Development of Aegean society

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Development of Aegean society
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Black Sea
Thrace
Macedonia
Ionia
Aegean Sea
Greece
Attica
Peloponnesus
Crete
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Geography

• Aegean centered
• Many good harbors
• Sailing weather good except in winter
• No land farther than 50 miles from sea
• Mountainous terrain
• Caves and small streams
• Earthquakes frequent
• Arable plains small and isolated

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Minoan and Mycenaean Societies
Mycenaean royal funerary mask, mask of Agamemnon
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Minoan society arose on Crete

• Flourished between 2200 and 1450 BCE
• Received early influences from the Levant and
  Egypt
• Writing
• Hieroglyphic Minoan is undeciphered
• Linear A syllabary is undeciphered
• Minoan replaced by Greek society after 1100 BCE

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Minoan Writing

• Phases
• Minoan hieroglyphic ca. 1800 BCE
• Linear A ca. 1600 BCE
• Linear B (Greek) ca. 1200 BCE
• Writing used mainly for administration
• No evidence of literary tradition
• Few display inscriptions

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Writing samples

• Clockwise from top
• Hieroglyphic
• Linear A
• Linear B

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Decipherment

• Michael Ventris announced decipherment of Linear
  B tablets from Pylos in 1952
• Underlying language early form of Greek
• Syllabic script
• Each sign represents a syllable
• Vowels
• Consonants plus vowel
• Underlying language of Linear A unknown
• Suggestions
• Luwian
• Northwest Semitic
• Greek
• Egyptian
• No suggestion has gained scholarly approval

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Minoan art
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Mycenaean society

• Proto-Greek speaking immigrants settled in Greece
  prior to 1600 BCE.
• Ruled indigenous people from stone fortresses.
• Adapted Minoan Linear A for writing Greek Linear
  B
• Overpowered Minoan society and expanded to
  Anatolia, Sicily, and Italy

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Mycenae

• Engineers flattened the top of a hill
• Constructed heavy ring walls
• Royal graves in circular enclosure inside walls
• Each of these fortresses is thought to be the
  home of an independent king
• About 12 such structures known

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Mycenaean Art
Warrior Vase
Lions Gate at Mycenae
Mycenaean royal sword
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Fall of Mycenaean society

• Between 1250 and 1150 all of the Mycenaean
  fortresses destroyed
• 10 of inhabitation sites from 1250 still
  inhabited in 1000 BCE
• Large scale movements of peoples
• Related to large scale movements of peoples in
  eastern Mediterranean
• Writing disappears
• Mycenaean civilization did not have a significant
  influence on later Greek culture