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Results for Melos:

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Melos

CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: One of the Cyclades in the Aegean, famous as a major source of obsidian, whose trade brought wealth to the island. It was used extensively for chipped stone implements in Aegean prehistory from as early as the 10th millennium BC. The island, however, was not inhabited until the 4th millennium BC. At Phylakopi three successive settlements were discovered, of roughly Early Cycladic II, Middle Cycladic, and Late Cycladic respectively. They show increasing influence from the Minoans of Crete, so much so that the third is better regarded as a provincial Minoan town than a native Cycladic one. Nevertheless the island maintained close contact with the Greek mainland, and with the collapse of Crete is came fully into the sphere of the Mycenaeans. The classical polis, destroyed by Athens in 416 BC, centered on the fortified acropolis of ancient Melos.

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Franchthi Cave

CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A prehistoric cave site on the Bay of Argos in the Peloponnese of Greece with dates to c 22,000-10,300 BP. An Epipalaeolithic occupation (c 10,000 BC) was succeeded after an interval by a Mesolithic (c 7500-6000 BC) with dozens of burials and some possible cremations. Excavations at the Franchthi Cave showed that boats already sailed to the island of Melos north of Crete for obsidian by about 13,000-11,000 BC and that the cultivation of hybrid grains, the domestication of animals, and organized community tuna hunts had already begun, marking the transition from hunting and gathering. A little later, the first pottery appeared. Late Upper Palaeolithic artifacts included small backed blades and geometric microliths.

Linear A

CATEGORY: language
DEFINITION: A syllabic script created by the Minoans and used in Crete and on other Aegean islands of Greece during the Neopalatial (early palace) period, c 1700-1450 BC (also c 2000/1900-1400 BC). The script has never been deciphered. It was inscribed on clay tablets as administrative records, as well as on stone (religious) vases and bronze double axes. Sir Arthur Evans named the Linear A and B scripts such to distinguish them from the hieroglyphic which preceded them; Linear A is the earlier of the two. Each is a syllabary, and was written with a sharp point on clay tablets. Linear A is of the Middle Minoan III-Late Minoan I. It is in some ways similar to Linear B and has pictograms reduced to formal outline patterns. Linear A tablets have been found in the palaces of Crete itself and also on the Cycladic islands of Melos, Keos, Kythera, Naxos and Thera.

obsidian

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: hyalopsite, Iceland agate, mountain mahogany
CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: A jet-black to gray, naturally occurring volcanic glass, formed by rapid cooling of viscous lava. It was often used as raw material for the manufacture of stone tools and was very popular as a superior form of flint for flaking or as it is easily chipped to form extremely sharp edges. Obsidian breaks with a conchoidal fracture and is easily chipped into precise and delicate forms. It was very widely traded from the anciently exploited sources in Hungary, Sardinia, Lipari of Sicily, Melos in the Aegean, central and eastern Anatolia, Mexico, etc. Chemical analysis of their trace elements now allows most of the sources to be distinguished (especially by neutron activation and x-ray fluorescence spectrometry), so that the pattern of trade spreading out from each can be traced. Two dating methods have been applied to obsidian: obsidian hydration dating and fission track dating. In Europe, obsidian was exploited extensively from c 6000-3000 BC; after 3000 BC it generally went out of favor for everyday purposes (perhaps as a result of competition from metal tools) but it continued to be used for prestige objects in some areas, especially by the Minoans and Mycenaeans. Obsidian has been quarried and traded by western Melanesians since at least 19,000 bp, with the earliest-used and most important source being that at Talasea on New Britain. Obsidian was also an important trade item in Mesoamerica.

Phylakopi

CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Bronze Age settlement on the island of Melos in the southern Aegean. The site was important because of the exploitation of the source of obsidian on the island. There were three successive cities of the Early, Middle, and Late Cycladic -- the third with ties to Minoan Crete and Mycenaean Greece. Excavations have provided one of the main sources of information about the Cycladic Bronze Age. The Early Cycladic Grotta-Pelos culture was followed by the Middle Cycladic town of c 2000 BC. That town was destroyed in the 18th century BC, but was rebuilt and flourished again, coming increasingly under Minoan influence until the collapse of Minoan power in the mid-15th century BC. Subsequently mainland Mycenaean influence dominated Phylakopi. The administrative center seems to have been a megaron; a Mycenaean cult center has also been found.