[Home]History of Aegean Sea

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Revision 3 . . August 11, 2001 6:03 am by Amillar [Text from 1911 encyclopedia:]
Revision 2 . . May 2, 2001 3:27 pm by ErdemTuzun
  

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Aegean Sea (Greek Aigaion, Turkish Ege) is an arm of the Mediterranean Sea and it is located between Greek peninsula and Anatolia (Asia Minor) of Turkey. It is connected to the Marmara and Black Seas by the Dardanelles and Bosporus. As the birthplace of two ancient great civilizations (Crete and Greece), the Aegean Sea was later inhabited by Persians, Romans, Seljuk Turks and Ottoman Empire. In ancient ages, the Aegean islands have made the area the craddle of civilization and a sample model for today’s democratic states, by providing opportunity for sea travels, trade and exchange of knowledge. The combination of several diverse civilizations of Eastern Mediterranean region has thus been possible with this special geographic feature. The islands can be simply divided into seven groups: the Thracian Sea group, the East Aegean group, the Northern Sporades, the Cyclades, the Saronic Islands, the Dodecanese and Crete.
Aegean Sea (Greek Aigaion, Turkish Ege) is an arm of the Mediterranean Sea and it is located between Greek peninsula and Anatolia (Asia Minor) of Turkey. It is connected to the Marmara and Black Seas by the Dardanelles and Bosporus. As the birthplace of two ancient great civilizations (Crete and Greece), the Aegean Sea was later inhabited by Persians, Romans, Seljuk Turks and Ottoman Empire.

In ancient ages, the Aegean islands have made the area the craddle of civilization and a sample model for today’s democratic states, by providing opportunity for sea travels, trade and exchange of knowledge. The combination of several diverse civilizations of Eastern Mediterranean region has thus been possible with this special geographic feature.

The islands can be simply divided into seven groups: the Thracian Sea group, the East Aegean group, the Northern Sporades, the Cyclades, the Saronic Islands, the Dodecanese and Crete.



Text from 1911 encyclopedia:

AEGEAN SEA, a part of the Mediterranean Sea, being the
archipelago between Greece on the west and Asia Minor on the east,
bounded N. by European Turkey, and connected by the Dardanelles
with the Sea of Marmora, and so with the Black Sea.

The name Archipelago was formerly applied specifically to this
sea. The origin of the name Aegean is uncertain. Various
derivations are given by the ancient grammarians--one from
the town of Aegae; another from Aegea, a queen of the Amazons
who perished in this sea; and a third from Aegeus, the father
of Theseus, who, supposing his son dead, drowned himself in it.

The following are the chief islands: Thasos, in the
extreme north, off the Macedonian coast; Samothrace, fronting
the Gulf of Saros; Imbros and Lemnos, in prolongation of the
peninsula of Gallipoli ( Thracian Chersonese); Euboea, the
largest of all, lying close along the east coast of Greece;
the Northern Sporades, including Sciathos, Scopelos and
Halonesos, running out from the southern extremity of the
Thessalian coast, and Scyros, with its satellites, north-east
of Euboea; Lesbos and Chios; Samos and Nikaria; Cos, with
Calymnos to the north; all off Asia Minor, with the many
other islands of the Sporades; and, finally, the great group
of the Cyclades, of which the largest are Andros and Tenos,
Naxos and Paros.

Many of the Aegean islands, or chains of
islands, are actually prolongations of promontories of the
mainland. Two main chains extend right across the sea---the
one through Scyros and Psara (between which shallow banks
intervene) to Chios and the hammer-shaped promontory east of
it; and the other running from the southeastern promontory
of Euboea and continuing the axis of that island, in a
southward curve through Andros, Tenos, Myconos, Nikaria and
Samos. A third curve, from the south easternmost promontory
of the Peloponnese through Cerigo, Ctete, Carpathos and
Rhodes, marks off the outer deeps of the open Mediterranean
from the shallow seas of the archipelago, but the Cretan
Sea, in which depths occur over 1000 fathoms, intervenes,
north of the line, between it and the Aegean proper.

The Aegotu itself is naturally divided by the island-chains and
the ridges from which they rise into a series of basins or
troughs, the 8leepest of which is that in the north, extending
from the coast of Thessaly fo the Gulf of Saros, and demarcated
southward by the Northern Sporades, Lemnos, Imbros and the
peninsula of Gallipoli. The greater part of ths trough is
over 600 fathoms deep.

The profusion of islands and their
usually bold elevation give beauty and picturesqueness to
the sea, but its navigation is difficult and dangerous,
notwithstanding the large number of safe and commodious gulfs and
bays.

Many of the islands are of volcanic formation; and
a well-defined volcanic chain bounds the Cretan Sea on the
north, including Milo and foimolos, Santorin (Thera) and
Therasia, and extends to Nisyros. Others, such as Paros, are
mainly composed of marble, and iron ore occurs in some. The
larger islands have some fertile and well-watered valleys and
plains.

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