Ancient Aegean Cultures
Cycladic
Minoan
Mycenean
Phases of Hellenic (Greek) Civilization
 Neolithic Culture (3000-1000 BCE)
 Cycladic
 Bronze Age (2000 -1200 BCE)
 Minoan and Mycenaean
 Heroic Age (1200 – 750 BCE)
 Age of Homer
 Archaic Age (750 – 480 BCE)
 Classical Age (480 – 323 BCE)
 Golden Age (480 – 430 BCE)
The Aegean Sea: Homer’s Wine Dark Sea
The Mediterranean: Rome’s Mare Nostrum
Cyclades
Naxos
Paros: marble quarries
Syros
Cycladic Cultures
3000-1000 bce
 Stepping stones across the Aegean, the
Cycladic islands were early settlement sites
for migrants who developed a significant
culture centuries before the emergence of
the civilizations of Crete and Mycenae.
 Cycladites developed shipping and traded
with mainland Greece, the coast of Asia
Minor and the western Mediterranean,
from the Neolithic period.
 Olive production helped in self-sufficiency.
Cycladic
Tombs
They buried their dead in
box -shaped tombs of a
trapezoidal shape, in
circular tombs, and in
chambers carved on the
rock.
Top: Cist grave of the Gotta-Pelos
culture.
Middle: Two-storeyed grave of
the Keros-Syros culture.
Bottom: Corbelled grave of the
Keros-Syros culture
Cycladic Painting
Flying Fish fresco
Cycladic Pottery:
“frying pans”
Cycladic Pottery:
zoomorphic pots
Types of
Cycladic
Figurines
Early Cycladic Figurines:
violin shaped
Later
Cycladic Figurines
Pregnant figurine
Rare male
figurines
Hunter and
Female
Companion
Cycladic Musicians
Abstraction
Cycladic InfluenceAmedeo Modigliani
on
Modern
Art
Constantin Brancusi
Minoan Myth and Culture
Minoan Civilization 2000-1400 BCE
Palace at Knossos - Crete
Neolithic Art
6000-2600 bce
PREPALATIAL PERIOD
(2600-1900 B.C.)
 Development of a glorious civilization fostered by:
 Geographic location
 Fertile ground
 Long periods of peace
 The pre-Palatial period is characterized by:
 Extensive use of copper
 Growth in fishing, farming and shipping activities
 Tin trade
 Improvement of construction techniques
 Use of precious stones, elephant bone and gold: the
various seals from that period are beautiful works of art.
Minoan symbols
Labrys
Bull
Snake Goddess
Bull-Jumping
Gold ring with a depiction of a bull-jumping scene from Phourni. Before 2000 BC.
Gold ring with a depiction
of the goddess with a
griffin from Phourni.
Before 2000 BC
PALOPALATIAL PERIOD
(1900-1700 B.C.)
 1900 BCE: the first palaces were built in Crete:
Knossos, Malia and Kato Zakros.
 The settlements around the palaces had organized
watering, sewage and street systems.
 Economy was based on agriculture and thrived on
trade: finds from Crete have been located in Egypt
and Cyprus.
 1700 BCE: a strong earthquake destroyed most of the
palaces.
Reconstruction of palace at Knossos
by archeologist, Sir Arthur Evans
Knossos
Palace at Knossos
Aerial view of Knossos
Queen’s megaron
and throne
Townhouses
Mosaic
NEOPALATIAL PERIOD
(1700- 1450 B.C.E.)
 The palaces were restored and the Neo-Palatial
Period, the thriving years of the Minoan civilization,
was inaugurated.
 The palace was the center of the economic, social and
religious life
 The class of merchants, manufacturers and priests
commanded respect, second only to the King
 King was worshipped as a High Priest, along with the
Goddess of Fertility.
 Women played a prominent role in the Minoan
civilization.
Snake
Goddesses
or
Priestesses
Labrys: double-headed axes
Bulls
Ca. 1200 bce
Ca. 1500-1450 bce
Ca. 16th c. bce
Ca. 1500 bce
Bull Leaping
Pottery
Hieroglyphics:
The Phaistos Disk
ca. 1600 bce
Jewelry
 In about 1450
BC, the cities
and palaces of
the Minoan
civilization
were swept
away by a tidal
wave, caused
by a volcanic
eruption in the
island of
Thera, while
extensive fires
demolished
everything.
Knossos
POSTPALATIAL PERIOD
(1450-1100 B.C.E.)
 The Myceneans (Achaeans) occupied Knossos and
established a strong dynasty.
 The economy still based on trade with Egypt and Asia
Minor, but change is evident in art and daily life.
 Ceramics, bronze objects, jewels etc., testify to the
coexistence and influence of the two populations on one
another, for a long time.
 1300 BC: another earthquake destroyed the last remains of
the Minoan civilization, including the palace of Knossos.
 According to historians, in 1200 BCE, Crete had a powerful
fleet that raided the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea.
 In the early 11th cent. BCE, European tribes invaded Crete
from the North.
Later goddesses
Goddess with
Poppy-headed
Pins. 1350 BC.
Bird Goddess. 14001200 BC.
Goddess with a Cone and
Horns of Consecration.
1400-1200 BC.
Linear B
Minoan
Myth
Zeus and
Europa
Karl Plattner The
Rape of Europa
The
Bull
from the
Sea
Pasiphae’s
Passion
Daedalus, Pasiphae and wooden
cow: Pompeian wall painting
(House of the Vettii),
The Minotaur
and
The Labyrinth
of
Daedalus
Athenian Tribute
King Minos and Ariadne
King Aegeus and Theseus
The killing of
the Minotaur
Ariadne on Naxos
Dionysus
and
Ariadne
Titian, Bacchus and Ariadne
The Return to Athens
Lynne Frehm, Black Sails
Theseus:
Hero and
King of
Athens
Roman wall painting
Daedalus
and Icarus
Daedalus and Icarus
Frederic Leighton
(1830-1896)
Odilon Redon,
The Fall of Icarus
Mycenaean
Civilization
1600-1200 BCE
Mycenaean Civilization 1600-1200 BCE
Mycenaean Citadel
Lion Gate
Entrance to Citadel
at Mycenae
1500-1300 BCE
Mycenean Myth:The Trojan War
A War among 3 Cultures
The Achaeans: The Greeks
The Trojans
The Olympian Gods
Pantheon
Olympians
 Meddle in the affairs of humanity
 Function as conceptual forces of nature and the psyche
 Aphrodite – lust
 Ares – war rage
 Athena – cunning strategy
 Bronze Age, pre-Greek city
state, conceive of
themselves as members of
the family of Troy
 Although they disapprove
of Paris, they unite in
familial responsibility and
assume his guilt in an act of
collective family
responsibility -- "our lot is
best, to fight for our
country” -- doomed
David, Helen and Paris, 1788
The Trojans
The Trojan
Family
King Priam and
Queen Hecuba
Hector and
Andromache
Paris and
Helen
Cassandra
Priam and Hecuba plead with Achilles for
the body of Hector
The Achaeans
The Achaeans –
Mycenaeans
Greeks
 Historically piratical
 Barbaric chieftains whose prized values of nobility, pride,
power, glamour, and strength thrive only among violence
 Each hero is out for himself -- failure provokes shame
rather than assumption of responsibility -- leads to disorder
and tragedy
 Allied together against Trojans only because of pact made
with the wooing of Helen
The Spartans
Tyndareus
King of Sparta
Leda
Castor
Clytemnestra ---- Agamemnon
King of
Mycenae
ZEUS
Pollux
Menelaus ---- Helen ---- Paris
King of
Prince of
Sparta
Troy
Helen and Menelaus
The
Judgement
of Paris
Giordano Luca, Abduction of Helen
A
G
A
M
E
M
N
O
N
Achilles Slaying Hector
Odysseus
King of Ithaca
Major Strategist
Conceived the Trojan
Horse
Husband to Penelope
The
Trojan
Horse
Heroic Age (1200 – 750 BCE)
 1200 – Doric Invasion
 Stories of Ancient Greece kept alive orally for
generations
 All Greeks shared a common cultural heritage
 Myths, gods, and goddesses begin to take form
 Greek myths were never canonized
 There is no one scripture
 Religion wasn’t meant to control behavior
Function of Greek myths and
Gods
 Explain Natural events
 Demeter and Persephone
 Zeus
 Explain Human World
 Gods resemble/behave like humans
 Gods reveal psychological aspects of human
behavior/actions
 Apollo vs. Dionysus
 NOT an ethical system
Homer and the Iliad
 Blind poet who lived
around 850 BCE
 Composer of 2 epic poems:
 The Iliad
 The Odyssey
 Oral stories first, then
written down
 Iliad and Trojan War:
 Covers 51 days near the
end of a 10 year war
 Homer’s epics provided
material for Greek literature
and drama
Bust of Homer, British Museum, London
The Iliad
 Reveals how making heroic
valor a culture’s prime value
is fundamentally destructive to
social order and humane
community
 The first word in the poem is
menin: rage
 The rage of Achilles
 Rage as the hero and subject of
the poem
 Rage that transforms Achilles
into a killing machine and
Hector into a corpse
The Iliad
 “Rage: Sing, Goddess, Achilles’ rage, black and
murderous, that cost the Greeks incalculable pain,
pitched countless souls of heroes to dark Hades,
and leaving their bodies to be rot as feasts for dogs
and birds…Begin with the clash between
Agamemnon-the Greek warlord-and godlike
Achilles.” (lines 1-9)
Aeschylus
525-456 bce
THE ORESTAEIA
Agamemnon
The Libation Bearers
The Eumenides
Clytemnestra’s Revenge
Orestes and Electra at Delphi
The
Vengeance
of
Orestes
The
Erinyes
Orestes
Pursued by
the Furies
by William
Bouguereau
(c.1862)
The
Judgement
of
Athena:
the substitution
of trial by jury
for vengeance
in Athenian
law