[masklinn]

> The other story of Heraklion is its great multiculturalism; it exhibits both Greek and Egyptian influences. I am always fascinated when I hear other nerds describe the process of learning Western history as "begin with the Greeks." And we often base Western civilization upon Greek thought, Roman law. At the same time, I am reminded of the story of Thales who supposedly learned his mathematical talents from Egypt. The interconnection between the two worlds seems obvious to me today, and I often wonder the reasons Westerners usually begin (and, for some, end) with the Greeks.

Note that the Greece at the time was not restricted to modern geographical greece: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaic_Greece#/media/File:Gre...

It was mostly a coastal entity (not dissimilar to Portugal during the age of discovery), but there were greek colonies throughout the mediterranean and black seas, with the exception of the phoenician south-west (the southern spain maghreb), as well as Phoenicia proper (the levant)