Aegean civilization facts for kids
The Aegean civilization is a name for the ancient cultures that lived around the Aegean Sea in Greece during the Bronze Age. This area includes three main parts that were connected and traded with each other:
On Crete, the Minoan civilization was very important from the Early Bronze Age. Later, around 1450 BC, the Mycenaean civilization from mainland Greece also spread to Crete.
Long before that, around 5,000 BC, early farmers from the Aegean region brought farming to Western Europe.
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Who Were the Aegean Neolithic Farmers?
New studies of ancient DNA show that farming came to Western Europe thanks to people called the 'Aegean Neolithic farmers'. These groups arrived in places like northern France and Germany around 5,000 BC. About 1,000 years later, they reached Britain.
When these farmers left the Aegean, they quickly split into two groups. One group traveled north along the Danube River. The other group went south along the Mediterranean Sea and reached Spain. This southern group then moved on to Britain.
Before these farmers arrived, these lands were home to hunter-gatherers, like the famous Cheddar Man in Britain. After 4,000 BC, about 74% of the people in Britain had ancestors from these Aegean farmers. This shows a big change in who lived there when farming began.
The Copper Age in Europe started around 3500 BC. This was also a time when people built huge stone structures called Megaliths.
When Did These Civilizations Live?
Historians divide the Aegean Bronze Age into different periods based on where the civilizations were located.
Mainland Greece Periods
- Early Helladic (EH): 3200/3100–2050/2001 BC
- Middle Helladic (MH): 2000/1900–1550 BC
- Late Helladic (LH): 1550–1050 BC
Crete (Minoan Civilization) Periods
- Early Minoan (EM): 3650–2160 BC
- Middle Minoan (MM): 2160–1600 BC
- Late Minoan (LM): 1600–1170 BC
Cyclades Islands Periods
- Early Cycladic (EC): 3300–2000 BC
- Kastri Period: Around 2500–2100 BC (this was during the EH II–EH III on the mainland)
- The Cyclades started to become more like Crete around 2000 BC.
How Did They Trade?
Trade was important even in early times. For example, Melian obsidian (a type of volcanic glass) was found all over the Aegean area. This shows people were trading it.
Cretan pots were sent to Melos, Egypt, and mainland Greece. In return, pots from Melos came to Crete. After 1600 BC, trade with Egypt became very strong. Aegean goods were found all along the Mediterranean coasts.
We haven't found any money or coins from this time. However, people used standard weights, and pictures of metal bars (ingots) have been found. This suggests they had a system for trading.
Pictures of ships are not very common, but some have been found on ancient gems and pots. These ships had low sides, with masts and oars. The people clearly knew a lot about the sea, as they often used sea creatures in their art. The best pictures of ships are from a fresco (wall painting) found at Akrotiri on the island of Thera (Santorini). This town was buried by a volcanic eruption.
Later discoveries of sunken trading ships, like those at Uluburun and Cape Gelidonya off Turkey, have taught us a lot about their trade.
What Evidence Do We Have?
Archaeologists have found many clues about the Aegean civilization. To learn more, you can look up articles on places like Crete, Mycenae, Tiryns, and Knossos.
Knossos on Crete is one of the most important sites. It has given us the most complete evidence, from the Stone Age all the way to the end of the classical period. Other important sites include Hissarlik, Mycenae, Phaestus, Hagia Triada, Tiryns, Phylakope, Palaikastro, and Gournia.
What Did They Build?
- Buildings: We have found ruins of palaces, large villas, houses, and special dome-shaped or box-shaped graves. There are also fortifications (strong walls) on the Aegean islands, mainland Greece, and western Anatolia. We haven't found distinct temples, but small shrines and religious areas are shown in art.
- Decorations: Buildings had columns, decorative bands (friezes), and mouldings. Walls were decorated with fresco paintings, colored reliefs (carvings that stick out), and mosaics. Sometimes, they even used roof tiles, like at Lerna and Akovitika.
What Objects Did They Use?
- Household Items: They used all kinds of vessels, from huge storage jars to tiny pots for oils. They also had cooking tools, thrones, seats, and tables made of stone or clay.
- Religious Items: We have found models or actual examples of objects used in religious ceremonies. Many pictures of these items also exist.
- Burial Items: For funerals, they used painted clay coffins.
- Art: Artists made small sculptures from stone or ivory. They also cast or hammered metals like gold, silver, copper, and bronze. Clay, faience, and paste were also used for modeling. There are not many large statues, but many smaller art pieces exist. They made many kinds of Vases from stone, metal, or clay. These were often beautifully decorated with colors and patterns. They also painted on stone and made many engraved objects like rings and gems.
- Tools and Weapons: They used weapons, tools, and other items made of stone, clay, and bronze. Later, they used iron. These were sometimes decorated. We have found some ceremonial armour buried with the dead, like gold breastplates at Mycenae or the full body armour from Dendra.
- Personal Items: Things like brooches, pins, razors, and tweezers have been found. These were often left as gifts to gods, for example, in the Dictaean Cavern on Crete. We haven't found any ancient fabrics, only their impressions in clay.
- Writing: They used clay tablets and discs for writing (mostly found in Crete). We also have writing on engraved gems and pottery. These show different writing systems, including Linear B.
- Tombs: They buried their dead in pits, chamber tombs, or tholos tombs. The dead were placed with their belongings, without being burned.
- Public Works: They built paved roads, bridges, and drainage systems.
What External Evidence Exists?
- Other Civilizations: We can see pictures of Aegean people in Egyptian wall paintings. Also, other countries sometimes copied Aegean art styles. Ancient Egyptian, Semitic, or Babylonian records sometimes mention Mediterranean people.
- Later Stories: Stories from later Greek times, like the Homeric poems (the Iliad and Odyssey), and legends about Crete and Mycenae, tell us about this period. Ancient Greek writers like Strabo and Pausanias also wrote about the origins of gods and customs.
- Surviving Customs: Some customs, beliefs, and rituals in the Aegean area from later times don't fit with the classical Greek culture. This suggests they survived from earlier Aegean systems. There might also be some surviving language or physical traits.
The ancient Greeks themselves noticed evidence of a very old civilization at Mycenae and Tiryns.
How Were These Civilizations Discovered?
The strong walls and towers of the Mycenaean citadel, its Lion Gate with carved lions, and the huge "Treasury of Atreus" were there for ages before Heinrich Schliemann came along. People thought they were from the time of Homer or the early Greek heroes. But it wasn't until Schliemann dug up the graves inside the gate that scholars realized how advanced the art of these prehistoric people was.
Even before Schliemann's big discoveries in 1876, there were clues. For example, Egyptian paintings from the 18th Dynasty showed people from the Mediterranean bringing unique pots. But no one knew exactly where they were from or how advanced their culture was. Also, some Aegean objects were already in museums around 1870, but they weren't fully understood.
Aegean vases had been shown in museums in France and Switzerland since about 1840. Some came from Phylakope on Melos, and others from Cephalonia.
Ludwig Ross, a German archaeologist, noticed some early engraved gems (called Inselsteine) in the Greek islands starting in 1835. But it wasn't until 1878 that C. T. Newton showed these were not Phoenician.
In 1866, workers digging for the Suez Canal found ancient structures on the island of Therasia. When archaeologists from the French School in Athens explored the nearby island of Santorini (Thera) in 1870, they found many pots and stone and metal objects. A geologist named Ferdinand A. Fouqué estimated they were from 2000 BC.
Meanwhile, in 1868, tombs at Ialysus on Rhodes yielded many beautiful painted vases. These were later called "Mycenaean" style. They were bought by John Ruskin and given to the British Museum, but they didn't get much attention at first.
Schliemann's first digs at Hissarlik (the site of ancient Troy) didn't cause much excitement either. But in 1873, he found the "Burnt City" (his second layer) with its walls, vases, and a hoard of gold, silver, and bronze. This started to make people curious.
When Schliemann found the Mycenae graves three years later, it was a huge breakthrough for understanding prehistoric Greece. People realized the art style was unique. The discovery of the Inselsteine and Ialysus vases, along with earlier finds from Thera and Hissarlik, showed that this culture was widespread and existed for a long time. People also saw a connection between the art described by Homer and the Mycenaean treasures. They believed that the civilization in Homer's Iliad came after the Mycenaean one but remembered it.
Schliemann continued his work at Hissarlik in 1878, learning more about the older layers. But it was Dr. Wilhelm Dorpfeld, who took over after Schliemann's death in 1892, who fully uncovered the Aegean remains in the sixth layer. In 1884, Schliemann also uncovered an upper layer of ruins at Tiryns, showing how people lived in prehistoric homes. This was further explored by Christos Tsountas, who found the palace at Mycenae two years later.
From 1886 onwards, Mycenaean tombs were found outside the Argolid region. These, along with Tsountas's continued work at Mycenae, added many treasures to the National Museum in Athens. In that year, tholos-tombs (most already robbed) were found in places like Arkina, Eleusis, Dimini, Kampos, and Maskarata. The richest grave was found at Vaphio in Laconia in 1889. It contained many gems, gold items, and two golden cups with scenes of bull-hunting. These cups and some broken painted vases were a mystery until the excavations at Knossos.
More tombs were found in the 1890s in places like Thoricus, Spata, Aphidna, Aegina, Salamis, the Argive Heraeum, Nauplia, Thebes, Delphi, and near Larissa. During excavations on the Acropolis in Athens, many Mycenaean pottery pieces were found.
Archaeological research then spread beyond mainland Greece. Islands in the central Aegean like Antiparos, Ios, Amorgos, Syros, and Siphnos were rich in Middle-Aegean period evidence. The graves found on Syros, with bodies buried in a crouching position, are some of the best examples from the Aegean. Melos, which had long been known for early objects, was systematically excavated by the British School at Athens in 1896. They found remains from all Aegean periods except the Stone Age.
A map of Cyprus in the later Bronze Age shows over 25 settlements. One of them, at Enkomi, near Salamis, has given us the richest Aegean treasure in precious metal found outside Mycenae.
In Egypt, Flinders Petrie found painted pottery from Crete at Kahun in 1887. Later, at Tell el-Amarna in 1889, he found pieces of about 800 Aegean vases. Today, many Egyptian copies of Aegean art have been identified in museums, showing how much the Aegean cultures were influenced by Egypt. Two Aegean vases were found in Sidon in 1885, and many fragments of Aegean and Cypriot pottery have been found in Philistia.
Sicily has also been a source of early remains since 1877. It shows Aegean pottery and designs from the same period as the second layer at Hissarlik. Sardinia and Spain have also yielded objects recognized as Aegean.
But one place stands out above all others for its wealth of prehistoric remains: Crete. For now, it seems to be the main source of Aegean civilization and likely its political and social center. Archaeologists first noticed Crete because of ancient Greek bronzes found in a cave on Mount Ida in 1885, and important stone writings like the law of Gortyna. The first clear Aegean remains were found at Cnossus by Minos Kalokhairinos in 1878. Later, A. J. Evans began exploring the island in 1893. He found small clues that convinced him bigger discoveries were waiting. He even predicted the discovery of written characters, which no one had expected in Aegean civilization before. The revolution of 1897–1898 opened the way for more exploration on Crete.
So, the "Aegean Area" now includes the islands, Crete, and Cyprus, mainland Greece with the Ionian islands, and Western Anatolia. We still need more evidence from the Macedonian and Thracian coasts. Offshoots of this civilization are found in the western Mediterranean (in Sicily, Italy, Sardinia, and Spain) and in the eastern Mediterranean (in Syria and Egypt). We don't know enough about Cyrenaica yet.
What Caused the Fall of the Aegean Civilization?
Around 1000 BC, a huge disaster happened. The palace at Knossos was destroyed again and never rebuilt. Iron started to replace bronze, and Aegean art, as a vibrant style, disappeared from mainland Greece and the Aegean islands, including Crete. Aegean writing also stopped.
In Cyprus and perhaps on the southwest coasts of Anatolia, the disaster might have been less complete. Aegean art continued there, but it was weaker because it was cut off from its main source. Any artistic skill that survived elsewhere turned into a dull, geometric style that was a poor copy of the earlier Aegean art. People also started burning their dead instead of burying them.
This great disaster, which made way for new local art styles, was probably caused by new tribes from the north. These tribes had better iron weapons. Later Greek stories and Homer called them the Dorians. They crushed a civilization that was already struggling. It took two or three centuries for the artistic spirit in the Aegean area to bloom again.
This conquest seems to have led to a long period of trouble and people moving around. Greek stories call these events the Ionian Migration and the Aeolic and Dorian "colonizations." When we next see the Aegean area clearly, it is ruled by Hellenes (Greeks), but it still remembers some of its older culture.
See also
In Spanish: Civilización egea para niños
