Chapter 2 Aegean civilizations

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Chapter 2Aegean civilizations
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1. Historical overview

• The origins of Classical Greek culture

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1. Historical overview

• Aegean cultures
• Minoan
• Crete
• 3000-1100 BCE.
• Mycenaean
• Mainland Greece
• 1900-1100 BCE.

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2. Minoan civilization Geography

• It developed in the island of Crete.
• Crete acted as a link between three continents
  Asia, Africa and Europe.
• What civilizations did Minoans interact with?

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3. Minoan Civilization economy

• Economy
• It was a civilization based on sea trade
  (thalassocracy)
• Naval expedition. Akrotiri, Thera, 1500
  BCE.

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4. Minoan Civilization society

• Socio-political structure
• A federation of cities. The most important was
  Knossos (centralized government?)
• There was a king and a nobility, merchants,
  bureaucracy, laborers, and slaves? Peaceful
  society ? (no city walls or weapons)

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5. Minoan civilization palaces

• Large asymmetric complex
• Residence of the king
• Religious buildings
• Storage areas

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5. Minoan civilization palaces

• Post and lintel constructions
• Wooden painted inverted columns
• Decoration of walls with frescoes

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5. Minoan civilization palaces
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6. Minoan religion

• Cult of Earth Goddess.
• Matriarchy?
• Worship a sacred tree
• and a sacred pillar (column)
• Images of the epiphany
• of a god.
• Cult of the bull?
• Earth goddess with Snakes,
  Knossos, ca. 1600 BCE

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6. Minoan Religion

• The Earth Goddess
• Prehistory Mesopotamian Egyptian Minoan

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6. Minoan Religion

• Feminine deities

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6. Minoan religion

• Minoan seal Fresco from Knossos, 1500 BCE
• Representations of bull-leaping ritual?

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7. Minoan painting

• The Minoan canon
• Prince from Knossos,
• ca 1600 BCE

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7. Minoan painting
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7. Minoan painting

• Bull leaping, Knossos, ca.1600 BCE
• Boxers, Thera, 1650

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7. Minoan painting

• The Minoan canon
• Egyptian influence in the posture
• Narrow waist
• Attention to anatomical features
• Representation of movement

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7. Minoan painting

• Hagia Triada, c. 1400 B.C.
• What does the image represent? Where have you
  seen something like this before?

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7. Minoan painting
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7. Minoan painting

• River Landscape, Thera, 1500 BCE.

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7. Minoan painting
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7. Minoan sculpture

• Rhyton bull,
• Knossos, ca. 1500 BCE.

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7. Minoan sculpture
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8. The Myth of the Minotaur
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8. The Myth of the Minotaur

• Labrys (double ax) Floor plan of Knossos
• Labyrinth house of the Double Axes Palace of
  king Minos

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9. Language and writing

• Minoans were not Greek
• Pictographic writing
• Linear A undeciphered script.
• Linear B Greek
• (Mycenaean domination of Knossos)

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9. Mycenaean Civilization

• It developed in mainland Greece around 1900-1100
  BCE.
• Important cities were Mycenae, Tiryns and Pilos.
• It flourished after the decline of Minoan
  civilization.

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9. Mycenaean Civilization

• Militaristic society
• Cities protected by cyclopean walls and gates.

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10. Social structure

• Feudal system
• King and noblemen offering protection while they
  exacted material resources from the
  non-warriors.

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11. Religion

• They worshiped
• divinities which became
• gods in the Greek
• pantheon Zeus,
• Hera, Poseidon
• They also established
• a cult to their heroes.
• Funerary mask, 1500 BCE

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12. Architecture

• Lions Gate, Mycenae, ca. 1300 BCE
• Post and lintel construction with relieving
  triangle.

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12. Architecture

• Treasury of Atreus, Mycenae, 1300-1200 BCE
• Funerary tholos (circular tomb)

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13. Conclusion

• Minoan civilization synthesized elements from
  Egypt and Asia Minor.
• Their cultural and artistic knowledge was
  inherited by the Greeks from the mainland the
  Mycenaeans.
• After a period of turmoil (Dark Ages), elements
  of the Mycenaean civilization reemerged in the
  culture of Archaic Greece.

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14. Conclusion

• The Greeks of the Archaic period considered that
  the Mycenaeans were their ancestors.
• Homers epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey,
  narrate the deeds of the Mycenaean heroes.