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Sir Arthur Evans founded tablets with old writing from the Minoan civilization on
the island of Crete in 1900.
 [Evans]
Sir Evans figured out that the Minoans had their own ancient language. However, it wasn't until the 1940s
and 1950s that mathematicians Alice Kober and Michael Ventris discovered that the language on the tablets was a type of early
Greek language.
 [Kober]
 [ancient Minoan writing]
*Remember how Jean Champollion would fit into this scenario with the Rosetta Stone.
Getting Into Geography:
The ancient Greeks lived on over 400 islands! Greece's geography caused
people to look to the sea for many reasons. The sea offered good transportation and a nice opportunity to trade as well.
Besides, most of the land in Greece is not so good for farming as you can see below:
Mt. Olympus is located in Thessaly. 
(above: Mt. Olympus)
The Greeks had competition in the field of trade as the Phoenicians fiercely
competed with them.
Trade took place with other countries and it helped the Greek economy immensely. The
Greeks traded their products (a lot of olive oil and grapes) for grain and many other products that they needed but couldn't
produce on their own.
Phoenicia-The Phoenicians were closely related to the people of Canaan (refer
to chapter 2) as their culture and language were very much alike. The Phoenicians were skilled craftworkers. Phoenicia
exported
which was from Lebanon: 
and they also sold a purple dye that only they knew how to make!
So, you may be wondering "what's the
big deal about purple dye?" Well, in most societies only royalty wore the color purple!
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