URL: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Aegean-civilization
Access Date: August 07, 2019
Additional Reading
General overviews include Emily Vermeule, Greece in the Bronze Age (1964, reissued 1974), the standard work; Hans-Günther Buchholz and Vassos Karageorghis, Prehistoric Greece and Cyprus: An Archaeological Handbook (1973; originally published in German, 1971); Spyridon Marinatos and Max Hirmer, Kreta, Thera, und das mykenische Hellas, 3rd ed. (1976), also available in an English translation of an earlier edition, Crete and Mycenae (1960); William Taylour, The Mycenaeans, rev. ed. (1983); N.K. Sandars, The Sea Peoples: Warriors of the Ancient Mediterranean, 1250–1150 B.C., rev. ed. (1985); and Peter Warren, The Aegean Civilizations (1975, reissued 1989). Ancient Crete is discussed in Arthur Evans, The Palace of Minos, 4 vol. (1921–35, reissued 1964), still basic; Arthur Evans, Mark Cameron, and Sinclair Hood, Knossos Fresco Atlas (1967); Sinclair Hood, The Minoans (1971); and J. Walter Graham, The Palaces of Crete, rev. ed. (1987). John Boardman, The Cretan Collection in Oxford (1961), describes Cretan antiquities in the Ashmolean Museum. The Cycladic civilizations are examined by Jürgen Thimme (ed.), Art and Culture of the Cyclades (also published as Art and Culture of the Cyclades in the Third Millennium B.C., 1977; originally published in German, 1976), an extensive exhibition catalog; Christos G. Doumas, Thera, Pompeii of the Ancient Aegean (1983); and R.L.N. Barber, The Cyclades in the Bronze Age (1987). Ancient civilization on the Greek mainland is the focus of George E. Mylonas, Mycenae and the Mycenaean Age (1966), for the Late Bronze Age and Mycenaean Shaft Grave Circle B; Emily Vermeule, The Art of the Shaft Graves of Mycenae (1975); and J.T. Hooker, Mycenaean Greece (1976). Religion and religious sites are discussed in Martin P. Nilsson, The Minoan-Mycenaean Religion and Its Survival in Greek Religion, 2nd rev. ed. (1950, reprinted 1971), still the standard work; and Bogdan Rutkowski, The Cult Places of the Aegean (1986). Information on ancient pottery and seals may be found in Arne Furumark, The Mycenaean Pottery: Analysis and Classification (1941, reissued 1972); Friedrich Matz et al., Corpus der Minoischen und Mykenischen Siegel (1964– ); and John Boardman, Greek Gems and Finger Rings (1970). Michael Ventris and John Chadwick, Documents in Mycenaean Greek, 2nd ed. (1973), is essential for information on the writing and decipherment of Linear B, including transcriptions, translations, and commentary on selected tablets. For the Aegean Bronze Age as a background to Homer, see the series Archaeologia Homerica: die Denkmäler und das frühgriechische Epos, ed. by Friedrich Matz and Hans-Günter Buchholz (1967– ). Sinclair Hood, The Arts in Prehistoric Greece (1978, reissued 1988), is the best standard work on this subject. William S. Smith, Interconnections in the Ancient Near-East: A Study of the Relationships Between the Arts of Egypt, the Aegean, and Western Asia (1965). M. Sinclair F. Hood Emily D. Townsend Vermeule
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Ancient Italic people
Table of Contents
Introduction
The Etruscans
Other Italic peoples
Ancient Italic people, any of the peoples diverse in origin, language, traditions, stage of development, and territorial extension who inhabited pre-Roman Italy, a region heavily influenced by neighbouring Greece, with its well-defined national characteristics, expansive vigour, and aesthetic and intellectual maturity. Italy attained a unified ethnolinguistic, political, and cultural physiognomy only after the Roman conquest, yet its most ancient peoples remain anchored in the names of the regions of Roman Italy—Latium, Campania, Apulia, Bruttium, Lucania, Samnium, Picenum, Umbria, Etruria, Venetia, and Liguria.
The Etruscans
The Etruscans formed the most powerful nation in pre-Roman Italy. They created the first great civilization on the peninsula, whose influence on the Romans as well as on present-day culture is increasingly recognized. Evidence suggests that it was the Etruscans who taught the Romans the alphabet and numerals, along with many elements of architecture, art, religion, and dress. The toga was an Etruscan invention, and the Etruscan-style Doric column (rather than the Greek version) became a mainstay of architecture of both the Renaissance and the later Classical revival. Etruscan influence on the ancient theatre survives in their word for “masked man,” phersu, which became persona in Latin and person in English.
satyrEtruscan roof tile (antefix) with the head of a satyr, terra-cotta, 4th century bce; in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. Photograph by AlkaliSoaps. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, purchase by subscription, 1896 (96.18.159)
General considerations
Nomenclature
The Greeks called the Etruscans Tyrsenoi or Tyrrhenoi, while the Latins referred to them as Tusci or Etrusci, whence the English name for them. In Latin their country was Tuscia or Etruria. According to the Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus (flourished c. 20 bce), the Etruscans called themselves Rasenna, and this statement finds confirmation in the form rasna in Etruscan inscriptions.
ancient Italic peoplesDistribution of peoples of ancient Italy c. 500 bce.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Geography and natural resources
Ancient Etruria lay in central Italy, bounded on the west by the Tyrrhenian Sea (recognized early by the Greeks as belonging to the Tyrrhenoi), on the north by the Arno River, and on the east and south by the Tiber River. This area corresponds to a large part of modern Tuscany as well as to sections of Latium and Umbria. The chief natural resources of the region, undoubtedly playing a crucial role in Etruscan commerce and urban development, were the rich deposits of metal ores found in both northern and southern Etruria. In the south, in the maritime territory stretching between the first great Etruscan cities, Tarquinii and Caere (modern Cerveteri), the low-lying Tolfa Mountains provided copper, iron, and tin. These minerals also were found inland at Mount Amiata, the highest mountain in Etruria, in the vicinity of the city of Clusium (modern Chiusi). But the most productive area turned out to be in northern Etruria, in the range known as the Catena Metallifera (“Metal-Bearing Chain”), from which copper and especially iron were mined in enormous amounts. The city of Populonia, located on the coast, played a leading role in this industry, as did the adjacent island of Elba, evidently renowned from an early date for the wealth of its deposits.
The forests of Etruria constituted another major natural resource, providing abundant firewood for metallurgical operations as well as timber for the building of ships. The Etruscans were famous, or perhaps infamous, for their maritime activity; they dominated the seas on the western coast of Italy, and their reputation as pirates instilled fear around the Mediterranean. Their prosperity through the centuries, however, seems also to have been founded on a stout agricultural tradition; as late as 205 bce, when Scipio Africanus was outfitting an expedition against Hannibal, the Etruscan cities were able to supply impressive amounts of grain as well as weapons and materials for shipbuilding.