Mycenaean Greek

Abstract

Abstract At the beginning of our historical survey, c.1500 BC, we find two civilizations occupying a dominant position in the Aegean area. These have become known in modern times as the ‘Minoan’ civilization in Crete and the ‘Mycenaean’ in southern and central Greece. The non-Greek Minoan was the older of the two: the Mycenaeans were heavily influenced by Minoan culture, and Mycenaean civilization at its height was essentially a fusion of the Minoan and the native (‘Helladic’) culture of the Greek mainland. Between the sixteenth and the twelfth centuries BC, Mycenaean power and influence expanded at the expense of the Minoans, and the Mycenaeans seem to have taken control of Crete itself in the fifteenth century. Mycenaean power was at its height between 1400 and 1200, with the establishment of great palatial centres at Pylos, Mycenae, and Tiryns in the Peloponnese, and Thebes and Orchomenos in Boeotia. Mycenaean settlement is attested in the Cycladic Islands, the Dodecanese, and on the west coast of Asia Minor. There is also evidence for Mycenaean trading activity around the Mediterranean, with Cyprus and the Levant in particular, and with Sicily and southern Italy in the West.