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Minoan Seapower: A Brief Overwiew. 1. INTRODUCTION Around the begining
of the second millenium BC the Minoan civilization, that ...
Submitted by zubisoft on May 18, 2008
Category: History Other
Words: 2748 | Pages: 11
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1. INTRODUCTION
Around the begining of the second millenium BC the Minoan civilization, that had been thriving in the lands Crete during the early Bronze Age, started to pay more attention to the seas of the eastern Mediterranean, initiating a period of great naval development for the minoans.
Of course, they were not the only people to sail these seas, for there were two other strong maritime empires fighting for the hegemony over these waters, the Hittites and the Egyptians, whose balance in seapower could have helped the minoans to establish their supremacy over the Aegean. [1]
Though there were other consolidated powers in the shores of the Mediterranean, the minoans came up with brilliant ship designs and they introduced new technologies in shipbuilding and navigation. As stated in [Casson 1971], such were the improvements introduced by minoan shipwrights that their designs were adopted even by the conservative Egypt and laid the foundations of the future models of Greek warships, becoming the new mainline of nautical development.
This millenium witnessed the apex of the minoan civilization that flourished thanks to the projection of their true seagoing ships, allowing the expansion of the their culture all over the Greek islands and the boost of commerce with all the three continents surrounding the mediterranean: Europe, Asia and Africa, as evidenced by many archaelogical findings [2].
In this work we are going to show how seapower was an important matter for the minoan society through some different points of view.
First, the undefended nature of Crete at the peak of the minoan civilization may be
explained by the naval power of the minoans whose influence was expanded around the islands of the Aegean by means of political, economic and military influence creating an area of peace in the core of the minoan area and a frontier of...
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