to write their early form of Greek. The Mycenaean era script is called Linear B.

Table of Cycladic

The Mycenaeans buried their nobles in beehive tombs (tholoi), large circular burial chambers with a high vaulted roof and straight entry passage lined with stone. They often buried daggers or some other form of military equipment with the deceased. The nobility were often buried with gold masks, tiaras, armour, and jeweled weapons. Mycenaeans were buried in a sitting position, and some of the nobility underwent mummification.

Around 1100 BC the Mycenaean civilization collapsed. Numerous cities were sacked and the region entered what historians see as a dark age. During this period Greece experienced a decline in population and literacy. The Greeks themselves have traditionally blamed this decline on an invasion by another wave of Greek people, the Dorians, although there is scant archaeological evidence for this view.