Glossary Society, writing and trade
Aegean
The sea between Greece and Turkey and the lands around it, including Crete, the Cyclades and mainland Greece, home of the Minoans and Mycenaeans.
In Cypriot archaeology 'Aegean' is shorthand for the Greek world to the west, as against the Levant and Egypt to the east and south. Contact ran both ways from the Middle Bronze Age: Minoan Crete gave Cyprus the model for its first script, Mycenaean pottery was imported and imitated in quantity in the Late Bronze Age, and Cypriot copper travelled west.
Whether people from the Aegean settled on Cyprus between about 1200 and 1050 BCE, bringing the Greek language, is one of the island's longest-running debates. Imported pottery alone cannot prove migration; the Arcado-Cypriot dialect shows that Greek speakers did arrive. See the Mycenaeans and Cyprus.
Full entry: The Mycenaeans and Cyprus
Related terms
- Levant
The lands along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, roughly modern Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and Jordan, facing Cyprus to the east.
- Linear B
The syllabic script of the Mycenaean palaces, used to write an early form of Greek on clay tablets and deciphered by Michael Ventris in 1952.
- Arcado-Cypriot
The group of ancient Greek dialects shared by Arcadia in the Peloponnese and by Cyprus, and the form of Greek written in the Cypriot Syllabary.