The Aegean art of the Bronze Age is usually considered the infrastructure of the "classical" Greek art as well as to the entire western culture. Non-deciphered script leaves many enigmatic layers, and the script already deciphered do not tell us enough the character, religion, rituals and myths of these great and powerful cultures. In this course we will try, among other issues, to query whether the Aegean cultures indeed constitute the precedents of the Greek art or are they independent cultures, absolutely separated; or perhaps they are connected to each other. Based on later myths, there seems to be a considerable evidence to consider the different Aegean cultures as forming a continuous cultural sequence, or – at least having interrelation between them.

In this course we will study the three main cultures of the Greek Bronze age: The Minoan culture flourishing mainly in Crete, the Mycenaean culture existing in the Peloponnese peninsula, parts of continental Greece, the islands as the west coast of Asia Minor, and the Cycladic culture. They will be studied from the different aspects – myths, architecture, monumental and miniature paintings, sculpture, ceramics, metals, jewels and glass.