Knossos, Mycenae, Troy: The Enchanting Bronze Age and its Tumultuous Climax

By Natale Barca

This work puts a particular emphasis on the mixing and osmosis of the first Mediterranean civilizations, with particular reference to the Minoan, Cycladic, Mycenaean, and Trojan, and on the causes of their decline, which are to be identified in a jumble of natural and human causes, and in a long-lasting, slow, but irreversible crisis. It takes into account that the Mediterranean Dimension of the Bronze Age is a garden in which many legends flourished, clearly distinguishing between myth and history, and always bearing in mind that legends are not to be taken literally (nonetheless, they often have a grain of truth). It does not aim to provide an exhaustive report but to compose a broad and evolutionary picture, in which the facts and their connections, which are deducible from archaeological evidence or from the accounts of ancient historians, find their place, in their consequentiality. Its originality lies not in the choice of the subject, but in the way of treating it. The author introduces and explains, in order to be read, and perhaps to get excited. Another characterizing element of Knossos, Mycenae, Troy is the wide use of the ‘historical present’ that is made there to represent events and construct the text, to reduce the reader’s distance from the narrated events, and facilitates their approach to them. This book aims to provide the reader with an overall picture of the cultures that laid the foundations of Western civilization, which is not generic, but rather detailed and updated, and which has scientific solidity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Release date: Mar 9, 2023
• ISBN: 9781789259483

Natale Barca

Natale Barca was a visiting scholar researcher at University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA, and an academic visitor at the University of London’s Institute of Classical Studies and is a member of the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies (Roman Society), London. He is the author of thirteen monographs, many focused on the political and military history of the Roman Late Republic.

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Front and back cover: Delphins of Knossos (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dauphins_de_knossos.jpg; Armagnac-commons; used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license)

Contents

Timeline

Preface

Introduction: The geographical context

1. The origins of the Minoan civilization

2. The geography of Protopalatial Crete

3. War weapons and defensive architecture

4. Maritime trade

5. Religion and worship

6. The transition to the Neopalatial Period

7. Neopalatial Crete

8. Mutual influences

9. The volcanic catastrophe of Santorini

10. The Proto-Greeks

11. The Mycenaeans

12. The search for raw materials

13. Calamity and resilience

14. The Mycenaean conquest of Crete

15. The Mycenaeans seize mercantile trade from the Minoans

16. The pre-colonization of the West

17. Kingdoms and city-palaces

18. Crete in the age of Minos I

19. Minos II

20. The catastrophe of Pylos. The Sea Peoples: Part I

21. The Trojan War

22. Which Troy?

23. The decline of the palace-cities

24. The Sea Peoples: Part II

25. The recovery without the palaces and the final crisis

Timeline

Source: E. H. Cline (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Bronze Age Aegean (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 23.

Preface

Located in central Crete, in a valley in the hinterland of the northern coast, 5 km from the sea, and surrounded by low, verdant hills, a large field of ruins, largely still buried, testify to the existence of one of the most ancient and enduring human settlements in the West. Its focus is a low hill called Kephala, situated northwest of the confluence of the Vlychia and Katsambas torrents; its flat top is occupied by the remains of a gigantic architectural complex. The site is now the archaeological area of Knossos, one of the most important of its kind in Greece and the entire Mediterranean region. It was called ko-no-so, or ku-ni-su, by its inhabitants in the Bronze Age and Knossos by the Greeks of the 1st millennium BC. The Romans, in 36 BC, built a Roman colony in the vicinity of Kephala: Colonia Iulia Nobilis.

Ko-no-so was the hub of one of the first Mediterranean civilizations worthy of the name, the one that was called the Minoan civilization by the English archaeologist Arthur John Evans (1851–1941). The name refers to the legend of Minos, the wise and just king of Crete, the founder of the Cretan thalassocracy of his time, who, after his death, became a judge of the dead in the underworld. Evans identified the architectural complex of Kephala—which he discovered, excavated, and restored according to highly questionable criteria—as the Palace of Minos, which he called the Labyrinth because of the complexity of its layout.

The Minoan civilization was made up of cities, palaces, maritime supremacy, mercantile expansion, advanced technology, fine craftsmanship, and elegant and refined art. It flourished from 3000 BC onward for a couple of millennia, lasting throughout the entire Bronze Age with close ties with other Mediterranean civilizations—those of the Cycladics (southern Aegean Sea), Mycenaeans (the Greek mainland and islands), Hittites (central Anatolian plateau), and Egyptians (Nile Valley and part of the southern Levant)—as well as with the contemporary cultures of Cyprus, Syria, and the southern Levant.

It emitted a strong cultural influence, so much so that the Cycladic civilization allowed itself to be ‘Minoanized’ and the Mycenaean civilization looked to it as a model to imitate.

The architects and protagonists of the Minoan civilization are today called Minoans. They descended from the Neolithic peoples of Crete. We have an idea of these people thanks to the skeletons and tibias in their tombs and their frescoes, painted stuccos, seal engravings, weaponry etchings, statuettes, stone engravings, and vases with relief decorations, which portray both men and women, never mature but young.

They were quite short individuals: men were around 1.67 m tall, while women were around 1.55 m. They were reasonably well-fed people. The life expectancy was 35 years for men and 30 years for women, in line with those of other Mediterranean peoples of their day. As for their general health, this was often affected by anemia or malaria.

The Minoans were well-proportioned individuals, lithe and slender, animated and attractive. They had a tanned complexion, large, dark eyes framed by thick eyebrows, a straight, arched, or aquiline nose, a well-shaped mouth, thick lips, and prominent chins. They had an athletic, tough physique, rather thin, even skinny, with muscular shoulders, arms, and thighs and slender, wiry legs, giving them a flexible and graceful gait. Some had short hair, while others wore it long, letting their curls fall to their shoulders.

Usually, they wore a perizoma, supported by a wide belt worn very tightly at their waist, or a short skirt with an angled wrap, akin to a kilt. Having a thin waist was characteristic of both Minoan men and Minoan women. To protect themselves from the sun, they covered their heads with a turban, a cap, or a large hat, flat and round. When it was cold, they covered themselves with a long garment and a cloak. When not walking barefoot, they wore a pair of sandals or ankle boots, which could reach the calf, of white or light yellow leather.

The boys went naked and had braided hair. Women, on the other hand, wore very low-cut doublets, which revealed their protruding bosom, with puffed sleeves, and multicolored skirts with a bell shape, narrow at the waist and hanging from the hips. They were rather attractive, had elaborately coiffed hair, white skin, an ample chest, and a proud expression. Both men and women often wore jewelry.

From 1450 BC onward, the Minoan civilization was enriched with elements of the Mycenaean civilization. It flourished for a few more centuries, then declined.

The Mycenaean civilization flourished in mainland Greece from the end of the 17th century BC for around 500 years. It took its name from Mycenae, a city in Argolis (Peloponnese), probably its most important center of influence. It learned and drew everything it could from the Minoan civilization—among other things, a centralized system of government, the architecture of the palaces, and wall decoration—before dealing it a severe blow by invading and occupying Crete and its overseas territories, thereby removing its primacy in mercantile trade.

Meanwhile, another civilization was rising up in the Aegean region, one which is now known as the Trojan civilization after its main settlement. Troy was the capital of a kingdom and controlled access to the Turkish Straits, a fundamental access route to the agricultural and metallic resources of the Black Sea. It was part of the federation of Arzawa and, therefore, part of the Hittite Empire. The latter had its heart in the Hatti Kingdom and its capital in attuša, a city found on the central Anatolian plateau.

Troy had arisen on the layered ruins of at least six cities that had succeeded each other on the same site for thousands of years, thriving on the metal industry and trade, and eventually being destroyed due to an earthquake, a fire, or a war, depending on the era. It was famous for its impenetrable fortifications, and it was a bridge between two worlds: the Mycenaean and, more generally, the Aegean world on the one hand and the Anatolian one on the other.

The site of Troy has been identified with the hill of Hissarlik, found in northwestern Anatolia at the mouth of the Dardanelles. That place has seen numerous civilizations follow one after another, starting with that of Maritime Troy.

The Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations declined shortly after the legendary Trojan War had come to an end after—it is said—it exploded between an Achaean and Mycenaean coalition and the eponymous city.

Despite being struck at their very hearts, they survived the disasters that befell them. The former gave a last sign of life in a general context of renewal, while the latter declined slowly.

For the Mycenaean civilization, the Postpalatial period was its ‘swan song’ (swans, on hearing death approach, ‘dance’ more beautifully and melodically than they ever have before instead of sadly giving up on life). The coup de grâce followed.

But the Mycenaean civilization did not die out. Instead, it transformed and became the basis for the formation of Classical Greece. During the Greek Dark Ages (c. 1050–750 BC)—a murky period, but one full of promise—Greek civilization germinated like a seed of wheat under the winter snow. For this reason, today we no longer tend to think of the Mycenaean civilization as being on the pre-Hellenic horizon but as the initial phase of the history and civilization of the Greeks.

As for Troy, it, too, was reborn in a new form. Indeed, the hill of Hissarlik was later, at different times and in different circumstances, the seat of two other cities: Greek Ilion and Roman Ilium. The Romans considered Ilium as their ancestral homeland due to the legend of Aeneas, the founder of Lavinium (Lazio), the legend of his son Iulus, founder of Alba Longa, near Lavinium, and the legend of Romulus, a descendant of Iulus and the founder of Roma quadrata.

In the ‘dark ages’ of the Iron Age, traces and even the memory of the Mycenaean civilization were lost, so much so that the Greeks of the Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic Ages were unaware of the formative benefits they owed to it. In fact, they did not distinguish between Myth and History and were unable to trace through the sands of time by two or three generations to the era of the heroes of the Theban Wars and the Trojan War, whose deeds were handed down by the storytellers. Nor were they aware of the Minoan civilization or the prehistoric civilizations of Troy.

The Aegean civilizations of the Bronze Age remained buried and forgotten for two millennia. At the end of the 19th century, the German businessman and amateur archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann, Homeric poems in hand, discovered the remains of Troy and the Grave Circles of Mycenae. Later, in the first years of the 20th century, Arthur J. Evans discovered the Minoan civilization and brought it to the attention of an astonished world.

This book traces the rise, mixing, and osmosis of the civilizations of the Minoans, the Mycenaeans, and the Trojans of the Late Bronze Age and the causes of their ruinous fall. Its historical narrative forms a chronologically ordered continuum. It does not aim to provide an exhaustive account but rather to compose a broad and evolutionary picture in which the facts and their connections find their place in their consequentiality. I refer to facts that are inferred from the archaeological evidence, reported in the primary sources, as this is interpreted by archaeologists, or deduced from the reports of ancient historians.

A choice that defines this work is the decision to place the chronology of the volcanic catastrophe of Santorini around 1615 BC, instead of 1450 BC, and the definitive fall of the Palace of Knossos in 1150 BC, instead of 1370/60 BC. The first deviation is based on radiocarbon dating, the second on the sequence of the Mycenaean kings of Crete, as emerges from the ancient literature.

Knossos, Mycenae, Troy is a book that is aimed at an audience made up of both students and scholars of prehistory, ancient history, and archaeology as well as general ‘visitors’ to the subject, and therefore it has a scientific basis but uses language that is accessible to all and is, as such, rather distant from a traditional academic style. Following the example of Indro Montanelli (1909–2001), a great Italian journalist and writer, I start from the idea that, when I write, I have to do it in such a way that it can be understood by anyone. But it is not enough to think that if you don’t understand me, the idiot is me and to behave accordingly. It is also necessary to encourage the reader to read, insofar as this is within the author’s ability. When reporting history, it isn’t possible to ‘be read’ if one fails to combine the scientific solidity of the research with the opportunity to reconstruct the events in the form of an exciting story.¹ It is not necessary to write a historical novel to recount history because history is itself a novel, but the narrative must be compelling.

This book also contains few bibliographic references in order not to get too bogged down (specialists will not need them either). However, for readers wishing to deepen their reading on the subject, I would like to point out that the following volume contains, among other things, extensive and up-to-date bibliographies: A. L. D’Agata, L. Girella, E. Papadopoulou, and S. G. Aquini (eds.), One State, Many Worlds: Crete in the Late Minoan II–IIIA2 Early Period. Proceedings of the International Conference held at Khania, 21st–23rd November 2019 (Rome: Edizioni Quasar, 2022).

The absolute chronology of the Bronze Age in the Aegean is subject to constant revisions in relation to new data that emerges from ongoing excavations. I have chosen to follow the chronology reported in Table 2.2 in E. H. Cline (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Bronze Age Aegean (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 23.

Another distinguishing aspect of this book is the extensive use that is made of the historical present to represent events and structure the text. The historical present, by way of a reminder, is a verbal form that is used to refer to events that belong to the past but are presented as contemporary or close to the moment of enunciation so as to obtain the effect of a perspective approach and an actualization of the events narrated.

I would like to thank Julie Gardiner for having placed her trust in this book, the whole of her team at Oxbow Books, and the translator, editor, and proofreader of the work, Anthony Wright, who took care of the manuscript brilliantly. Preparing illustrations is a significant task, and I am obliged to Edoardo Aguilar from Studio Aguilar, Milan, Italy, for making the maps.

Natale Barca

Trieste, September 2022

---

¹ A. Schiavone, in A. Carioti, Storici in cerca di lettori, in "Corriere della Sera", 21 April 2013, 10.

Fig. 1. The Mediterranean Sea in the Bronze Age

Fig. 2. The Aegean Sea in the Bronze Age

Introduction: The geographical context

Crete

Crete is positioned latitudinally between the Cyclades archipelago and Africa, separating the Aegean Sea from the Libyan Sea. At 8,336 km², it is the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and Corsica. It stretches for around 250 km from west to east and up to a maximum of 35 km from north to south, and has over 1,000 km of coastline. It can be circumnavigated in four to five days and crossed on foot, from one end to the other, in seven. It is 95% mountainous, but it is also verdant, especially in the mountains and along its rivers (there are around 40 perennial water courses, streams not included). There are trees, woods and groves, natural forests, and Mediterranean scrub, with fruit trees, vineyards and olive groves, fields of wheat and barley, bushes with berries, and oleanders with large pink flowers. On the south side, the mountains form a continuous wall, broken only by the plains of Messara and Ierapetra. As such, the cliffs are high and constant, with few openings and landing points. On the northern side, however, the mountains descend to sea level, and the coast is littered with numerous inlets. On the west side of the island, the landscape often consists of expanses of limestone rocks with curved, bare, smooth shapes with grooves. Here, there are no valleys and no surface water, except for short temporary water courses produced by the rains. However, closed basins of all shapes and sizes are frequent: sinkholes, karst fields, wells, temporary lakes, caves, and swallow holes. The larger basins (polje) sometimes stretch for dozens of kilometers and have a flat bottom, suitable for crops or grazing. The cavities are often crossed by streams and feature lakes, stalactites, and stalagmites.

The five main groups of peaks are Sitia, Lasithi, Psiloritis, Amari, and the White Mountains. The mountains of Sitia, at the eastern end of the island, rise to 1,417 m a.s.l. and have three massifs, between which coastal streams and the Zakros and Praisos rivers flow. One of the mountains in Lasithi is Mount Selena (1,559 m), and another is Mount Spathi (2,148 m). It is believed that the birthplace of Zeus can be found in a cave on Mount Spathi. Zeus, we recall, is the Greek god of lightning and the father of the Olympian gods.

In the center of the island rises the Psiloritis and the so-called Cretan Ida to distinguish it from the Trojan Ida (northwestern Anatolia). The highest peaks of the massif rise to 2,456 m and 1,424 m, respectively. The Cretan Ida is covered with snow for three to five months of the year. There are 200 caves and 20 gorges there. One of the caves is the Diktaion Antron, the Diktaian Cave. This is the setting for another myth, that of the infancy of Zeus, the Greek god of the sky, lightning, and thunder, who is said to have grown up among the skilled metallurgists of the Dactyls and Curetes and the lightning-throwers of the Cyclopes. The Idaion Antron was, together with Dodona in Epirus, one of the most important centers of the cult of Zeus.

The true geographical center of the island is constituted by the mountains around Gonies. Further north are the Kouloukonas mountains, which stretch for 35 km, rise up to 1,078 m, and are rich in iron, copper, and lead.

The mountains of Amari, which are lush and have plentiful water, are separated from the Psiloritis by the valley of the Platypotamos and that of the Platanos. It is said that gold can be found there.

The Lefka Ori, or White Mountains, cover an area of 45 × 20 km (48.5 km²) in the southwest of the island. They are covered by woodland, with springs and rivers, and rise up to Mount Pachnes (2,453 m), which is almost as high as the Psiloritis, the difference between them being just 3 m.

Other mountains in the western part of the island are Kadistos to the north, the Viannos mountains to the south, and the mountains of Kolokitha to the northwest, all bare and gray but filled with pastures, game, and hidden caves.

The Asterousia mountains are found in the south of the central region. They stretch for 50 km in latitude and demarcate the southern boundary of the fertile plain of Messara. Their highest peak is Mount Kofinas (1,231 m). Further east of the Asterousia are the uplands of Matala.

Some of Crete’s elevated terrain is rich in surface water, though it is not in its entirety, but this is not the case at all for the plains, which are few and poorly irrigated. The plains’ inhabitants look for water there in wells, at a depth of 5–12 m, and collect rainwater in cisterns.

The most extensive plain is Messara in the central-south, between the Psiloritis to the north and the Asterousia mountains to the south. It stretches for 60 km from east to west and up to 15 km from north to south, and it is crossed by two rivers: the Anapodaris and the Geropotamos. It is very fertile and well cultivated and is used for rearing cattle. At one point, as early as 2100–2000 BC, there was a freshwater lake there, surrounded by the Mediterranean scrub, in which the olive tree and vegetation that thrives in a perennially humid environment prevail. The lake survived until 1200–1100, when it dried up as a consequence of rapid regional climate change—that is to say, a drought, observed elsewhere in the eastern Mediterranean as well—and local tectonic activity, though the influence of human intervention cannot be ruled out either. By 1100, it had become a swamp, remaining in this form until around 700.

Other plains worthy of note are the coastal ones of Rethymnon, Pediada, Malia, and Ierapetra.

Some fertile plateaus are covered with snow for half of the year. The mountains of Lasithi surround one such plateau between 840 and 870 m a.s.l. The Lefka Ori enclose another, the Omalos.

The Omalos Plateau and the Samaria Gorge

The Omalos Plateau is enclosed in a circle of rocky mountains. It is found at around 1,200 m a.s.l., it has a trapezoidal form, and is a couple of kilometers long on each side. Originally it was a lake, then the water found an outlet through a cave and the basin dried up. It is a secluded place, and shepherds take their flocks to pasture there in the summer when the air is pleasantly fresh and the skies are clear. In winter, it is covered with snow. There are a few scattered houses, some fields planted with potatoes and cereal crops, and an alpine refuge (Kalergis). From the terrace of the latter, looking west, you can see some high-altitude peaks, half-hidden among the clouds, bare of vegetation. One of these is Mount Gingilos (2,000 m). According to Greek mythology, Zeus would sit there on a throne and descend to the foot of the mountain to bathe in a spring. Crete is an unusual place, one where myth and nature intertwine, and visitors find they are immersed in a supernatural world inhabited by mysterious presences.

Looking down from the terrace, what instantly strikes you is a steep area down among the rocks, and it is impossible to see the bottom of it. It is a very deep corridor-shaped valley with overhanging rock walls. It is called the Faraggi Samarias, and is one of the most rugged and wild places on Crete. This is not the only rift of its kind in the Lefka Ori. Another long, deep canyon that descends down toward the sea is the Agia Irini Gorge. It is 7.5 km long and 500 m deep at its deepest, and you can walk from one end to the other in a couple of hours.

You can descend into the Samaria Gorge and follow it down to the coast, 16 km away, which you will reach in five hours if you walk at a good pace. The itinerary winds through a primordial environment of deep ravines, caves, trees, bushes and shrubs with flowers, aromatic herbs, wildflowers, and springs. The number of different plant species there is in the hundreds. Cypresses and pines prevail among the tall trees. A snake slithers here, a lizard sunbathes there, and a few kri-kri goats climb a steep slope beyond. Kri-kri (agrimi) goats are a rare species native to Crete. They have a long beard, a brown coat, a black chest and legs, and two long, curved horns, similar to those of the ibex. Turning your eyes to the sky, hovering above you are vultures, eagles, and griffons.

At the bottom of the gorge flows a stream with a pleasant murmur. A large spring gushes out in the shade of a plane tree at Neroutsiko. As you proceed, the walls of rock to either side, cloaked in greenery, rise in height, and the gorge becomes deep and narrow. Along the way, there is a spring called Kefalovryso. According to an ancient tradition, a young girl named Britomartis was transformed by Zeus into that very spring of water. Britomartis had invoked the god’s help because King Minos was about to catch up with her after chasing her over mountains and through valleys, eager to possess her.

After Kefalovryso, the chasm narrows dramatically, so much so that its walls nearly touch each other. This place is called Sidiroportes, The Iron Gate, a passage just a few meters wide and several meters deep, which opens up between two sheer rock walls that plunge down from a dizzying height. The sun’s rays only penetrate that passageway for a few minutes a day, so the air channeled through it is cold, making you shiver even in the summer. The place is shady, and large stones, rocks, trees, and bushes are scattered about.

After Sidiroportes, the view opens up. A few more kilometers, and you will arrive at a wide, sandy beach at Agia Roumeli, bathed by the Libyan Sea.

The Cyclades Islands

Situated between Crete (to the south) and mainland Greece (to the northwest), the 220 islands that make up the Cyclades archipelago dot the southern Aegean Sea like a handful of seeds that have been thrown about. Their ostensible center is Delos (3.4 km²), a granite boulder emerging from cobalt-colored waters. The Greek noun kuklos (= circle), from which the name Cyclades derives, is used to mean that an observer standing on Delos, looking around, will have the sensation of being in the center of a circle of similarly emerging lands. It was the Ionians who first used the word kyklos to suggest the idea of a circle of islands surrounding Delos on all sides. The name of the archipelago thus became the Kyklades, or Cyclades.

Delos is an arid and barren strip of land, harsh and rocky, sterile and uncultivated, whipped by the wind and illuminated by blinding light. It is not an island but rather an isle, an islet, a speck of land. Rhenea, which faces it on the opposite side of a narrow channel, is four times larger. Mykonos, beyond a wider tract of sea, is thirty times bigger. Farther away, the undulating profiles of Tinos, Syros, Naxos, Paros, and Ios mark the horizon.

The way the Cyclades are arranged seems chaotic, but it is not accidental. In fact, three main alignments can be identified, two with a northeast to southeast trend and one west to east. The first comprises the islands of Andros, Tinos, Mykonos, Naxos, and other smaller islands, and it can be considered as the extension of Euboea, the large island overlooking Boeotia in central Greece. The second is constituted by Kea, Kynthos, Serifos, and Sifnos, which seems to be the extension of mainland Attica, the region where Athens is found, bordered to the north by Boeotia. The third, by Folegandros, Sikinos, and Ios. Gyaros, Syros, Paros, Antiparos, and Despotiko are found between the first and second groups. Milos, Kimolos, Santorini, Anafi, and some remote islets close the archipelago to the south.

The territory of the Cyclades is mountainous and the terrain is predominantly harsh and rocky, but the subsoil is rich in precious stones (above all, Parian marble, pure white, hard, semi-translucent, and excellent to work with, used in both sculpture and architecture) and other minerals (obsidian, copper, gold). The vegetation is low and sparse due to the climate, which is dry for most of the year, the rarity of springs, the absence of perennial streams, and the violently gusting winds. The climate is sufficiently humid to support lush vegetation, but this is sometimes reduced to mere specks of green dotting an otherwise parched, ocher-colored landscape. The only wooded regions are on Andros and Naxos. Of the surviving groves, olive groves and vineyards are the most extensive.

At one time, the environment was more verdant. Its degradation began at the beginning of the Bronze Age, when the voracity of some species of livestock—goats, pigs—led to the contraction of woodland undergrowth coverage and the increased exposure of the land to erosion. The most severe problems were caused by deforestation in the classical era.

The colors are bright, almost violent, everywhere in the Cyclades, and the scenery is harsh and steep. On the plus side, the sun shines all year round, and the weather is never extreme. In winter, the temperature never drops below zero, and snowfall is a rare and localized phenomenon. The critical roles around here are played by the sea and the wind.

The sea is a ubiquitous, essential presence, and it is a perennial invitation to travel, born both from the region’s insularity and from the fact that the Cyclades are an ideal place for encounters and exchanges between Asia, Africa, and Europe. In winter, the wind blows from southern directions and is warm and humid. In the summer, however, it blows mainly from the northwest, often in strong gusts. The summer winds are called the meltemi. They are fresh and keep the temperature moderate. As if linked to the visible motion of the sun, they pick up in the morning and quieten down again at sunset. They lash the high, hanging cliffs mercilessly, raise swirls of sand from the shorelines, shake bushes violently, bend the trees, and churn up the sea, which foams and boils. To get shelter from the meltemi anywhere in the Cyclades, landings are almost always made on the southern coastlines, and, to break up its impetus, the villages are labyrinths of narrow streets. At sunset, however, when the last glimmer of the sun has gone out over the sea, an unparalleled peace spreads through the air, which, having now calmed down, seems to be fixed, immovable. From this comes a profound feeling of stillness, which relaxes the soul and the limbs, gently preparing them for the night’s rest. This can be felt even on Santorini, where the sunset is a real spectacle. The most famous place on the island from which to admire the sunset is the small village of Oia. One of the most popular points is located next to the old castle, where you will get the most wonderful view.

Santorini is the largest of the southernmost Cycladic Islands. It has an area of 110 km² and has an almost circular shape, indented by two inlets in the southwest and the northeast. There are four volcanic cones there, rising to a height of 400 m.¹ The coasts are steep, with few beaches. This is one of the two Cycladic Islands of volcanic origin, the other being Milos, which we will look at shortly (the other Cycladic Islands have a different geological nature and instead are outcrops of metamorphic rocks). The inlets that cut into the southwestern and northeastern coasts of the island are calderas.² The largest was formed before 54000 BC, the other around 18300 BC.

The inlet that cuts into the northern coast of Milos is also a caldera and gives this island a typical horseshoe shape. Milos is located quite far south, at the western end of the alignment of Ios, Sikinos, and Folegandros, which is south of the group of Naxos, Paros, and Sifnos.

Both Santorini and Milos are islands where the land is particularly fertile. This has allowed them to develop agriculturally. Each of these islands also has another major natural mineral resource. In the case of Santorini, this is pozzolana, a material used in the building sector. In the case of Milos, it is obsidian, a black, shiny, volcanic glass which, if struck, shaves off sharp-edged flakes, suitable for use as blades and points and therefore as knives, scratchers, javelin heads, and arrowheads. The volcanic glass of Milos has been actively exported since the Mesolithic.

The Cyclades are just one of the archipelagos of the Aegean Sea. Another is the Dodecanese, a string of islands that lies east of the Cyclades, off the coast of the Aegean region of Anatolia. The Greek colonists subdivided this region into three parts, according to the Greek dialect spoken there: Caria, Ionia, and Aeolia, going in order from south to north. Aeolia covered the area between the mouth of the Hellespont (Strait of the Dardanelles) and the mouth of the Hermos (present-day Gediz). The extreme northwestern offshoot of Anatolia (the Aegean coast of the Marmarica region), which extends north of Aeolia, from the Dardanelles toward the northeast, was called the Troad by the Greeks. The Dardanelles is the stretch of water that separates southeastern Europe from Asia, connecting the Aegean region to the coasts of the Black Sea (Georgia, the Caucasus, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey) via the Sea of Marmara and the Bosphorus. The Greeks will call this the Hellespont.

The Troad (northwestern Anatolia)

The Troad is a land of gentle hills, carpeted in pine forests, olive groves, and fields of wheat, with large wooded areas and a coastline that veers between gentle and rugged, with rocky promontories and sandy beaches. The coast is bathed by the waters of the Aegean Sea to the west, overlooks the Hellespont to the northwest, and ends in the south on the shores of the Edremit Gulf. The Kasdagh massif (Trojan Ida³) separates the Troad from its hinterland, which is called Mysia. The mountain is covered by oaks, pines, swamps, and streams, and is a refuge for bears, wild boars, and wolves, as well as many resident and migratory birds. A coastal plain, continually battered by strong and cold northeastern winds and watered by various rivers, looks out over the intense blue of the Hellespont.

An unstable geological structure

Crete is a large island, favored by nature and by its position halfway between three continents: Asia, Africa, and Europe. It has mountains, forests, springs and streams, and a climate favorable for crops. The Cyclades—numerous, small, and scattered—also benefit from the advantage of finding themselves on the main merchant traffic routes between Asia and southeastern Europe. They are therefore naturally suited to the role of a commercial intermediary. From prehistory up to the end of the Roman Empire, this role was principally played by Delos, which, in Roman times, became a free port, a financial center, the epicenter of the cult of Apollo, and a large market for cereals and slaves. The Troad is a region rich in fertile soils, capable of supporting a large population and supplying agricultural produce for exportation. It is rich in pastureland and metal deposits and controls access through the vital commercial route of the Dardanelles from the west. The potential inherent in all three of these geographical regions means that their prehistoric populations have more significant opportunities for growth and development than others in the eastern Mediterranean. The Achilles heel of these lands is the instability of their geological structure.

To explain what this means, we must first establish the premise that the Earth’s crust is a mosaic where every tile is a plate, and it moves continuously under the pressure of the connective movements of the Mantle. The displacements of the plates are very slow, imperceptible to the naked eye, but are of considerable amplitude if measured over the course of millions of years. When it moves, every plate presses on the nearby plate, causing the masses’ balance to shift and, subsequently, earthquakes. The pressure exerted, in particular, by the African Plate on the Eurasian Plate means that the lands of Italy (excluding Sardinia), the Aegean, Anatolia, and the coastal regions of the eastern Mediterranean are lands where seismic events can cause severe or even very severe economic, social, and environmental damage.

The islands and mainland coasts of the southern Aegean Sea lie at the edge of one of the great fracture lines that cuts along the bottom—in a latitudinal sense—of the Mediterranean Sea. Milos and the nearby islands, in particular, belong to an important volcanic formation called the South Aegean Volcanic Arc, created by the subduction of the African Plate under the Aegean region. This arc spans from the Gulf of Corinth to the west coast of Turkey. The main volcanic areas are represented here by Methana-Poros, Milos, Nisyros, and Santorini. Santorini and Nisyros are found 150 km north and 150 northeast of Crete, respectively. Nisyros is the only area that still shows significant volcanic activity. What is of concern is not so much the danger of an eruption but the seismic activity related to volcanism.

The Troad is subject to earthquakes like the rest of the Aegean-Anatolian region.

Near Crete, there is a hotbed of constant instability and a source of tectonic activity between Mount Juktas and the island of Skandia, 12 km off the northern coast. It should be added that Crete is a young land, geologically speaking (it is just 1 million years old), and this means it is subject to discontinuous and repeated tectonic movements, which have the effect of deforming the coasts and the mountains, causing them to rise or fall by several meters. It can be stated that Crete is hit by earthquakes of a certain intensity every year, which have their epicenter in the depths of the island itself or in the surrounding sea. As the case may be, the seismic waves can be surface or subsurface. Sometimes, they are very powerful.

As such, the Aegean region is crossed by significant fault lines. Numerous earthquakes with a magnitude of 6.5 (strong enough to destroy modern buildings) occur frequently here. The major shock is followed by an earthquake swarm, that is, a long sequence of micro-aftershocks of light or medium intensity that gradually decrease in intensity over a period of months until they dissipate entirely. It might also be that a major earthquake is followed by others, days, months, or even years later, somewhere else on the same fault line. In such cases, we speak of an earthquake cluster, i.e., a sequence, or even a "seismic