The Vanished Minoans
The Minoans, who were later morphed in Greek mythology into the vanished civilization of the legendary Atlantis, had been the Mediterranean’s greatest naval power. They were the dominant force in the Aegean, including what became Greece and the Greek world. A trading power, the Minoans were oriented towards Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean, and were strongly influenced by those civilizations. While the Minoans flourished, the Aegean world in their thrall was by necessity oriented in the same direction, and strongly influenced by the Egyptian and eastern civilizations as well. The Thera eruption weakened Crete and the Minoans sufficiently to create a power vacuum in the Aegean. It was filled by the Mycenaeans in mainland Greece. They went on to conquer Crete and destroy the Minoans, and became the Aegean’s top dogs.
Unlike the Minoans, the Mycenaeans were not focused on trade with Egypt and the Levant. Instead, they were more interested in the colonization of the Aegean, Asia Minor’s west coast, the Black Sea coast, and the western Mediterranean. That change of orientation significantly reduced Egyptian and eastern influences upon the Greeks. The Greek world flourished centuries later, long after the Mycenaeans had themselves vanished. When it did, it did so as a civilization distinct from those of Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean, rather than as extension and outpost of those cultures. Western civilization is founded upon that of the ancient Greeks. Thus, 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.
