Ancient Greek civilization is Migrations from the east brought the foundations of new civilizations to the Greek mainland, the island of Crete, and the Cyclades Islands east of the
Peloponnesus. The Minoan civilization and the Mycenaean civilization developed distinctive social structures that are documented in archaeological records. The dominant Mycenaean civilization then declined for a 250-year period known as the Dark Age of Greece. Polis were formed in Greece after Dark Ages and by the 8th century B.C.E. a significant process of urbanisation had begun. The polis was an independent political unit with its own foreign policy, coinage, patron deity, and even calendar. Some of the well known and important poleis were
Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Thebes, …show more content…
A polis is similar to the city-state structure of
Mesopotamian civilization. The Greek poleis had their own set of political, cultural, religious, social and judicial practices. Since poleis were so isolated from each other by mountains, they became largely self sufficient and self-conscious communities. Greeks generally saw their poleis as complete in themselves, not needing to unite with other Greek poleis for more security or fulfillment. The cultural reasons behind the formation of poleis are learning alphabets of
Phoenician culture, adopting artistic skills from the Near East culture and celebrating rituals differently in each local community (79, 80). One example for formation of poleis based on culture is that most of the local communities had their own rituals so if one community was to be combined with other, there will be conflict because both the communities have their own ways of following tradition. The geographical reasons for the rise of poleis are isolation from other local communities in the past, more frequent contact with rivals due to increasing population