The Violent Downfall of the Mycenaeans and Chapter 1 Key Terms

Slideshow and Pomeroy Textbook

At what point did raiders moving against trade routes close in on Mycenaean Greece?

1200 B.C.

What attack caused destruction for the Mycenaeans?

In ~1200 B.C. all major Mycenaean cities were attacked almost simultaneously with most being destroyed immediately excepting Mycenae and Tiryns as well as Athens which is inexplicably spared from attack

By what point have all Mycenaean cities fallen?

1100 B.C.

How do the attackers of Mycenaeans leave and arrive?

By sea

What did the destruction in the east Mediterranean in 1200 B.C. signify?

The ending of the Bronze Age

How do Greeks survive past the fall of Mycenaean civilisation?

Various populations take refuge away from the wrecked cities in mountains of Arcadia and the central Peloponnese in smaller villages that do not attract raids

Who were the attackers of the Mycenaeans?

A group of different ethnicities: Libya, parts of the eastern Mediterranean, from the Asia Minor coast, and from Greece itself

How do we know who the attackers of the Mycenaeans were?

Attacks also came to Egypt where the Medinet Habu, a lengthy rock-carving was made celebrating the Pharaoh’s victory and describing the “Sea Peoples” attacking

Who were posited to be some of the Greeks among the sea peoples?

Dispossessed Mycenaeans

How were the last days of Pylos described?

There was a climate of anxiety and war preparation, with emergency troop movements to the coast and ceremonies to propitiate the anger of the gods

Who was Heinrich Schliemann?

A German businessman-turned-archaeologist who uncovered ruins at Troy (thought before to be mythical) and Mycenae

Who was Sir Arthur Evans?

An archaeologist who discovered a complex at Cnossus and substantiated the idea that Cnossus had once been the centre of a powerful naval state

What is Cnossus?

A major centre of Minoan civilisation on the island of Crete

What is Crete?

An island in Greece that was the centre of the Minoan civilisation

What was the Mycenaean civilisation?

The first true Greek civilisation as well as one that brought about the end of the Bronze Age

What was the Minoan civilisation?

A civilisation centred on the island of Crete that would inspire the Mycenaeans and develop many technologies including that of writing

Which archaeologist is associated with the Mycenaeans?

Heinrich Schliemann

Which archaeologist is associated with the Minoans?

Sir Arthur Evans

What was the Neolithic Age?

The final division of the Stone Age in which many advancements in agriculture and technology are seen

What was the Neolithic Age like in Greece?

Agriculture allowed people to settle down permanently and villages began to spring up where people could plant and domesticate animals in a likely egalitarian society

What was the Bronze Age?

A time in pre-history characterised by the use of bronze as well as the invention of sophisticated trading systems and writing

How did Greece and the Balkans compare to the Near East during the early Bronze Age?

The Near East had already progressed to a higher level of organisation that could be called civilisation

What civilisations owed their rise to the progress of Near East civilisations in the early Bronze Age?

Crete and civilisations of mainland Greece

What remains offer insight into early Bronze Age Greece?

Those found at Lerna

What did the remains at Lerna show?

Evidence of a large town with stone fortification walls and monumental buildings such as the House of the Tiles

To what group did the arriving Greeks belong?

The Indo-Europeans

Who were the Indo-Europeans?

People moving throughout the world coming from an orignal homeland perhaps in the steppes north of the Black and Caspian seas and whose language is the prototype for many others today

How were Minoan palaces structured?

They were a maze of rooms clustered around a large central courtyard

From where did the Minoans adopt their economic model?

They adopted the model used in Egypt and the Near East

What was the economic model of the Minoans?

A redistributive system in which the palace had significant control over the allocation and use of land and was the centre of the kingdom

How does the island of Thera relate to the Minoans?

Thera was an island belonging to the Akrotiri who adopted Minoan art styles, architecture, religion, dress, and lifestyles into their own culture and was preserved by a volcanic eruption

What is Mycenae?

The centre of the Mycenaean civilisation and a subject of epic poetry

What are shaft graves?

Deep rectangular pits into which bodies were lowered

What is a tholos tomb?

A very large stone chamber shaped like a beehive with high vaulted interiors and long stone entrance ways that indicated power and resourcefulness of families

What was Linear A?

A writing system composed of specific signs standing for the sounds of spoken words and syllables with the main purpose of keeping economic and administrative records

What was Linear B?

A Greek adaptation of Linear A that, when sounded out, produces an early form of Greek language

How was Pylos important to the theories surrounding control of Greece in the late Bronze Age?

Previously, the theory was that mainland Greece had been Minoan, and discovery of Linear B tablets that were thought at the time to be Cretan strengthened this theory, however it was disproved by the decryption of the tablets and discovery that they were Greek

What is a megaron?

A large rectangular hall used for feasts, councils, and receptions that was the centre of Mycenaean palaces

What was the Hittite Empire?

An empire spanning Asia Minor and Syria that was one of the dominant powers of the Near East and a close contact to the Mycenaeans

Who were the Ahhiyawa?

A people recorded by the Hittites as a military power with which they fought and that resembles Achaeans, the most frequent name in Homeric epics for the Greeks who conquered Troy

What was a wanax?

The name for the king in Mycenaean civilisation who was at the top of the social structure

Who were the individuals responsible for breaking Linear B?

Alice Kober and Michael Ventris