Transcript Meanwhile In Greece

Meanwhile In Greece …
The Bronze Age
Background
 Began to coalesce into a heterogynous but identifiable people
about the time of the first Olympics (776 B.C.).
 Backstory is important to understanding them
 Minoan Period
 Mycenaean Period
 Dark Ages
Minoan Period
Palatial Periods
 Prepalatial Period (3200-2000 bc)
 Protopalatial (2000-1720 bc) – palaces destroyed by
earthquakes about 1720ish
 Neopalatial (1720-1550 bc)
 Final Palatial Period (1550-1350 bc) - Mycenaeans take over
Minoan (?)
 Sir Arthur Evans responsible for much of what we know
about the Minoans (about 1900)
 Name is recent descriptive term
 King Minos
 City of Knossos
 Minotaur
 Known by the Egyptions as the Kafteo
 Known by the people is Western Semitic lands as the Kaftor
or Kaftoreans
King Minos
 The legend
 Where does such a story come form
 Mixture of history and myth
 Dominated Greek islands, Mycenae and required tribute (Thucydides says
Minos first king to have a navy)
 Palaces
 Functioned as storehouse as well as home for ruler
 Rubble from the palaces looked like labyrinth
Arthur Evans Reconstruction as an
analogy for how we do history
 Palace
 Dolphin Fresco
 Griffin flanking throne
 Duplication of snake goddess figures
How Advanced?
 Indoor plumbing
 Glass windows
 Skilled artists
 Writing – Linear A
Traded throughout Mediterranean
 Pottery jars from Minos found in Egypt and in the Western
Semitic territory
 Alabaster jar lid in Knossos marked with name of third
Hyksos king
 Hyksos palace in Avaris includes a fresco of the Minoan style
 Gilgamesh’ fight with Bull of Heaven may reflect Minoan
influence in Mesopotamia
Religion – Sacred Bulls (Apis)
Religion – Human Sacrifice
 Story of Minotaur eating 14 victims
 Sacrificial site at Knossos includes human sacrifice and
indicates ritual feasting on the dead
 Probably rare – maybe related to Earthquakes suffered by
island and attempts to appease Poseidon/Earthshaker
Religion – Snake Goddesses
Sacred War Axe
Why Did Minoan Civilization Fade?
 Possible Answers
 Volcano
 Earthquake
 Myth of Theseus and the Minotaur points to the animosity
between Mycenae and Knossos
Mycenae (1700-1200 BC)
 Immigrated from the North
 Mycenae gives its name to the civilization
 By 1500, Tribute and culture flowed from Mycenae to
Knossos
Heinrich Schliemann
 Self-financed / self-style archaeologist
 Where is ancient Mycenae
 Looking for grave of Agamemnon discovers the shaft grave
inside the lions gate.
The Lion’s Gate
“I have gazed on the face of
Agamemnon…”
Commerce & Trade
 Strong naval power with much sea trade
 Sunken ship found with merchandise from no less than seven
countries; Egypt, Canaan, Asia Minor, Italy,
Cyprus,Baltic,etc.
 Linear B used primarily for accounting purposes but it
mentions the gods.
 Decoded by Michael Ventris a WWII codebreaker
 Earlier form of Greek
Religion
 Snake goddesses (with bodice closed)
 Worship of the Greek gods (Zeus, Hera, Athena, Poseidon,
etc.) goes back to the second millennium BC on the
mainland.
Time of prosperity, until …
Greek Dark Ages
 Circa 1200-800 bc.
 Cities abandoned
 Writing ceases
 Art and culture fade away
 Sophisticated architecture disappears
 Trade with foreign nations stops
 Vanish from records of other nations
Why Dark Ages?
 Possible Answers
 Earthquakes
 Famine and Plague
 The Sea Peoples
 Invasion of the Dorians
 thick fortified walls around palaces
 Art depicts them fighting barbaric peoples, chariots, armament
 Trojan War
 All of the above
Trojan War
 About 1250 BC
 Primary sources
 Homer’s Iliad - Odyssey
 Virgil’s Aeneid
 10 Year Siege
 (compare with Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan)
Was there a Trojan War
 Heinrich Schliemann
 Calvert – American vice-consul
 Nine layered cities
 “The Greeks raise a mighty army because of a woman . . . And then
invaded Asia and destroyed Priam and his forces. Ever since then, the
Persians have regarded the Greeks as their enemies….They date their
hostilities towards Greece from the fall of Ilium.” (Herodotus)