Introduction to Pre-Hellenistic Greece - Part 1

Over the last one hundred years, historians along with archeologists, have discovered much more about ancient Greece. The last one hundred years has been very exciting with its discoveries regarding antiquity.

Renaissance and Enlightenment philosophers and thinkers became interested in the writings of ancient Greek authors. Plato, Socrates, Thucydides, Aeschylus and several others had their works studied in great detail. The Enlightenment revolved around ancient Greek and Roman writings and a whole new world of thought and rationalization were made possible. The advances in medicine, astronomy, all fields of science and many other fields, both scientific and sociological, came about because of the examination of ancient Greek and Roman writings, then expanding on that knowledge with more recent methods and thought.

However, few people realize that Renaissance and Enlightenment thinkers, as well as people in our own time strictly limit the period of ancient Greece they speak about to fifth century B.C. Hellenistic Greece. It may surprise many who are not enthusiastic students of ancient Greece to know that there was more to ancient Greece history than this brief period of Hellenistic (taken from the ancient Greeks calling themselves Hellenes) culture. The ancient Greeks were descendants of a people we now call Mycenaeans and were responsible for the first cultural ancient Greek accomplishments. The Hellenistic accomplishments were the second of ancient Greece's cultural accomplishments.

The Mycenaean civilization is inaptly named. Strictly speaking, Mycenaeans would refer to the people of the city called Mycenae. To maintain the delineation, we now refer to Mycenaeans as people who made their home in what is now Greece in the Late Bronze Age or 2200 to 1100 B.C. Very little remains of this great civilization outside of a few paintings, foundations of block stone buildings, ceramic art and sculpture. If it hadn't been for Heinrich Schliemann in the late 1800s, even this discovery would have been lost to us.

In earlier articles, I mentioned Schliemann's discovery of the city of Troy. He took what he had read in Homer's THE ILIAD and determined to satisfy his curiosity that Troy had existed. He was rewarded for his efforts and found the city. Even though Troy was five hundred years older than Homer's Troy, there was no doubt in historians' minds he had made a great discovery. He proved there had been a great civilization before Hellenistic Greece -- a civilization that rivaled it in artistic and technical accomplishments. It is unfortunate that earlier archeologists found a site and dug it up rather than carefully excavated it for artifacts. Treasure seekers, those interested in objects from antiquity and curious tourists and careless early archeologists are all to blame for the loss of precious knowledge regarding the artifacts from almost long-lost civilizations. Much of what would have led to insights regarding peoples --ornaments of all kinds and cups--have been melted for fillings, coins and modern jewelry. The artifacts which have been lost were mainly to be found in the tombs of the dead and in luxurious now-excavated palaces. It is heartrending to think of all the artifacts that have been irredeemably lost. Historians will never be able to study them to improve or revise their knowledge of late Bronze Age Greece.

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