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Ugh... these comments... First of all, Greece was not the start of the western civilization. Rome was. They borrowed a lot from Greece (which they eventually conquered) as Greece was more advanced initially. Greeks themselves had borrowed a lot form middle east and north african civilizations/cultures, and initially from the Minonians. The city you mention, Heraklion, was a Minionan city, which fell on a decline (a volcano/earthquake is thought to be the culprit) eventually was conquered by the Myceneans (greek percursors), who themselves were initially 'barbaric' indo-european tribes/civilization. Greeks were able to adopt, curate and evolve a lot of the knowlege of their neighbors and eventually ascend into being a prominent cultural place and create their own governing system, which was direct democracy for the main cities (Athens and Thebe), as Sparta had its own weird system, and Macedonia (if you consider it greek) was a traditional kingdom. The flow of knowledge is bidirectional, but some places borrowed more from others, and evolved knowledge, which itself was borrowed by other cultures: Early Civilization (Mesopotamia, Babylon) -> Egypt - Hittite - Minonian - > Mycenean -> (Bronze Collapse) -> Classical Greece -> Rome -> Western Civilization Of course I left out a lot of other cultures who contributed to today's 'western knowledge', from the Phoenicians, to Parthian / Persia, to later arabs, and indian and even east asian / chinese indirect contributions. But they were secondary to the flow I described. Even after the split of the Roman empire in two, Greece was on the Eastern part, so it is are more of a south-east / mediterranean culture/civilization, and not necessary western pre se, but it gave a lot to the western world. |
Possibly, but if the question is "where in the western world did history start", Greece seems like a fine answer, since 1) it's unquestionably a part of the western world, and 2) history starts with writing, and Mycenaean Greeks are (at least off the top of my head) the oldest culture in the western world the writings of which we can read. So that's the beginning of western history, even if not the root of its civilization.