Unlike the Egyptians and Mesopotamians, the early Greeks were sea peoples who did not live by great rivers.  their civilizations revolved less around farming than trade and warfare, often another form of trade.  Three stages of civilization: Minoan, Mycenaean, and Greek civilizations were built upon one another.  The first two stages especially provided a historical and cultural identity for the later Greeks.

The Aegean World
   -Greeks arrive c. 2300 BCE?
   -called Achaeans or Danaans by Homer.

Minoan Civilization: 

Early Minoan 3000-2100BC
       - soon after Iraq and Egypt, but on a much smaller scale

        Mid Minoan 2100-1500BC  - High Point. Linear A script - not Greek

Mycenaean Civilization 2000-1100BC - Linear B script - deciphered by Michael Ventris in 1950.

Cretan states of the first half of the second millenium BC were bureaucratic monarchies. While the government was dominated by priests and while the monarch seemed to have some religious functions, the principle role of the monarch seemed to be that of "chief entrepreneur." They had extensive trade with the outside world. Their decline was perhaps due to a volcanic eruption on a nearby island.

Daedalus: the craftsman who constructed the maze.

Minotaur: half bull, half human monster defeated by Theseus.

The Mycenaeans

2000-1100 BC, an Indo-European people destroyed the existent site of civilization in the Greek islands by a non-Indo-European people.

The society of the conquerors was primarily based on warfare; their leaders were essentially war-chiefs.

They were so called, after the largest of their states, Mycenae, in its leadership in the legendary Trojan War (1200 BC) that also ended this phase of Greek civilization. Today, much of their history is captured in the Iliad and the Odyssey.

The Iliad, about the decision to attack Troy, or Ilium, chiefly revolved around the last year of the 10 year siege of Troy.

Odyssey: about the voyage back home of Odysseus, king of Ithaca.

Both stories, while serving as historical background to ancient Greece, also shed light on Greek religion and the values held of human beings.

1100-800 BC is usually called the Dark Ages in Greek history because of the decline of civilization. Culture and writing picked up after 800 BC.

Gradually, tribes developed into city-states ruled by hereditary kings.

Over a hundred cities, or poleis, developed. And the two ends of the spectrum of city-states were Athens and Sparta.

Greek connections with Egypt and  Mesopotamia:

Early Greek art: resembled Egypt in geometrical shape.

Greek religion: some gods and goddesses paralleled those in Mesopotamia and might have come from there via Crete.  Anthropomorphic, involved in human life, and each limited in his/her power, also resembled Mesopotamian ones.  The vision of the underworld was similar, too.  

Greek mythology:

Heroes: suggesting the Greek vision of the human being.

• Theseus: one of the founding fathers of Athens for expanding it to Attica; father Aegeus, king of Athens, many adventures including killing the Pine Bender, and killed the Minotaur in the Cretan labyrinth.
• Hercules (or Heracles): born of Zeus and a mortal, killed snakes in his cradle, and cleansed a cattle stable by re-channeling a river through it.
• Achilles: mother Thetis was a sea nymph; a mighty fighter; he would rather die a glorious death in the battlefield than live an ordinary life.
• Odysseus: the strategist who devised the Wooden Horse that tricked the Trojans, and conducted the impossible journey (odyssey, named after him, for difficult journeys) back home to  Ithaca.

Role of fate and the limitations of the power of gods: Despite that fate could not be deterred, many Greeks chose to battle it rather than giving up.

• Zeus: Supreme, but could not deter fate.
• Fate foretold Achilles would die in war; his mother, to avoid that, dipped him in water of eternal life, but forgot to dip his heels in.
• Fate foretold Oedipus would kill his father and marry his mother.
• Fate foretold Agamemnon, after sacrificing his daughter, would not live long.
• Anthropomorphic gods and goddesses: the human world of supreme importance.

Anthropomorphized abstract ideas/emotions: e.g. furies, fates: that a person's destiny is actually mediated by the concrete workings of some agents.