About 80% of Greece is mountainous. Olympus is the highest peak in the Pindus Mountains, which divide the mainland. The mountains isolated Greeks from one another, causing different Greek communities to develop their own ways of life.

Although Greece is small, it has an 8,500 mile coastline. In fact, no part of the Greek mainland is more than 60 miles from a body of water. Surrounded by water, it was no accident the Greeks became seafarers. They sailed into the Aegeon Sea, the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea, making contact with the outside world.

Arthur Evans, an English archeologist, who first discovered the civilization, named it after Minos, the legendary king of Crete because some of its structures were similar to the labyrinth that king Minos was said to have built. They traded finely crafted pottery and gold and silver jewelry from Crete for other goods.

Mycenae a fortified site on the Greek mainland that was first discovered by the German archeologist Heinrich Schliemann. Mycenaen Greeks were part of the Indo-European family of people's who spread into Europe and Asia.

During the dark age many Greeks left the main land and sailed across the Aegean Sea to various islands. There was a revival of some trade and economic activity during the dark age. The Iliad and the Odessey were the first epic poems of early Greece. Homer focuses his poetic imagination on the dramatic events of the Trojan war.