| Term | Definition |
|---|
| Heinrich Schliemann | wealthy German businessman turned archaeologist - discovered Troy |
| Mycenae | in Southern Greece - tradition held to be the city of King Agamemnon, the leader of the Greek invasion of Troy |
| Arthur Evans | discovered the "palace" complex of Knossos on Crete |
| Knossos | was the center of a powerful naval state - called Minoan by Evans after the mythological king of Knossos, Minos |
| Thera | island 80 miles north of Crete - has a large town preserved by volcanic ash; picture of Minoan town-life |
| Minoan Civilization | sharp distinctions in wealth, privilege, and status; religion centered on fertility and the goddess |
| Mycenaean Civilization | greatly influenced by the Minoans; randomly wealthy families |
| shaft graves | deep rectangular pits into which the bodies were lowered - earlier graves contained many bronze weapons but no jewelry; later graves contained vast fortunes (shows growth in wealth) |
| Pylos | has a great palace |
| Michael Ventris | British amateur linguist and cryptologer who broke the linear B code - he worked from the idea that the signs stood for whole syllables and that the language might be Greek, not Minoan. Proved that 1) Greek was language of Myceneans 2) Myceneans had adapted the Cretan Linear A script to their own Greek language for the same purpose as the Minoeans had 3) Myceneans were ruling in Crete by the 15th century |
| Hittites | ever-expanding empire in Anatolia; huge territorial state |
| Ahhiyawa | phonetically resembles Achaeans, the Greeks who conquered Troy in Homer's epics - refers to mainland Greece; their kings were treated as the Hittite King's equal |
| Franchthi Cave | cave where the Stone Age Grecians lived - has enabled archaeologists to reconstruct stone age greek life |
| domestication | watershed in human history - practices of agriculture and stock raising were necessary condition for development of complex organization |
| Linear B | prehistoric Greeks left written records except for these tablets |
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