by Alexandra Yerolympos
The paper is divided in two parts. The first will examine briefly the overall conditions that shaped up the form and structure of traditional settlements, from the medieval times until the 19th century. The second part will focus on cities emerging in the modern times and their evolution until world war II.
The
Aegean sea, which forms a part of the Mediterranean between Greece and
Turkey, with Crete as its southern boundary, is long of almost 640 klm
and wide of 360, and covers a surface of approx. 240.000 sq. klm.
Without a center of its own, it has forged multiple links between the
lands to its East and West. It has been a focal point for the reception
and transmission of cultures, throughout prehistory and recorded
history, and it has experienced conditions of isolation as well as of
constant connections, years of peace and times of terrible conflicts and
wars.
In the Aegean sea as in the Mediterranean (and I am quoting F. Braudel): “to
live is to exchange, men, ideas, beliefs, ways of life… an exchange
that took place among the 3 great civilizations of the Mediterranean:
The Greek, the Latin and the Islamic….”
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Foot Network, Chora, Patmos, Greece, by UrbanGrammar |
Ιts
function as an internal (inner) sea -within the Mare Nostrum of the
Romans- went on during the early Byzantine period, and stopped after the
7th c., when the Arab fleets interrupted (disrupted) the
unquestioned rule of Byzantium in the Mediterranean. The Byzantines
reconquered Crete from the Arabs in the 10th century and
regained command of the seas [961 AD) but this was an intermission in
the inevitable process of withdrawal of the Byzantine power in the area.
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Chora, Patmos, Greece, by lyng883 |
In
the following centuries the Byzantine Empire finds itself cut off from
the West as well as from the East. The rising new kingdoms of the Turks
begin to pressure at the East in the 11th century (1071),
while at the same time (1096) the Western powers start pressuring from
the West. The Aegean sea is in the middle of a long-lasting conflict
which will continue for centuries. The Byzantine settlements, mainly
castles and small townships in the mountains in the interior and few
coastal cities dating from the Antiquity, decline and shrink. Indeed
during the medieval times a network of cities with long history and
powerful ties to the sea withdraws in the back stage and slowly fades
away.
The
Crusaders bring seamen and traders from the West and establish them by
the sea in strategic points of the main navigation routes. Already in
the beginning of the 13th century the Venetians in the Duchy
of Cyclades, the Knights of the Temple of St John in Rhodes, the
Genovese in Khios, control the Aegean. They start building cities,
fortresses and harbours, in order to survive, to maintain their power in
a sea of war and to extend their rule, constantly fighting among them
and against the Ottomans. The rise of this new network of coastal cities
in the Aegean dates from the 14th and the 15th
century, 2 centuries that completely changed the political geography of
the then known world. This is also the time when the first navigation
maps come to life
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Chora, Patmos, Greece, by AlexK3800 |
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Chora, Patmos, Greece, by lyng883 |
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Chora, Patmos, Greece, by lyng883 |
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