Ancient Greece - history.

« Palace of KnossosThe ancient city of Knossos was a center of the Minoan civilization, an advanced society on Crete named after Minos, a legendaryCretan king.

Skilled in such fields as engineering and architecture, the Minoans constructed the palace at Knossos in 1700 bc.

Aserious fire at least three centuries later caused the collapse of the palace and foreshadowed the subsequent decline of the city.Wolfgang Kaehler Settlers had begun sailing from Asia Minor to Crete about 6000 BC because the island offered large plains for farming and sheltered ports for fishing and sea trade.

By 2200 BC, settlers had created a “palace society,” named for its several huge buildings that served as royal residences and administrative centers.

Each palace was surrounded bymany houses for ordinary people, but there were no defensive walls; smaller towns existed in the countryside.

The palaces were probably independent, with no single rulerimposing unity over the island.

This culture is named Minoan for King Minos, a legendary ruler in Greek mythology who kept a half-bull, half-human monster, the Minotaur,in a labyrinth in his palace at Knossos (Knosós).

Formerly, scholars thought the Minoans were not related to the Greeks, but the most recent linguistic research on Cretanlanguage indicates they were. The Minoans were the first great culture of Aegean civilization.

They mastered metallurgy and other technologies, and knew how to write.

They decorated their buildingswith brilliantly colored frescoes and celebrated at lively festivals.

Innovative agriculture and international trade brought Minoans prosperity rivaling that of their easternneighbors, such as the Hittite Kingdom in Asia Minor.

Farmers made their labor efficient by simultaneously growing olives, grapes, and grain, which each required intensework at different seasons.

This combination of crops provided a healthy diet, which helped the population grow, and enabled the Minoans to produce olive oil and wine fortrade.

The rulers controlled the economy through a redistributive system, so called because farmers and craft workers sent their products to the palaces, which thenredistributed goods according to what the rulers decided everyone needed. Despite recurring earthquakes, the Minoans prospered until about 1400 BC.

Their lack of an effective defense, however, made them vulnerable to Mycenaean attacks, probably over the control of Mediterranean trade routes. B Mycenaean Period (1550?-1000? BC) The first culture of Aegean civilization on the Greek mainland is named Mycenaean for the palace at Mycenae on the Pelopónnisos.

Scholars call the Mycenaeans the“earliest Greeks” because they are the first people known to have spoken Greek. Mycenaean culture developed later than Minoan.

The ancestors of the Mycenaean people wandered onto the mainland from the north and the east from about 4000 to 2000BC, mixing with the people already there, and by about 1400 BC the Mycenaeans had become very prosperous.

Excavations of Mycenaean graves have revealed that they buried their dead with gold jewelry, bronze swords, and silver cups.

Like the Minoans, the Mycenaeans lived in independent communities clustered around palaces and ruledby kings.

The palace at Pílos (Pylos) on the west coast of the Pelopónnisos boasted glorious wall paintings, storerooms of food, and a royal bathroom with a built-in tub andintricate plumbing.

The Mycenaeans’ wealth also came from agriculture and international trade, and they had a redistributive economy.

However, Mycenaeans differedsignificantly from Minoans in their religion and royal architecture.

For example, unlike Minoans, they featured men much more prominently than women in religiousleadership positions, and they built their palaces around megarons , soaring throne rooms with huge hearths. The Mycenaeans had a warrior culture that enabled them to conquer the Minoans by about 1400 BC, but the Mycenaeans’ eagerness to fight also contributed to their downfall.

By 1200 BC Mycenaeans were warring with each other and embarking on overseas raids for treasure, riding into battle on expensive two-wheeled chariots. Although archaeological evidence is inconclusive, the destruction of the city of Troy in Asia Minor sometime between 1230 BC and 1180 BC may correspond to the legendary story of the Trojan War.

The story, told centuries later by Homer in the Iliad, describes a famous battle in which a Greek army sacked and burned Troy.

Egyptian and Hittite records show that foreign invasions by seafaring peoples became a plague beginning about 1200 BC.

Many of these raiders were Mycenaeans displaced by war at home.

The turmoil around the eastern Mediterranean continued until about 1000 BC and was so severe that it ended not only the Mycenaean culture but also the Hittite and Egyptian kingdoms.

With the collapse of Mycenaean culture, Greeks also lost their knowledge of writing.

Later Greeks thought that an invading force of Dorians, a group identified bytheir dialect of Greek, had toppled the Mycenaeans.

However, modern archaeological evidence suggests that general civil war was the reason for the Mycenaeans’ collapse. C The Greek Dark Age (1000?-750? BC) The wars caused Greece’s economy to collapse and its population to plummet, which created poverty and political confusion that lasted for more than 200 years.

This periodtraditionally is called the Greek Dark Age (1000?-750? BC), partly because a lack of written evidence limits our knowledge of it, but also because living conditions were harsh.

Greeks had lost the distinguishing marks of civilization: cities, great palaces and temples, a vibrant economy, and knowledge of writing.

The Mycenaean kings werereplaced by petty chiefs, who had limited power and wealth.

Artists stopped drawing people and animals on pots, restricting their decoration to geometric designs.Archaeology shows that during the early Dark Age, Greeks cultivated much less land, had many fewer settlements, and did much less international trade than they hadduring the period of Aegean civilization.

Settlements shrank to as few as 20 people. Recovery took a long time.

The earliest revivals of trading and agriculture occurred in a few locations about 900 BC.

An innovation in metallurgy helped Greece escape its Dark Age.

Fighting at the end of the Mycenaean period had interrupted the international trade in tin, which was needed to make bronze weapons and tools.

To fill the gap,eastern Mediterranean metal workers invented a new technology to smelt iron ore.

Greeks learned this skill from eastern traders and began mining their own iron ore, whichwas common in their heartland.

Generally harder than bronze, iron eventually replaced it in most uses, especially for agricultural tools, swords, and spear points.

The lowercost of iron implements meant more people could afford them.

Plentiful tools helped increase food production and thus restore the population and prosperity.

Technologicalinnovation paved the way for the political and cultural innovations of the Archaic period. IV THE ARCHAIC AND CLASSICAL AGES The disappearance of Mycenaean kingdoms left a political vacuum in Greece.

The poverty and depopulation of the Dark Age forced people to cooperate to defendthemselves, and gradually Greeks formed the idea that political power also should be shared.

By about 750 BC, Greeks had organized themselves into independent city-. »