Chapter 2
Aegean civilizations
1. Historical overview

The origins of Classical Greek culture:
1. Historical overview
Aegean cultures:
 Minoan:
– Crete and Thera
– 3000-1100 BCE.

Mycenaean:
– Mainland Greece
– 1900-1100 BCE.
2. Minoan Civilization: Geography
Thera today (Santorini)
Effects of the volcanic
eruption of 1623 BCE
2. Minoan Civilization: Geography
Santorini (Thera)
Crete
2. Minoan Civilization: Geography
What civilizations did Minoans interact with?
 Crete acted as a link between three continents:
Asia, Africa and Europe.

3. Minoan Civilization: economy

Economy:
– It was a civilization based on sea trade:
(thalassocracy)
Naval expedition. Akrotiri, Thera, 1500 BCE.
4. Minoan Civilization: society

Socio-political
structure:
– A federation of cities.
The most important
was Knossos (centralized
government?)
– There was a king and
a nobility, merchants,
bureaucracy, laborers,
and slaves?
– Peaceful society ? (no
city walls or weapons)
5. Minoan civilization: palaces





What are the main features of a Minoan Palace?
Large asymmetric complex built around a central
courtyard. (labrys/ labyrinth (maze))
Residence of the royal family
Religious buildings
Storage areas
5. Minoan civilization: palaces
Post and lintel constructions
 Wooden painted inverted columns
 Decoration of walls with frescoes

5. Minoan civilization: palaces
5. Minoan civilization: houses

Akrotiri, Thera, c. 1650.
5. Minoan civilization: palaces
Themes:
Human figures (performing rituals?), scenes
of nature (marine life, flora)
6. Minoan religion
Cult of Earth Goddess.
Matriarchy?
 Worship a sacred tree
and a sacred pillar (column)
 Images of the epiphany
of a god.
 Cult of the bull?

Earth goddess with Snakes,
Knossos, ca. 1600 BCE
6. Minoan Religion

The Earth Goddess:
Prehistory
Mesopotamian
Egyptian Minoan
6. Minoan Religion
Feminine deities
6. Minoan religion
Minoan seal
Fresco from Knossos, 1500 BCE
Representations of bull-leaping ritual?
6. Minoan religion
Modern bull leaping (Spain):
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6n81
X9hpvs&feature=related


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjTyf2
IdcZU
7. Minoan painting
The Minoan canon
“Prince” from Knossos,
ca 1600 BCE
7. Minoan painting
7. Minoan painting
Bull leaping, Knossos, ca.1600 BCE
Boxers, Thera, 1650
7. Minoan painting
 The
Minoan canon
 Egyptian influence in the posture
 Narrow waist
 Attention to anatomical features
 Representation of movement
7. Minoan painting
Hagia Triada, c. 1400 B.C.
What does the image represent? Where have you seen
something like this before?
7. Minoan painting
7. Minoan painting
River Landscape, Thera, 1500 BCE.
7. Minoan painting
7. Minoan sculpture
Rhyton bull,
Knossos, ca. 1500 BCE.
7. Minoan sculpture
8. The Myth of the Minotaur
8. The Myth of the Minotaur
Labrys (double ax)
Labyrinth: house of the Double Axes
Floor plan of Knossos
“Palace of king Minos”
9. Language and writing

Minoans were not Greek
– Pictographic writing
– Linear A: undeciphered
script.
– Linear B: Greek
(Mycenaean domination
of Knossos)
9. Mycenaean Civilization
It developed in
mainland Greece
around 1900-1100
BCE.
 Important cities were
Mycenae, Tiryns and
Pilos.
 It flourished after the
decline of Minoan
civilization.

9. Mycenaean Civilization
Militaristic society
 Cities protected by “cyclopean” walls and gates.

10. Social structure:

Feudal system:
King and noblemen
offering protection
while they exacted
material resources
from the “nonwarriors”.
11. Religion
They worshiped
divinities which became
gods in the Greek
pantheon: Zeus,
Hera, Poseidon…
 They also established
a cult to their heroes.

Funerary mask, 1500 BCE
12. Architecture
Lions Gate, Mycenae, ca. 1300 BCE
Post and lintel construction with relieving triangle.
12. Architecture
Treasury of Atreus, Mycenae, 1300-1200 BCE
Funerary tholos (circular tomb)
12. Architecture
13. Conclusion
Minoan civilization synthesized elements
from Egypt and Asia Minor.
 Their cultural and artistic knowledge was
inherited by the Greeks from the
mainland: the Mycenaeans.
 After a period of turmoil (Dark Ages),
elements of the Mycenaean civilization
reemerged in the culture of Archaic
Greece.

14. Conclusion
The Greeks of the Archaic period
considered that the Mycenaeans were
their ancestors.
 Homer’s epic poems, the Iliad and the
Odyssey, narrate the deeds of the
Mycenaean heroes.
