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Foxy
10-12-2011, 12:22 PM
Geography of the Mediterranean region

The sea of the thousand seas
According to F. Braudel, what we call Mediterraneum and looks like a homogeneous breack in the earth's crust is actually a very complicated region, divisible in no less than 4 subregions.
- The Black Sea area: a small patch of land, similar to a natural gate, at the Dardanelles isolates this part of the Mediterraneum from the major basin.
- The Adriatic area: the Straits of Otranto divides the Adriatic Sea from the major basin. The Straits is large only 70 km from Otranto (Italy) to Albania. The whole area was in past called also "Lake of Venice".
- The Aegean area: marked at south by the Isle of Crete, this portion of the Mediterranean divides Greece from Anatolia and it is a natural boundary between Europe and Asia.
- The Tyrrhenian area: delimited at south by Sicily, at west by Sardinia and Corsica and at East by Italy, this portion of the Mediterranean Sea is situated were the African and the European Plates meet, generating sismic phenomena.

According to F. Braudel, what is at East of the Straits of Otranto and at East of Sicily is in Eastern Europe, who is at West of them is also in Western Europe.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/61/Mediterranian_Sea_16.61811E_38.99124N.jpg/800px-Mediterranian_Sea_16.61811E_38.99124N.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/Black_Sea_map.png/786px-Black_Sea_map.png

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1d/Adriatic_Sea_map.png/441px-Adriatic_Sea_map.png

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f0/Tyrrhenian_Sea_map.png/441px-Tyrrhenian_Sea_map.png


North and South Mediterraneum
Always according to F. Braudel, the Mediterranean Sea has been a crossroad of cultures because of its position, but the major differences remain between the northern coasts and the southern coasts, both culturally and geographically.

Geographically, the main characterist of the European side is its mountainous chains, very close to the sea, so close that sometimes it seems that they are falling in it: in Spain Pyrenees, in Italy the Alps, that especially on the Ligurian coast are just over to the sea, and the Appennines; in the Balkans the Balkan Mountains and the Dinaric Alps, in Greece the Pindus and Mount Olympus.
80% of Greece and 76% of Italy are covered by mounts and hills.

On the other hand, most of the Southern coast is flat, with exceptions in Morocco and Turkey, where are found the Atlas chain and the Taurus Mountains. But from Tunisia to Lebanon, the Southern coast is flat and the predominant colours are yellow and ochre of the desert, whereas it is very difficult to distinguish a trait of Greek coast from, for exemple, a trait of the Italian, Croatian or Spanish one.

Seen from the satellite, the two sides of the basin present very different looks:

http://xoomer.virgilio.it/febbre/images/Mare%20Mediterraneo.jpg


The climate
The Mediterranean area is often thought to be the paradise of tourists, because also of its climate. Probably it is the main characterist of the Mediterraneum and it is pretty similar in all the areas that overlook on the sea.
In summer, a hot and dry stream from Sahara evelop the sea, creating the famous azure skies of the day and the stars are well visible and brighting during the night. The whole area becomes the paradise of water sports and attracts tourists from all over the world.
For other 6 months, instead, the oceanic pressure generates a cold season: storms and blizzards are common, the sea becomes grey and dim like the Baltic Sea and gusts hit the coasts. Rivers increase quickly their flows, floodings are frequent.

Life in the Mediterranean region is not easy and boucolic as it has often been depicted. All had to be built, and in this our ancestors and the old civilities of the Mediterraneum have been magisters. It needed a great discipline to make the soil productive and to conquest the progress.
Until some decades ago the major plague of the coasts were marshlands and malary. The oldest tries of drainage were made in Spain by Arabs; in Sicily, the wonderful Golden Valley (Conca D'Oro), a paradisiac garden of oranges and lemons, was possible only after the drainage of the XVI and XVII century.

Most vegetables that are cultivated around the basin today are not indigenous. Except wheat, olive tree, pine and vineyard, all the other products today celebrated by local cuisines have been imported: tomato from Chile, aubergines from India, mais from Mexico, citrus fruits, peaches and apricots from Persia, prickly pears from Mexico, beans from southern America.

Foxy
10-12-2011, 09:14 PM
HISTORY OF TRADES

FEW FOOD MANY TRADES
One of the major problems of the Mediterranean area has been at lenght the shortage of food. Paradoxally one of the most celebrated stereotypes about the Mediterranean countries is that their peoples like to eat and use to do lavish banquets.
Actually banquets were a prerogative of a very small portion of the society: most random people used to have very few food and the traditional mediterranean holiday banquet is nothing if compared to an English or a German holiday dinner.
As we have seen, most products that today are found in the Mediterranean area are not indigenous. Only wheat, vineyards and oil are. Therefore on the table of these peoples only 3 products are always present: bread (that in many languages, like Italian, means also "food"), vine and oil. Always? Not always.
A famine, a bad crop could threaten even the only real food: the wheat, and therefore even the bread .
Famines, like malary and plague have at lenght been the major nightmares of the basin.

An other characterist of the Mediterranean sea is that it is one od the oldest seas of the planet, and therefore it is naturally fatigued. It is poor of fish and offers very little food.
Just think that the whole fishing of the Mediterranean is just 1/3 of that of Norway alone! No surprise that today Mediterranean peoples eat fish, but it is mostly from the Atlantic ocean.

On the Southern coasts of the Mediterranean situation is even worse. Islam has introduced dietary habits that limit even more the access to food by local peoples. Swines are the only animals that, starting from the late Middle Age, have brought some meat on the tables of mediterranean peoples, but it is forbidden by Islam. Wine is also a good source of calories, but also this is forbidden by Islam. And to conclude, muslim cuisine doesn't like very much sea fruits. So the Southern Mediterranean has lost also the opportunity to improve its diet, while the Northern side has recently far improved its own.

Trades
Sea has been useful, on the other hand, to develop trades. For centuries the peoples of the Mediterranean simply didn't feel the need to go out of the familiar basin, exploring the ocean. For the old means of carrying, the basin appeared 2-3 times larger than how it looks to us modern. In Middle Age a travel by ship from Catalunya to Anatolia lasted at least 9 days. Stops were made very often, by port cities. Languedoc in France was full of them.
But, due to its position, the country that was more interested in explorying and controlling the basin was without doubt Italy.
The Northern side of the basin was therefore sprinkled with harbour cities, in which was vivid the commerce. The City par excellence was Venice.
It controlled the whole traffics from Levant and was the only seller of the products to Germany. This made Venice the richest city of Europe. The Anseatic League was just an imitation of the free Italian cities controlling the trades in the Mediterranean.

On the other hand relations with the southern coast have been less friendly. Mediterranean was easily crossable, especially in spring and summer, for trades but also for wars. The amount of ships crossing it was great, but to move them all there were two big needs:
-wood to build the ships;
-slaves to move the oars.

Apparenly whole regions of the Mediterranean have been deforested to obtain the needed wood, and slaves in Italy were often taken from prisons. One of the words that Italian uses to refers to prison is "galera", that is simply the old Italian form of galley. Prisoners were put on galley to oar, their maintenance was this way cheaper and they were useful to the city. But sometimes oarsmen were free men who, to escape famine or misery, decided to be enrolled on galleys as oarsmen.



Venetian Galley
http://www.salpan.org/Immagini/Lepanto%20Galea%20veneziana.jpg

Foxy
10-15-2011, 12:54 PM
The Dawn

Ancient Egypt and Crete

Everybody knows that civilization started in Middle East, in Mesopotamia, and the first cultures were essentially fluvial. The Mediterranean area was still far, Mesopotamia is a remote region, with which the peoples around the basin have no contact at all.
The first contacts with the high culture of Mesopotamia happened via Egypt. Egypt is the first country of the Mediterranean to emerge from the obscurity of history; yet Egypt was far more a fluvial country rather than a sea one. Its commercial main artery was Nile that linked Low Egypt with Nubia (Northern Sudan) and, via Nubia, with black Africa. The High Egypt was indeed an important crossroad for the materials coming from Africa, mostly ivory, ebony, metals and the most precious, gold.
Yet Egypt was a discrete country: it used to have almost no contact with the rest of the basin. It was all wrapped in itself and only sporadically took relations with other countries.

At the beginning of the 2nd millennium B.C. something changed. A lively and perky civilization was flourishing in Crete. It was a merchantile culture, very mediterranean, opened to the other civilizations and apparently friendly: archeological finds witness that its cities-palace had no defensive wall, like if Cretans felt that no threat could come from the sea to menace them. In Cretan frescos women wear dresses of brighting colours, priests walk among lilies; all seems to be beautiful and positive. It is in this peace and joy that stays the charme of the Cretan culture.
Even Egypt, usually so close and shy, opens its harbours to Crete and starts a vivid commerce with it.

But during the XII century B.C. this civilization simply disappears, Egypt stops its trades, the whole Mediterranean lives a period of paralisis. Cities are destroyed, cultures deleted, and we still ignore the cause of what is today called the Hellenic Middle Age.
Of all the centuries, the XII is the most mysterious.
An old theory suggested that the cause of this disruption was the arrival of the last Indo-European people in the region of the East Mediterranean (the Dores). According to this theory the arrival of this warlike people caused the flight of natives from various parts of the Mediterranean to other areas of the same basin, and these peoples were later known as "Peoples of the Sea". Now, thanks to the radio-carbon dating, we know that Dores arrived only a century later the collapse of the Cretan civilization, therefore they were not the cause. Someone suggests that then the cause was possibly a natural disaster: a earthquake seems the most plausible event.

Ancient Egypt

http://www.archaeogate.org/spid/cat_cartinegeografiche/03.jpg

Cretan frescos

http://magazine.tripshake.it/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/cnosso2.jpg

http://www.summagallicana.it/lessico/c/Cnosso%20il%20principe%20dei%20gigli.jpg

The Mediterranean Far West

Two centuries later (VIII century B.C.) the scenario that we have under our eyes is totally changed. Peoples from East Mediterranean are now progressively moving westward, following two main lines: Phoenicians, from modern Lebanon, start the colonization of the southern coast, Greeks move instead along the northern coast, building colonies in Italy, southern France and Spain, but also in Turkey and along the Black Sea sub-area. Some places, like Sardinia, Sicily and Spain, are touched by both, but approximately we can say that Greeks expand in Europe, while Phoenicians in Africa, starting the break of Mediterranean in two different and opposite cultures.

Phoenician colonies

http://www.smpatrizi2003.altervista.org/cartina_fenici.bmp

Greek colonies

http://www.utexas.edu/courses/greeksahoy!/greek_colonies_550.jpg

For their time, that was a real anti-litteram conquest of the West, as both the peoples were aimed to find a better living in the West. The West was, in their eyes, a large and immense space, still flooting in the obscurity, savage, wild and barbaric.
The colonies they established increased their power, surpassing very soon their respectively mother-countries. For Pheonicia Carthago became far richer and more powerful than the original capital: Tiro. Carthago will be 10 times bigger than Tiro, a real New York of the time. Syracuse, Sibaris and Kroton became so rich and beautiful that Greeks will call their territories in southern Italy "Megale Hellas", the Great Greece.

Carthago

Phoenicians were a semitic people, whose witnesses dates back until the XXI century B.C. Originally they settled the Eastern side of the Mediterranean, where today there is Lebanon. They were mostly a sailor people, their settlements are for the most little cities rising on small islands or on the banks of Phoenicia. Such cities live of trades and industry. Phoenicians are forced by the geography of their land to commerce with other peoples, they are specialized in goldsmith's art and in the manifacturing of textiles. They exctract a special coloration from a mollusc called Murex that allows them to create wonderful textiles from violet to pink. They are demanded and valued very much in the whole Mediterranean.

Their main city is Tyre (southern Lebanon), that has two important harbours: a nothern one connects it with Sidon, a southern one is used for trades with Egypt. Their routes touched the whole Levant, but they move further westward, arriving until Gibraltar and, later, exploring for the first times the shores beyond the Hercules Columns. They also had trades in the Indian Ocean. Today we can compare their civilization with that of colonial Holland.

Carthago was at the beginning a Phoenician crossroad for trades between Phoenicia and Spain. In the VII century Carthago has become a metropolis and its motherland is under the attacks of Assirians. The main Phoenician cities resist, but all is lost when Assirians occupy Egypt.
When Phoenicia is conquered, Carthago is still prosperous, as it is not threaten at its shoulder by gigantic empires. Its position, besides, helps the commerce. Around 450 some Carthaginian ships, led by Hamilcon, explore the north atlantic shores, arriving until Great Britain. Meanwhile some cities of the Northern African coast pass under the rule of Carthago: among these Algeri, Gouraya, Tenes and Collo.

http://www.giuseppina.org/classequarta/STORIA/FENICI/territorio20copy.jpg

Carthaginian colonies and routs.

http://www.larapedia.com/storia_fenici/fenici_storia_clip_image001.jpg

http://www.allaboutgemstones.com/images/semiprecious_glass_phoenician_beads.jpg

Siginulfo
10-15-2011, 01:27 PM
Can you talk about the Dorian Invasion?

Foxy
10-15-2011, 01:35 PM
Can you talk about the Dorian Invasion?

Ok, for this part I have followed a Braudel's book that doesn't focus very much about the Dores. Next time I'll use a Montanelli's book and I will give a good account about them before speaking of Rome. ;)

Foxy
10-16-2011, 09:16 PM
As promised

Dorians, from the Hellenic Middle Age to Troy

Who were the Dorians?

Before the arrival of Dorians we cannot speak of a Greek culture: nor the Greek language nor the Greek people existed yet. Cretans and the other pre-Dorian peoples spoke a mysterious language that was not indo-European and was totally different from Greek. It became Greek only after the arrival of the Dores.

In the past it was thought that Dorians were a people of Hellenic stock and therefore similar to the other peoples living in the Greek peninsula. According to this theory they arrived from the Thessaly.

Now we know for sure that Dores didn't arrive from Thessaly but through Thessaly, and they were deeply different from all the other previous peoples: Cretans, for example, were a sailor people, for them Greece was not limited only on the mainland, rather it included also all the dozens of isles and archipelagos of the Aegean sea.
Dorians, on the contrary, were a land people who established their dominion on the mainland, and at the beginning they didn't put neither a oar in the sea.

Dorians were an Indo-European people from the Danubian region, who moved southward, establishing in Illiria, Epirus and Thessaly for the most. From here they moved even southernmore, reaching Peloponnesos.
Very likely they belonged to the nordic stock and melged later with the local people. Their cultural influx was very important because, after their arrival, the whole Greece started to speak an Indo-European language divided in 3 dialects: Doric, Jonic and Attic. These three were grouped in a over-regional common language, called Koiné, that is what we today call "classical old Greek".

Troy: history from the legend

In 1871 a German, a bit mad but we a great love for Greece, found the ruins of Troy. His name is Heinrich Schliemann. Until that moment it was thought that Troy was just a legend, now we know that it was history.

Troy was very likely a city founded in Asia Minor by a group of Cretans escaped from their motherland. It was very strategic because it stayed over the Dardanelles and controlled all tha trades between the Aegean area and the Black Sea area, at the time one of the richest zones of the basin.
Although Dorians were not sailor people, they were warrior and decided to attack Troy. Probably Helen really existed and was the excuse for starting a war at lenght planned.
What we know is that Troy was destroyed and since that moment the history of Greece becomes more and more well-known.

Doric cities in Greece and out of Greece

Dorians began therefore to cross the sea, but they remained always a land people. This is an important detail because before the Dorians came poleis didn't existed.
In Greece Dorians founded various cities: Corinthus, Megara and Sparta were all Doric poleis. During the VII century these cities were active in the process of colonization. They founded cities in Italy, Northern Africa and Asia Minor.

In Italy Corinthus founded Syracuse (Sicily), that later at its turn founded an other colony in central Italy: Ancona (Marche) + Adria (Apulia). Sparta founded Taranto (Apulia). Syracuse, Taranto and Agrigento were the most popolous Greek colonies. Of these only Agrigento (Agrakas) wasn't a Doric colony but Jonic one.


DIALECTS SPOKEN IN GREECE AND SOUTHERN ITALY

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0f/AncientGreekDialects_%28Woodard%29.svg/660px-AncientGreekDialects_%28Woodard%29.svg.png

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1d/Magna_Graecia_ancient_colonies_and_dialects.svg/490px-Magna_Graecia_ancient_colonies_and_dialects.svg.pn g

The maps show that the colonies in Italy were only Doric, Acheans and Jonian speaking.

Peoples and families that claimed to descend from Troians

The amount of peoples that according to the mythe would descend from Troyans is gigantic, to underline the charme that this episode had on various cultures. Here the list of the peoples who claimed to descend ethnically from Troyans:

- Romans: Romolo and Remo, mythical founders of Rome, would descend from a Troyan warrior called Enea.
- Franks.
- Elims (a people of Western Sicily).
- Scandinavian and Islandic ancient kings (according to various poets, among whom also Snorri Sturlusson, their royal families descended from a King of Turkey, meaning the King of Troy).
- Turks.
- Venetes (according to their legend, a Troyan called Antenore led some survivors of Troy along the Adriatic, looking for a new fatherland, and founded Padova on Venetic shores).

Siginulfo
10-16-2011, 09:20 PM
Thank you so much! I descend from a noble Doric family that settled in Anatolia, and then in Southern Italy.:D

Foxy
10-16-2011, 09:25 PM
Thank you so much! I descend from a noble Doric family that settled in Anatolia, and then in Southern Italy.:D

Dorians arrived in Greece and from Greece some of them moved to Italy and others to Anatolia. The War of Troy is the first war known in history between Europe and Asia. :thumbs up
Which part of Italy are you from btw?