The Cyclades (Greek: Κυκλάδες Kykládes) are Greek islands located in the southern part of the Aegean Sea. The archipelago contains some 2,200 islands, islets and rocks; just 33 islands are inhabited. For the ancients, they formed a circle (κύκλος / kyklos in Greek) around the sacred island of Delos, hence the name of the archipelago. The best-known are, from north to south and from east to west: Andros, Tinos, Mykonos, Naxos, Amorgos, Syros, Paros and Antiparos, Ios, Santorini, Anafi, Kea, Kythnos, Serifos, Sifnos, Folegandros and Sikinos, Milos and Kimolos; to these can be added the little Cyclades: Irakleia, Schoinoussa, Koufonisi, Keros and Donoussa, as well as Makronisos between Kea and Attica, Gyaros, which lies before Andros, and Polyaigos to the east of Kimolos and Thirassia, before Santorini. At times they were also called by the generic name of the Archipelago.
The islands are located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia Minor, and the Near East as well as between Europe and Africa. In antiquity, when navigation consisted only of cabotage and sailors sought never to lose sight of land, they played an essential role as a stopover. Into the 20th century, this situation made their fortune (trade was one of their chief activities) and their misfortune (control of the Cyclades allowed for control of the commercial and strategic routes in the Aegean).
Numerous authors considered, or still consider, them as a unit. The insular group is indeed rather homogeneous from a geomorphological point of view; moreover, the islands are visible from one anothers' shores while being distinctly separate from the continents that surround them.Les Civilisations égéennes. p. 89. They have in common a dry climate and soil.“Everywhere the same desolation, everywhere the same sterility; most of the islands are mere masses of rocks, not only without vegetation, but without any fertile soil either”. Alexis de Valon, "Île de Tine." Revue des Deux-Mondes. 1843. Although these physical facts are undeniable, other components of this unity are more subjective. Thus, one can read certain authors who say that the islands’ population is, of all the regions of Greece, the only original one, and has not been subjected to external admixtures.”The population of the Cyclades is essentially Greek in origin”. Louis Lacroix, p. 431.”The Cyclades have remained more or less as they were”. J.T. Bent, p. vii. However, the Cyclades have very often known different destinies.
Their natural resources and their potential role as trade-route stopovers has allowed them to be peopled since the Neolithic. Thanks to these assets, they experienced a brilliant cultural flowering in the 3rd millennium BC: the Cycladic civilisation. The proto-historical powers, the Minoans and then the Mycenaeans, made their influence known there. The Cyclades had a new zenith in the Archaic period (8th – 6th century BC). The Persians tried to take them during their attempts to conquer Greece. Then they entered into Athens's orbit with the Delian Leagues. The Hellenistic kingdoms disputed their status while Delos became a great commercial power.
Commercial activities were pursued during the Roman and Byzantine Empires, yet they were sufficiently prosperous to attract pirates' attention. The participants of the Fourth Crusade divided the Byzantine Empire among themselves, and the Cyclades entered the Venetian orbit. Western feudal lords created a certain number of fiefs, of which the Duchy of Naxos was the most important. The Duchy was conquered by the Ottoman Empire, which allowed the islands a certain administrative and fiscal autonomy. Economic prosperity continued despite the pirates. The archipelago had an ambiguous attitude towards the war of independence. Having become Greek in the 1830s, the Cyclades have shared the history of Greece since that time. At first they went through a period of commercial prosperity, still due to their geographic position, before the trade routes and modes of transport changed. After suffering a rural exodus, the islands began a renewal with the influx of tourists. However, tourism is not the Cyclades' only resource today.
Prehistory
Neolithic era
The most ancient traces of activity (but not necessarily habitation) in the Cyclades were not discovered on the islands themselves, but on the continent, at Argolis, in Franchthi Cave. Research there uncovered, in a layer dating to the 11th millennium BC, obsidian originating from Milos.Fitton, Cycladic Art., p. 22-23. The volcanic island was thus exploited and inhabited, not necessarily in permanent fashion, and its inhabitants were capable of navigating and trading across a distance of at least 150 km.
A permanent settlement on the islands could only be established by a sedentary population that had at its disposal methods of agriculture and animal husbandry that could exploit the few fertile plains. Hunter-gatherers would have had much greater difficulties. At the Maroula site on Kythnos a bone fragment has been uncovered and dated, using Carbon-14, to 7,500-6,500 BC.Kenneth Honea, “Prehistoric Remains on the Island of Kythnos”, American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 79, no. 3, July 1975. The oldest inhabited places are the islet of Saliagos between Paros and Antiparos,Guide Bleu. Îles grecques., p. 202. Kephala, Kea, and perhaps the oldest strata are those at Grotta on Naxos. They date back to the 5th millennium BC.
On Saliagos (at that time connected to its two neighbours, Paros and Antiparos), houses of stone without mortar have been found, as well as Cycladic statuettes. Estimates based on excavations in the cemetery of Kephala put the number of inhabitants at between forty-five and eighty. Studies of skulls have revealed bone deformations, especially in the vertebrae. They have been attributed to arthritic conditions, which afflict sedentary societies. Osteoporosis, another sign of a sedentary lifestyle, is present, but more rarely than on the continent in the same period. Life expectancy has been estimated at twenty years, with maximum ages reaching twenty-eight to thirty. Women lived shorter lives than men.Les Civilisations égéennes., p. 142.
A sexual division of labour seems to have existed. Women took care of children, harvesting, light agricultural duties, small livestock, spinning (spindle whorls have been found in women's tombs), basketry, and pottery. Men busied themselves with conventionally masculine chores: heavy agricultural work, hunting, fishing, and work involving stone, bone, wood, and metal. This sexual division of labour led to a first social differentiation: the richest cist tombs belong to men. Pottery was made without a lathe, judging by the hand-modelled clay balls; pictures were applied to the pottery with brushes, while incisions were made with the fingernails. The vases were then baked in a pit or a grinding wheel—Neolithic Cycladiotes used no kilns, and only low firing temperatures of 700˚-800˚C were reached.Les Civilisations égéennes., p.153-160. Small-sized metal objects have been found on Naxos. The operation of silver mines on Siphnos may also date to this period.
Cycladic civilisation
At the end of the 19th century, following the earlier work of antiquaries such as Theodore Bent on Antiparos in 1884,See Theodore Bent, The Cyclades, or Life Among the Insular Greeks (London, 1885) the Greek archaeologist Christos Tsountas, having assembled various discoveries from numerous islands, suggested that the Cyclades were part of a cultural unit during the 3rd millennium BC: the Cycladic civilisation, dating back to the Bronze Age. It is famous for its marble idols, found as far as Portugal and the mouth of the Danube, which proves its dynamism.
It is slightly older than the Minoan civilisation of Crete. The beginnings of the Minoan civilisation were influenced by the Cycladic civilisation: Cycladic statuettes were imported into Crete and local artisans imitated Cycladic techniques; archaeological evidence supporting this notion has been found at Aghia Photia, Knossos and Archanes.Fitton, Cycladic Art., p. 18. At the same time, excavations in the cemetery of Aghios Kosmas in Attica have uncovered objects proving a strong Cycladic influence, due either to a high percentage of the population being Cycladic or to an actual colony originating in the islands.
Three great periods have traditionally been designated (equivalent to those that divide the Helladic on the continent and the Minoan in Crete):Guide Bleu. Îles grecques., p. 203. Early Cycladic I (EC I; 3200-2800 BC), also called the Grotta-Pelos culture Early Cycladic II (EC II; 2800-2300 BC), also called the Keros-Syros culture and often considered the apogee of Cycladic civilisation Early Cycladic III (EC III; 2300-2000 BC), also called the Phylakopi culture
The study of skeletons found in tombs, always in cists, shows an evolution from the Neolithic. Osteoporosis was less prevalent although arthritic diseases continued to be present. Thus, diet had improved. Life expectancy progressed: men lived up to forty or forty-five years, but women only thirty.Les Civilisations égéennes., p. 181. The sexual division of labour remained the same as that identified for the Early Neolithic: women busied themselves with small domestic and agricultural tasks, while men took care of larger duties and crafts. Agriculture, as elsewhere in the Mediterranean basin, was based on grain (mainly barley, which needs less water than wheat), grapevines and olive trees. Animal husbandry was already primarily concerned with goats and sheep, as well as a few hogs, but very few bovines, the raising of which is still poorly developed on the islands. Fishing completed the diet base, due for example to the regular migration of tuna.Fitton, Cycladic Art., p. 13-14. At the time, wood was more abundant than today, allowing for the construction of house frames and boats.
The inhabitants of these islands, who lived mainly near the shore, were remarkable sailors and merchants, thanks to their islands’ geographic position. It seems that at the time, the Cyclades exported more merchandise than they imported,Fitton, Cycladic Art, p. 12. a rather unusual circumstance during their history. The ceramics found at various Cycladic sites (Phylakopi on Milos, Aghia Irini on Kea and Akrotiri on Santorini) prove the existence of commercial routes going from continental Greece to Crete while mainly passing by the Western Cyclades, up until the Late Cycladic. Excavations at these three sites have uncovered vases produced on the continent or on Crete and imported onto the islands.John F. Cherry and Jack L. Davis, "The Cyclades and the Greek Mainland in Late Cycladic I : the Evidence of the Pottery".
It is known that there were specialised artisans: founders, blacksmiths, potters and sculptors, but it is impossible to say if they made a living off their work. Obsidian from Milos remained the dominant material for the production of tools, even after the development of metallurgy, for it was less expensive. Tools have been found that were made of a primitive bronze, an alloy of copper and arsenic. The copper came from Kythnos and already contained a high volume of arsenic. Tin, the provenance of which has not been determined, was only later introduced into the islands, after the end of the Cycladic civilisation. The oldest bronze containing tin was found at Kastri on Tinos (dating to the time of the Phylakopi Culture) and their composition proves they came from Troad, either as raw materials or as finished products.Fitton, Cycladic Art, p. 14-17. Therefore, commercial exchanges between the Troad and the Cyclades existed.