Greek History

The Birth and Development of the Bronze Age 3000 to 1100 BCE

One of the most interesting sections on Greek history does not even come from Greeks at all, but the non-Greek people living on the Island of Crete. By the second millennium BCE, these people, the Minoans, had created a unique palace civilization that rivaled those created by the older civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt. The Minoan’s create elaborate brightly coloured palaces on Crete and maintained a highly regulated economy of collection and distribution. The only information that exists on this society outside of archeological evidence was passed down by the Greeks through mythology. Thucydides talked on King Minos, the first ruler who was able to rule the sea. However, the Minoan society was perhaps best known in the ancient world, and even the modern world, for the myth of Minotaur, the horrifying half-man, half bull monster that King Minos kept in a Labyrinth beneath his palace. According to the story the Athenians were forced to send seven boys and girls, every nine years, to feed the beast. The Minotaur was finally killed, when Theseus, the son of the king, volunteered to slay the beast. Whether there is any truth behind this myth remains an item of speculation. Though beneath the palace at Knossos there exists a vast labyrinth which contains a great deal of bull related art. So perhaps there is more truth to this tale then we might think.

Our understanding of the Minoan culture is largely based on what we have learned from studying the architecture and frescos that this great civilization produced. However, the Minoans also kept records in something called Linear A. Even though we have yet to decipher Linear A, we have been able to determine that much of what the Minoans recorded was for economic purposes. As mentioned, the ancient Greek historian Thucydides claimed that King Minos was the first in the Greek world to establish a navy and free the Greek seas’ from pirates. Like us, Thucydides had little to base this on besides mythological tales. The wide distribution across the Mediterranean suggests that the Minoans did have a presence on the sea as naval traders, but did it go any further then that?

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As the palace system on Crete flourished under the Minoans another influential civilization was developing, the Mycenaeans. The Mycenaeans, through Homer’s poems, have been given an eternal place in the annals of the great civilizations of the ancient world. The importance that the ancient Greek held towards these works offset the fact that most of the stories that we have about the Mycenaeans that have come to us through mythological tales, are probably grossly inaccurate or even downright incorrect. The Mycenaeans, like the Minoans built great palace structures and can largely be considered to be their conquerors and heirs. The introduction of bronze to the Aegean seems to have largely had the same effect that it had in Crete, it increased the size of settlements and the amount gross amount of agricultural output.

In 1450 BCE, the palaces on Crete were destroyed; only Knossos escaped complete destruction. According to traditional histories and archaeological evidence the people from the mainland, the Mycenaeans took over Crete and ruled it until 1375 BCE when Crete suffered a massive disaster that destroyed all palatial life on the Island. The Mycenaeans began to develop palaces on the mainland only after the destruction of the Minoan palaces on Crete. Unlike the palaces on Crete, these were fortified palaces. The Mycenaeans used a style of writing very similar to that of the Minoans. Like the Minoans the Mycenaeans largely used Linear B for administrative purposes. However, unlike Linear A, Linear B is Greek, but a syllabic form of Greek that can be difficult to interpret.

If the Minoans were the great seafarers that Thucydides claimed they were, than the pottery distribution achieve by the Mycenaeans would make them the heirs. The pottery of the Mycenaeans can be found all over the Mediterranean. Evidence of Mycenaean settlements abroad suggests that the Mycenaeans may have been avid colonists. This does mean that the Mycenaeans had a vast naval empire that spread throughout ancient Greece. There is strong evidence that the Mycenaeans were involved in Mediterranean trade, but they did not control it. In the thirteenth century BCE, the Mycenaean contacts with oversea cultures reached its peak. At this point in Mycenaean history extensive defense works were created at many of the prominent palaces. It seems these precautions were necessary as between 1200 and 1100 BCE several palace structures were attacked and destroyed. Despite efforts to rebuild and reorganize, the end was drawing near for the Mycenaeans. By 1100 BCE, all of the major palaces except for the one located at Athens were destroyed or abandoned. The population throughout Greece at this point drops rather quickly and most of surviving populations scatter around Greece. The Mycenaeans were not alone, several other civilizations experienced massive catastrophes during this period. In the east the Hittite Empire collapsed sometime around 1200 BCE and in the south Egypt was forced to fend for itself against an endless wave of relentless attackers. These hordes sometimes referred to as the Sea Peoples were finally defeated in 1186 BCE by Ramses III, at least according to inscriptions he dedicated to himself. Certain Egyptian archeological evidence suggests that Ramses III may not have been the one to defeat the Sea Peoples. However, it is rather unlikely that the Sea Peoples were responsible for the destruction in Greece, though it still remains a possibility that historians explore. Perhaps Homer’s poems factor into this, and the destruction of the Mycenaean civilization could be attributed to a possible war with Troy. Many explanations have been offered for the destruction of the Mycenaean civilization, though there is not one without flaws. The Greeks themselves believed that the Dorians destroyed the Mycenaean civilization, some modern historians believe a natural disaster may have caused the destruction of the Mycenaean civilization and some mathematicians have even suggested that the a supply/demand problem concerning copper and bronze may have caused the collapse. There is probably no one cause for the fall of the Mycenaean civilization, the answer to the collapse of the Mycenaean civilization probably lies in a combination of these explanations.

Next: The coming of the Iron Age and the rise of the Polis 1100 BCE to 499 BCE
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