14. A Catastrophe That Shaped the Western World’s Roots
The Mycenaeans conquered Crete, destroyed the Minoans, and became the Aegean’s dominant power. Unlike the Minoans, the Mycenaeans’ energies were not focused on trade with Egypt and the Levant. Instead, they were more interested in the colonization of the Aegean, the western coast of Asia Minor, the Black Sea coast, and the western Mediterranean. That change of orientation significantly reduced Egyptian and eastern influences upon the Greeks. When the Greek world flourished centuries later, long after the Mycenaeans had themselves disappeared, it did so as a civilization and culture distinct from those of Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean, rather than as extension and outpost of those civilizations. Since western civilization is founded upon that of the ancient Greeks, an argument could be made that today’s western civilization and its impact on the modern world would not exist but for the Thera eruption of the mid-second millennium BC.
