The Mediterranean, the world’s largest inland sea, a land-locked body ofsalt-water with one natural outlet to Atlantic, linked many different cultures

through contact and exchange

The Bronze Age

• Bronze metallurgy spread rapidly through Europe, but only in the Aegean did state societies emerge in the Bronze Age

• Major Palace Civilizations of Bronze Age: – Minoan (Island of Crete)– Mycenaen (mainland Greece)

Cyclades

Cyclades, Greek islands known for their white marble andEarly Bronze Age (3-2,000 BC) anthropomorphic marble

figurines, which show artistic and everyday featuresthat continue in later Aegean civilizations

Minoan Civilization

• Label “Minoan” for the Cretan Bronze Age, coined by Arthur Evans who first excavated at palace of Knossos, was inspired by legendary King Minos

• Early Minoan or “Pre-palatial” period, ca. 3500-2000 BC, with little evidence of social complexity in domestic and mortuary contexts

• Later Minoan broken into First palace period (2000-1700 BC) that saw the emergence of palace complexes at Knossos, Mallia, and Phaistos, which were reconstructed after destructive earthquakes, initiating the Second Palace period (1700-1490 BC).

Palace at Knossos

Typical palace contained:- large, open-air central court

- ritual and entertainment spaces-painted frescoes

Religious imagery in Minoan Crete included double axes and “horns of consecration,”women grasping snakes, and representations of bulls and bull leaping

At the end of the Second Palace period on Crete, all but one of the palaces (Knossos)were destroyed; Knossos survived but was inhabited by new administration; Linear B

replaced earlier writing on the island

Palace of Knossos

Linear B Script

• Last of three Minoan scripts (hieroglyphic, Linear A, and Linear B), Linear B was used to record early Greek language, used at the end of the Second Palace Period

Early-Middle Helladic Period, precedes Mycenae palace civilization in mainland

Greece, ca. 3200-2600 BC

• Lerna, ca.

2300 BC

Palace of Mycenae - associated since the time of Homer’s Iliad to

Agamemnon, king of the combinedGreek forces that waged war on Trojans

Mask of Agamemnon, excavated from Grave circle A by Heinrich

Schliemann in 1876

Sociopolitical stratification of Mycenaean society is highly visible in mortuary architecture and monumental residences

The Lion Gate, Mycenae

Royal grave circle

Royal tomb

Reconstruction of palace at Mycenae

During the 13th century BC, Mycenaean citadels were destroyed or abandoned,

likely due to internal unrest and siege warfare, indicated by enhanced

fortifications and defended underground cisterns

Ancient Greece• The “Dark Age”: 1000-750 BC• The Archaic Period: 750-480 BC• The Classical Period: 480-338 BC

• The polis or Greek city-state: an autonomous political unit that incorporated a central, urban area (polis, or astu), part or all of which was enclosed by a city wall, and its rural hinterland (chora, or agros),

• Polis emerged in Archaic period; during classical period tied to idea of citizenry and civil society (from Latin civitas)

• Over 1,000 poleis which ranged in size from very small (<1000 people; centers of < 10 ha) to large urban populations, such as Athens, at over 40,000

• Most were small, and some of more powerful, such as Sparta, a major rival of Athens, were “network of villages”

• Warfare between poleis and political and military alliances, led by one or another powerful polis, were common, but Greeks generally shared a common culture, including shared language and gods

• Anyone outside that cultural circle, a broad peer-polity, was considered “barbarian,” which originally meant someone incapable of speaking Greek properly

Pan-Hellenic sanctuaries (“for all Greeks”)at Delphi, Olympia, Nemea, and Isthmia

Classical Greece

Greek polis (referring here to the city center, or astu) were typically composed of an acropolis (“high city” on an eminence), dominated by one or more temples (unlike Mycanean palaces), an agora (marketplace), several stoas (open public, columned buildings), and other common features

Athens, the best known and largest of the Greek poleis, became especially rich and luxurious, due to its control of silver mines and marble quarries

Classical Greek poleis of Athens, which had grown to include other smaller poleis

Acropolis

Agora

stoa

The acropolis (“high city”) of Athens

The Parthenon (447-432 BC), religious sanctuary and cult temple of goddess Athena,

protector of Athens

Monarchies (Kings), Oligarchies (Aristocrats), and Democracies (Citizens)

• In 510 BC, Athens created first democratic government, soon followed by some other Greek city-states

• Non-Greek city-states, like Carthage and Rome (after overthrow of Roman monarchy in 509 BC), experimented with giving the poor people more power

• Athenian democracy did not really give power to everyone and most people, including women, slaves, and men from other city-states, could not vote.

• Also, Athens at this time was a small empire, ruling over many other Greek city-states, and none of those people living in the other city-states could vote either.

From the 8th to the 5th century BC, some Greek city-states sent out parties of men to establish colonies throughout the Mediterranean, including

colonies in Sicily and southern Italy, the south of France, and the North African coast

Uluburun shipwreck =

Phoenicians

• Phoenicians, who originated in Lebanon, had established colonies in Spain, North Africa, and Sicily by the 8th century BC, among the most important of which was Carthage in North Africa

• Carthage and its western empire , which may have practiced child sacrifice, was renowned for trade, including exported carpets, dyes, jewelry, timber, and hides spread all over the Mediterranean world  

Etruscan Civilization

• Etruscans resided in independent city-states in Etruria in west-central Italy during much of the 1st millennium BC

• Twelve of the city-states, often located on well fortified hilltops, formed an Etruscan League, which sometimes had an expansionist policy, creating tension with Greek colonies, which dominated in southern Italy

Macedon and Alexander the Great

• City-states of Greece mocked their northern neighbors in Macedonia as rustic and uncivilized, if not barbarians

• Phillip II of Macedon (383-336 BC) persuaded his subjects to settle in cities and change cultural practices (stop wearing sheepskin), engaged in politics of southern Greece, and participated in panhellenic games; his chariot won at Olympia the day his son, Alexander, was born (Greek Olympiad, held every 4 years; beginning in 776 BC, based on inscriptions at Olympia);

• Alexander (356-323 BC) assumed power in 336 BC and, after defeating the Persian army, annexed domains from Mediterranean to Afghanistan;

• After his death, Alexander’s empire was broken up by his generals, when three major successors emerged centered on Macedonia, Syria, and Egypt (Ptolemaic kingdom) during the Hellenistic age (323-31 BC), which ended with the establishment of the Roman empire)

Copyright © 2000, The Applied History Research Group

Imperial Rome• Overthrow of monarchy in 509 BC,

Roman Republic

• Historians have variously proposed the appointment of Julius Caesar as perpetual dictator in 44 BC, the defeat of Mark Antony at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, and the Roman Senate's grant of extraordinary powers to Octavian (Augustus) in 27 BC, as candidates for the end of the Republic.

• Livia Drusilla (later called Julia Augusta); third (final) wife of Augustus, mother of Tiberius, paternal great-grandmother of Caligula, paternal grandmother of Claudius, and maternal great-great grandmother of Nero, last emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty.

Roman forum, established ca. 600 BC contained open spaces, basilicas, libraries, and imperial statuary, serving a

similar function to the Greek agora, and was mimicked as a focal point in most imperial towns

Colosseum, given by Vespasian to people of Rome in AD 80

In the early imperial period, Rome’s urban population may have reached one million inhabitants, a size not generally achieved

again until after 1750

Hadrian’s wall (AD 122-128), extends over 80 miles

In the Edict of Milan, Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman empire in AD 312

In addition to architectural achievements, such as the Forum, Colosseum, other feats of engineering included aqueducts, roads, heated baths, as well as advances in military technology, such as major siege equipment and Hadrian’s wall to control the northwest frontier in northern Britain

Hunnic empire (Attila, AD 434-453)