In the 10th century B.C. during the late Dark Ages of Ancient Greece,
after centuries of cultural decline and migrations a glimpse of hope appeared on the horizon. A
city called Lefkandi in the island of Euboea began trading with the Near East. It was the first greek
city to do so after 250 years of isolation. This was the beginning of the greek cultural revival.
The greeks encountered new and interesting cultural aspects of the near eastern civilizations
as well as new technologies and products. Lefkandi mostly traded with the Phoenicians, maritime
merchants of the Levant who had started expanding in the Mediterranean in search of new trade routes
while establishing new colonies. With more trading routes opening gradually into the greek mainland
and coasts the population started to increase and new settlements were established. As the increasing
wealth enhanced their power, the local chief or chiefs of the secluded communities grew stronger.
Soon villages grew into towns and towns grew into cities which in turn led to the formation of the
first city-states. They were quite different from each other especially in the beginning.
These city-states were created by the merging of villages or towns. Some of them already had the
size of a city, like Athens each city state valued its autonomy and celebrated its own festivals.
There were two different systems of government in the first city-states, monarchy and oligarchy,
with the latter being more popular. It is important to note that despite the formation
of the city-states in some regions, most of the greeks still held on to the tribal ruling system.
All the city-states had two things in common, they formed their own institutional systems
and they were all organized around an urban center. While a region would have many towns
and villages, these would simultaneously form a part of the city-state. The citizens of all
settlements big and small would participate in the meetings that took place in the capital.
Trade relations with the phoenicians influenced the greeks who began building ships like the
phoenician ones, which were good for trade and transport throughout the Mediterranean.
This new type of ship would help them travel through the Aegean swiftly and soon they would once
more establish a large trading network in the eastern mediterranean. But the ship's structure
was not the most important phoenician influence. The greeks also studied the phoenician writing
system which was similar to the other writing systems of the Levant. It was not comprised of
ideograms but rather a phonetic writing system with letters that represented sounds. But the
problem with the phoenician system was that it had letters only for consonants so the greeks used the
phoenician letters that were now pronounced in the greek language and converted them to vowels.
For the first time they created a writing system that represented speech in an explicit manner.
This new form of writing was very different from the Mycenaean Linear B system as it
had much fewer letters, it conveyed speech accurately and so it was much easier to learn.
Needless to say the new alphabet was very soon adopted by the rest of the greeks.
After its spread, the alphabet took form in three different versions, the eastern alphabet, the
southern alphabet and the western alphabet. Though there was little difference between
them, it should be noted that the western version was introduced in the italian
peninsula and would later evolve into the latin alphabet but this is a story for another time.
At first the greeks were writing from the right to the left like the phoenicians did but later
they would adopt a form of bi-directional writing which was called Boustrophedon,
changing orientation after every sentence.
This form was gradually abandoned and by the 6th century B.C. all the greeks were writing from
left to right. The ancient greeks had as many differences as much as they had similarities.
Firstly their separate tribes had different dialects, religious festivals and calendars. Furthermore the
city-states had their own religious festivals and their own rulers or ruling families.
As for the common characteristics, it should be noted that they all spoke greek albeit in
different dialects. They also worshipped the same gods, the folklore myths and legends were very
similar. They used by and large the same writing system and they all had colonies in the Aegean
and in Anatolia. The religion aspect was very important as there were sites and locations that
were recognized as sacred by all the greeks. The most prominent and famous was the oracle at Delphi.
Greeks met frequently at these sacred places where it was forbidden to engage in any combat or shed
blood. Arguably, the second most important sanctuary was in Olympia, where the olympic games took place
in which all the greeks could participate. We will focus on that in the next video.