The Aegean Civilizations [antikvár]

Introduction The brilliant civilizations of the Aegean Bronze Age have excited interest ever since the initial discoveries of Heinrich Schliemann at Troy, Mycenae and Tiryns almost a hundred years ago. Schhemann was inspired by his love and knowledge of Homer to seek the monuments of the pre-Classical, Heroic Age. It was his achievement to lay before an astonished and often skeptical world evidence that an entire civilization, to be called Mycenaean after its capital at Mycenae, existed long before Classical Greece, a civilization which provided a material basis for the tales of the Trojan War and the house of Agamemnon which had for so long been enshrined in the creative literature of Europe. In a similarly radical spirit Arthur Evans went to Crete in 1894. He believed that a form of writing existed in the island long before Greek. His successful travels there led him to concentrate on Knossos, where he uncovered the center of a civilization older even than Schliemann's Mycenaeans and which again suggested historical credence for the legendary stories of Minos, Pasiphae and Ariadne. In recent years the spate of discovery has been no less intense and hardly less spectacular. The Mycenaean palace of King Nestor was excavated at Pylos in Messenia by Carl Blegen; a new Minoan palace at Zakro in southeastern Crete is still rewarding its discoverer and excavator, Nikolaos Platon, after more than ten seasons in the field. Meanwhile at Akrotiri on the Cycladic island of Thera the enormous forces of nature, which had enveloped the landscape with meter upon meter of volcanic ash and pumice, have proved unique agents of preservation. For eight seasons Spyridon Marinatos brought to light a settlement which enjoyed the closest links with Minoan Crete. From the ruins have come thousands of objects, exquisite and plain domestic items, and above all a series of largely complete wall paintings of unparalleled beauty and interest. Their preservation gracefully places Thera alongside Mycenae and Knossos for our understanding and appreciation of the prehistoric peoples of the Aegean. In this book therefore we attempt a study of the Aegean Bronze Age which takes into account the most recent discoveries as well as those of earher explorers. The work is addressed to any reader or Aegean visitor who, while not a spedahst in the subject, is questing to develop his or her interest in what those early Aegeans achieved. Their products can be visited today at dozens of sites and museums; among the latter those of Athens, Nauplion and Herakleion display the major collections. The region with which we are concerned coincides closely with modem Greece and the western coast of Turkey. The Minoan civilization developed in Crete and extended its influence to Rhodes and throughout the Cycladic islands - themselves centers of the eariiest urban development in the Aegean in the 3rd millennium bc, before the palace period of Crete. The Mycenaeans occupied what is now southern and central Greece, the long island of Euboea and eastern Thessaly. In western Greece there was much Mycenaean contact with Epeiros, while recent discoveries have shown that these contacts extended well up into what is now Albania. The Ionian islands of Ithaka, Kephallenia and Lefkas were most noticeably influenced by the Mycenaeans towards the end of the Bronze Age. But further west there were strong trading links with southern Italy and Sicily at the height of the Mycenaean period in the 14th and 13th centuries bc, as well as outlying links with the westem coast of Italy, the Aeolian islands and Sardinia. The northern Aegean regions of Macedonia and Thrace were beyond the bounds of Mycenaeans or Minoans, but not so the ancient city of Troy. Here stood an important center of Bronze Age culture for northwestem Anatolia, one always in close contact with the peoples of the Aegean. Further down the western coast of Anatolia Minoans and Mycenaeans forged trading links and perhaps planted settlements at sites like Miletos and lasos. The eastem contact zone for the Aegean was first the island of Cyprus, with its own prehistoric cultures but populated by Mycenaeans in the I2th century, and before that in close relations with both Crete and the Argolid, and second the Levant coast, where imported Mycenaean pottery has been found on dozens of sites. With Egypt the Minoans enjoyed centuries of contact before the Mycenaeans followed them with exports of pottery to Amarna and other cities of the Pharaohs. Examination of a map or, better, travel in the region itself will soon show that it was the natural divisions of Aegean physical geography which determined the pattern of settlement and maritime connections outlined above. Major Bronze Age sites all lie within regions bounded by mountain masses hke Pindos, Parnassos, Olympos and the central Peloponnesian ranges. The regions being therefore geographically defined, were potentially transformable into distinct political units, kingdoms and states — once given suitable development and organization. Within them settlements were placed to exploit fully the naturally advantageous Mediterranean environment of good adjacent soils and with easy access to sea communications. How the palaces and other centers made such successful use of their surroundings and why ; by what combination of processes the cultures to which those centers gave expression may properly merit the term civilization, are questions we shall explore. But we may appropriately begin by investigating the graphic story of how these abundant remains were brought to light.