Terramares between Europe and the Mediterranean

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In the middle centuries of the second millennium B.C. civilisations and empires had long since formed in the eastern Mediterranean, such as the Egyptian or that Hittita.

In Greece and in the Aegean Islands Mycenaean civilisation had reached its zenith and the echoes of those heroic times have reached us through the exploits recounted by Homer in his poems.

This advanced world was matched in Europe by a less advanced society, but not without important and significant testimonies.

Although no ancient storytellers have passed on to us the stories of Europe's Bronze Age peoples, archaeological findings reveal that even in village Europe there were heroic and warrior-based societycapable of fine craftsmanship, some of them inspired by a strong spirituality.

The characters of these societies have many elements in common and show a substantial cultural unit, perhaps the oldest on the European continent.

Trades and exchanges of goods, even over long distances, were very frequent for the supply of the copper and especially of the tinneeded to make bronze objects, but many other goods, such as ambercirculated in Europe through a dense network of relationships that even reached theMycenaean areafrom which sailors and artisans assiduously frequented the coasts of the Italian peninsula.

Of this world, terramares represent one of the most significant aspects. The characteristics of the villages, the solid economic and territorial organisation, the social structure of the communities, participatory but not egalitarian, and the grandiose handicraft production make the terramare society one of the most advanced of its time.

Their location between the Mediterranean and Central Europethe same period that saw the development and crisis of the Mycenaean world, makes terramares one of the most significant archaeological aspects for understanding the history of the European continent in the second millennium B.C.