LO2: The Aegean Encounter

• The scene of this encounter was a region stretching from mainland Greece across the Aegean Sea
• Farming wealth from this region came from a combination of grain fields, vineyards, and olive groves

Minoan Civilization

• About 2200BC, a distinct civilization, known today as Minoan arose on the Aegean island of Crete. 
• This civilization drew its wealth from control of the surrounding seas and from thriving trade with many eastern Mediterranean lands, above Egypt.
• The Master of the Animals: this Cretan gold pendant, made about 1700BC, shows a powerful being with geese in each hand, and a bull's horns looming behind him

The Arrival of the Greeks: Mycenaean Civilization

• At the time that Minoan civilization arose, great changes were taking place in the lands that stretched for thousands of miles to the north and east of Crete
• There is no way of knowing exactly when, where, or how the Greeks developed into a separate ethnic group, but at the time that they made their way into their new homeland, they seem to have been a European barbarian people much like any other
• The Mycenaean Greeks were a warlike people whose leading warriors rode into battle in horse-drawn chariots and who protected their settlements with massive walls

The "Dark Ages"

• Mycenaean civilization lasted until shortly after 1200BC, when it fell victim to the same regional crisis that involved the downfall of the Hittites and the attacks of the Sea People on Egypt 
• "The minstrels' listeners absorbed the traditional values that the heroic songs celebrated- the values of a warrior aristocracy that was at home on both land and sea."
• In the eighth and seventh centuries B.C., as their wealth and population grew, the Greeks joined the Phoenicians as traders, travelers, and settlers across the sea

The Renewal of Greek Civilization 

• Colony: in ancient Greece, a new city-state settled in an oversea territory by a group sponsored by a city-state located elsewhere
• Oracle: a priest or priestess who was believed to give answers that were inspired by a god or goddess to questions from worshipers at a temple
• By about 800BC, the Aegean region, like the lands to its south and east was on the way to recovering from the crisis 
• All the same, the Greeks maintained a sense of oneness which was expressed above all in their common religion 
• As much as it inherited from the Aegean past, this renewed civilization was very different from the old one- mainly as a result of new influences from the changing lands to the south and east 
• In the early development of their civilization, the Greeks began by doing what the Babylonians, the Hittites, and countless other people had done before them