Aegean civilization

Aegean civilization is the collective term for the Bronze Age cultures that flourished around the Aegean Sea, encompassing Crete, the Cycladic islands, and the Greek mainland. These interconnected societies developed distinctive artistic, architectural, and commercial traditions while maintaining close cultural contact. Crete is associated with the Minoan civilisation, regarded as the earliest advanced culture in Europe. The Cyclades developed an independent Early Bronze Age culture, which later converged with the Greek mainland during the Early Helladic period and interacted closely with Crete during the Middle Minoan age. By the Late Bronze Age, Mycenaean Greece extended its influence throughout the Aegean, establishing dominance over Crete and shaping what is often termed the Palatial Bronze Age.

Background and Origins

The roots of Aegean civilisation lie in the Neolithic communities of Greece, whose early agricultural settlers—known as Early European Farmers—spread farming practices westward across Europe before 5000 BC. These populations later expanded along two main routes: northwards along the Danube and westwards via the Mediterranean coast. Their descendants reached regions such as France, Germany, and eventually Britain, where they interacted with Western Hunter-Gatherer groups.
The Chalcolithic or Copper Age began around 5500 BC, marking increased metallurgical skills and the construction of early megalithic structures. In the Aegean basin, these developments set the foundations for the emergence of complex Bronze Age societies, marked by stratified settlements, monumental architecture, and sophisticated craft production.

Periodisation of Aegean Cultures

The Aegean Bronze Age is divided into three regional sequences, each with its own internal chronology:

• Mainland Greece (Helladic)
  • Early Helladic (EH): 3200–3100/2050–2001 BC
  • Middle Helladic (MH): 2000–1900/1550 BC
  • Late Helladic (LH): 1550–1050 BC
• Crete (Minoan)
  • Early Minoan (EM): 3200–2160 BC
  • Middle Minoan (MM): 2160–1600 BC
  • Late Minoan (LM): 1600–1100 BC
• Cyclades
  • Early Cycladic (EC): 3300–2000 BC
  • Later convergence with mainland EH II and EH III culture around 2100 BC and with MM culture from around 2000 BC.

The Late Helladic and Late Minoan eras, roughly 1400–1200 BC, represent the peak of Mycenaean influence, during which Mycenaean administrative practices and material culture spread throughout the Aegean and into the eastern Mediterranean.

Commerce and Maritime Culture

Trade and seafaring were central to Aegean civilisation. Long-distance exchange is attested by the widespread distribution of Melian obsidian from the island of Melos, used for cutting tools since Neolithic times. By the Bronze Age, Cretan pottery was exported to Melos, the mainland, and Egypt, while Cycladic products reached Crete and beyond.
After 1600 BC, Aegean goods circulated widely throughout the Mediterranean. Standard weights and depictions of metal ingots suggest regulated commerce, although no confirmed currency system existed. Occasionally, small axeheads have been considered possible currency items, but their impractical size argues against their primary use as money.
Representations of ships on seals, vases, and the well-known “frying pans” of the Cyclades, together with the extensive ship fresco discovered at Akrotiri on Santorini, illustrate an advanced maritime culture. Later excavations of wrecks such as Uluburun and Cape Gelidonya have provided invaluable information on Bronze Age navigation, trade cargoes, and ship construction.

Archaeological Evidence and Key Sites

Material evidence for Aegean civilisation derives from a broad array of sites:

• Crete: Knossos is the most extensively excavated site, showing continuous occupation from the Neolithic into the historic era. Other major centres include Phaistos, Hagia Triada, Malia, Palaikastro, and Gournia.
• Mainland Greece: Mycenae, Tiryns, and the Acropolis at Athens provide significant insights into Mycenaean palatial architecture, fortifications, and burial customs.
• Cyclades: Phylakopi on Melos and sites on islands such as Naxos and Syros illuminate Cycladic culture.

Structures uncovered include palaces, villas, domestic homes, storerooms, workshops, and fortifications. While no monumental temples characteristic of later Greek religion have been identified, smaller shrines and sacred enclosures (temene) are evidenced, such as those at Petsofa near Palaikastro.
Public works—roads, bridges, stairways, and drainage systems—demonstrate a high degree of engineering capability.

Material Culture and Artistic Production

Aegean artisans exhibited remarkable skill across many media:

• Architecture: Use of columns, friezes, mouldings, and frescoed walls; early employment of roof tiles at sites such as Lerna.
• Furniture and Domestic Objects: Stone and terracotta vessels, tables, seats, and storage jars.
• Ritual Equipment: Models and examples of sacred objects from shrines; ritual scenes depicted in art.
• Funerary Goods: Painted terracotta coffins, grave offerings, and ceremonial armour such as the Dendra panoply.
• Metalwork: Gold, silver, bronze, and copper objects, often ornamented or inlaid.
• Vases: Produced in stone, metal, and clay, richly decorated with marine motifs, geometric patterns, and figural scenes.
• Glyptic Art: Seal stones, rings, and thousands of impressed clay sealings, indicating administrative practices.

Although large freestanding sculpture is rare, smaller sculptural works and figurines occur frequently.

Writing and Administrative Records

Aegean writing systems include:

• Cretan hieroglyphs
• Linear A, still undeciphered
• Linear B, a syllabic script used by the Mycenaeans to record an early form of Greek

Most documents survive as clay tablets and sealings. These records provide insights into administration, economic management, and social organisation, although perishable writing materials such as papyrus and skin have not survived.

Burial Customs

Aegean funerary practices include pit graves, chamber tombs, and monumental beehive-shaped tholos tombs. The deceased were interred uncremated, often accompanied by weapons, jewellery, utensils, and luxury goods. The royal shaft graves at Mycenae yielded extraordinary items in gold, including masks and breastplates, demonstrating the wealth and status of elite groups.

External Connections and Cultural Influence

Evidence of Aegean contact with Egypt, the Levant, Cyprus, and Anatolia includes imported objects, imitations of Aegean styles, and depictions of Aegean peoples in foreign records. Later Greek literary traditions—especially the Homeric epics and accounts by authors such as Strabo and Pausanias—preserve echoes of Bronze Age events, places, and rulers.
Survivals of earlier Aegean customs, rituals, and artistic motifs into historic Greek culture suggest deeper continuity than was once assumed. Linguistic and physical traces in later populations have also been discussed by scholars seeking to understand the relationship between Bronze Age and historic Greek society.

Discovery and Study of Aegean Civilisation

Although the monumental remains of Mycenae and Tiryns were known for centuries, they were often dismissed as primitive precursors to classical Greece. The situation changed dramatically in the late nineteenth century, especially with the excavations of Heinrich Schliemann, who uncovered the shaft graves at Mycenae and revealed the splendour of Mycenaean culture.
Archaeologists later recognised that many earlier finds in museums and private collections represented a coherent prehistoric culture. The identification of Minoan civilisation by Arthur Evans at Knossos further expanded understanding of the Bronze Age Aegean and established a chronological framework for its development.