Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
may have dated from this period, too. Long before Crete or the Greek mainland, these
new islanders became specialists in
jewellery-making
,
metalwork
and
stone-cutting
.
From the abundant marble of the Cyclades, they sculpted statuettes, mostly of female
figures. Slender, spare and geometric, these
Cycladic sculptures
are startlingly modern
in appearance, and were exported widely, to Crete and mainland Greece, along with
other ritual objects.
In about 3000 BC, the introduction of bronze technology to the mainland, also
from the Cyclades, marked the start of the
Bronze Age
in Greece. By
2500 BC
the
widespread use of bronze had transformed farming and fighting throughout the
Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East. Because
tin
(which when alloyed with
copper creates bronze) came from so far afield - in the east from the Caucasus, Persia
and Afghanistan, in the west from Cornwall, Brittany, northwest Spain and northern
Italy - the Aegean became an important trade route. Hence the burst of development
that now took place along the eastern coast of
central Greece
and the
Peloponnese
,
and on the
Aegean
islands
which linked the Greek mainland to Asia Minor and the
Middle East.
It is uncertain what
language
was spoken at this time but one thing is clear: it was not
yet Greek. Indeed, when
Greek-speaking people
did arrive on the mainland in about
2100 BC, their destructive impact paralyzed its development for five hundred years.
The coming of the Greeks
The destruction of numerous mainland sites in about
2100 BC
, followed by the
appearance of a new style of pottery, has suggested to archeologists the violent arrival of
a
new people
. They domesticated the horse, introduced the potter's wheel and
possessed considerable metallurgical skills. These newcomers replaced the old religion
centred on female fertility figures with
hilltop shrines
, thought to have been dedicated
to the worship of male sky gods like Zeus. And with them came a new language, an
early form of
Greek
, though they were obliged to adopt existing native words for such
things as olives, figs, vines, wheat and the sea, suggesting that these new migrants or
invaders may have come from distant inland steppes where they had been pastoral
highlanders, not farmers, fishermen or sailors.
Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations: 2100-1100 BC
The history of the Aegean during the second millennium BC can be seen as a struggle
between the
Mycenaean culture
of the Greek mainland and the
Minoan culture
of
Crete. Situated halfway between mainland Greece and Egypt, Crete exploited the
Bronze Age boom in trade, to become the dominant power in the Aegean by the start
of the second millennium BC. Its influence was felt throughout the islands and also on
the mainland, where the Greek-speaking invaders were “Minoanized”, gradually
developing a culture known as Mycenaean (after Mycenae, a principal mainland Bronze
Age site) that owed a lot to Crete.
Minoan Crete
Living on a large and fertile island with good natural harbours, the people of
Crete
raised sufficient crops and livestock to export surplus quantities of oil and wool.
c.2000 BC
c.1700 BC
c.1500 BC
c.1220 BC
On Crete, the great
Minoan palaces are built.
Knossos and the other
palaces are destroyed by
earthquake, but rebuilt
even more grandly.
Mainland Mycenaeans
gain control of Crete.
Trojan War, whose events
are immortalized by
Homer and enter the
realm of myth.
