Cultural interactions in Aegean- Adriatic area in the end of Bronze and beginning of Iron Age with an emphasis on development and structure of myth

Abstract

Colonisation as a term is well known, but once seen from a wider aspect it can include every significant contact that was passed through decades. On that way it could be observed as a linear process through several phases. Great mythological stories as representatives of pre-colonisation contact phase reflect direct contacts between the Greece and the inland. &e most significant ones from that point of view are Cadmus and Harmony myth, as well as Jason and the Argonauts myth, which carefully divided on their gross constituent units are giving clear and obvious insight in the actual base of a mythological story and indirect colonisation of this area by Greek invaders. Strong foundation for the second phase of colonization can be found in texts of ancient Greek authors, and numerous archaeological material that strongly implies direct contacts. The most credible example of it is the Iliad of Homer, and princely graves as most authentic evidences of inland colonisation, that are in the same time the best indicators of its existence based on direct implication of contacts. The third phase is a classical colonisation phase which implies direct establishment of Greek colonies on the coast area of Adriatic Sea. Besides, this phase also represents the greatest colonizing activity and in the same time could be characterized as a beginning of the end of the process. One common fact for all three di'erent phases is a lack of possibility to negate Greek presence and activity on the coast of east Adriatic which would, in a context of colonisation in a wider aspect, represent the most signi$cant link, and so the direct affirmation of early existence of it.