Tammy Langhorst, age 16, of Jamestown, N.Y., for her question:
WHAT WAS THE AEGEAN CIVILIZATION?
Between the years 3000 B.C. and 1100 B.C., four main cultures developed on the islands and shores of the Aegean Sea between present day Greece and Turkey. This was the period of time when man discovered how to make bronze by mixing copper ore with tin.
The four groups were the Minoan culture, on the island of Crete; the Helladic culture cedtered on the Greek mainland; the Cycladic culture on the seas central islands; and the Troadic or Trojan culture centered around the ancient city of Troy, located on the narrow channel in northwestern Turkey now called the Dardanelles.
The Aegean civilization during this Bronze Age was one of the great cultural and artistic periods of time in the colorful history of man.
It was wonderful while it lasted, but it crumbled during the 1100s B.C. when invaders from the north overran Greece and took over the Aegean Islands and Asia Minor. By 1100 B.C., there no longer was an Aegean civilization.
During its height there was development, artistic craftsmanship, the art of writing and the building of skills. But with the fall, all of these elements of civilization were forgotten.
No written history was left by those who took part in the Aegean era. Their descendants, however, handed down stories about great kings and gods and brave and colorful heroes.
Many of the stories that have been handed down may have been based on real people and ,events, but we have no way of knowing. Everything we know for sure about the Aegean civilization has come to us from the archeologists, the scientists who have studied the remains of the ancient peoples. They have been able to tell us how these people lived.
A German archeologist named Heinrich Schliemann started the modern study of the Aegean civilization. Believing some of the stories that had been handed down, he organized the first successful excavation of Troy in 1870.
Schliemann also studied the Helladic civilization in 1876. In 1900, a scientist named Sir Arthur Evans led an excavating team from Great Britain to the Palace of Minos at Knossos, Crete. Excavations here clearly showed the wealth and high artistic standards that had been reached by the Minoan civilization.
Through the years archeologists have continued to uncover details of the Aegean history through a careful study of crafts, buildings and pottery.
Archeologists have divided the Aegean civilization into three basic periods: Early, from 3000 B.C. to 1900 B.C.; Middle, from 1900 B.C. to 1580 B.C.; and Late, from 1580 B.C. to 1100 B.C.
During the late Minoan period, the Aegean civilization extended to include regular and frequent contacts with the Egyptians.