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An arm of the Mediterranean Sea off southeast Europe between Greece and Turkey. The numerous Aegean Islands dotting the sea include the Cyclades, the Dodecanese, and the Sporades. Most of the islands belong to Greece.
| Dictionary: Aegean Sea |
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An arm of the Mediterranean Sea off southeast Europe between Greece and Turkey. The numerous Aegean Islands dotting the sea include the Cyclades, the Dodecanese, and the Sporades. Most of the islands belong to Greece.
| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Aegean Sea |
For more information on Aegean Sea, visit Britannica.com.
| Classical Literature Companion: Aegean Sea |
Aegean Sea (Aigaios pontos), the part of the Mediterranean between Greece and Asia Minor. The origin of the name is uncertain but was connected by some with Greek aigis, ‘storm’ and by others with Aegeus, father of Theseus.
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Aegean Sea |
Sardines and sponges taken from the Aegean are economically important. There has been considerable tension between Greece and Turkey since the 1970s over oil deposits and mineral rights in the Aegean. The name Aegean has been variously derived from Aegae, a city of Évvoia; from Aegeus, father of Theseus, who drowned himself in the sea believing his son had been slain by the Minotaur; and from Aegea, an Amazon queen who drowned in it. The sea's ancient name, Archipelago, now applies to its islands and, generally, to any island group.
| Mideast & N. Africa Encyclopedia: Aegean Sea |
Arm of the Mediterranean between Greece and Turkey.
The Aegean Sea contains more than three thousand islands and is considered the home of the earliest European civilization (formerly the Mycenean-Minoan, now called the Aegean), from about 3000 to 1100 B.C.E. Crete is the largest island, lying almost equidistant from both Greece and Turkey, at the southern end of the Aegean, with the Ionian Sea to its west. Since the Aegean is the only breach in the mountainous belt to the north of the Mediterranean, it has been extremely important as a trading area and trade route; control of this sea has been the cause of wars since early Near Eastern civilization clashed with early European.
In 1820, all the shores and islands of the Aegean belonged to the Ottoman Empire, but the western shore and practically all the islands have since gradually gone to Greece, a cause of Turkish resentment. Two islands, İmroz (Greek, Im bros) and Bozca (Greek, Tenedos), are still Turkish. Greece claims the Aegean as a territorial sea, which Turkey disputes, in hopes of sharing benthic minerals. Petroleum was discovered on the sea bottom east of Thasos in 1970, which has sharpened the dispute.
Bibliography
Drysdale, Alasdair, and Blake, Gerald H. The Middle East and North Africa: A Political Geography. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.
— JOHN R. CLARK
| Geography: Aegean Sea |
| Wikipedia: Aegean Sea |
The Aegean Sea (Greek: Αιγαίο Πέλαγος, Egeo Pelagos [eˈʝeo ˈpelaɣos](
listen); Turkish: Ege Denizi ) is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey respectively. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus. The Aegean Islands are within the sea and some bound it on its southern periphery, including Crete and Rhodes. The Aegean Region consists of nine provinces in southwestern Turkey, in part bordering on the Aegean sea.
The sea was traditionally known as Archipelago (in Greek, Αρχιπέλαγος), the general sense of which has since changed to refer to the Aegean Islands and, generally, to any island group because the Aegean Sea is remarkable for its large number of islands.
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In ancient times there were various explanations for the name Aegean. It was said to have been named after the Greek town of Aegae, or after Aegea, a queen of the Amazons who died in the sea, or Aigaion, the "sea goat", another name of Briareus, one of the archaic Hecatonchires, or, especially among the Athenians, Aegeus, the father of Theseus, who drowned himself in the sea when he thought his son had died.
A possible etymology is a derivation from the Greek word αἶγες – aiges = "waves" (Hesychius of Alexandria; metaphorical use of αἴξ (aix) "goat"), hence "wavy sea", cf. also αἰγιαλός (aigialos) "coast".
The current coastline dates back to about 4000 BC. Before that time, at the peak of the last ice age (c. 16,000 BC) sea levels everywhere were 130 metres lower, and there were large well-watered coastal plains instead of much of the northern Aegean. When they were first occupied, the present-day islands including Milos with its important obsidian production were probably still connected to the mainland. The present coastal arrangement appeared c. 7000 BC, with post-ice age sea levels continuing to rise for another 3000 years after that.[1]
The subsequent Bronze Age civilizations of Greece and the Aegean Sea have given rise to the general term Aegean civilization. In ancient times the sea was the birthplace of two ancient civilizations – the Minoans of Crete and the Mycenean Civilization of the Peloponnese.[2]
Later arose the city-states of Athens and Sparta among many others that constituted the Athenian Empire and Hellenic Civilization. Plato described the Greeks living round the Aegean "like frogs around a pond".[3] The Aegean Sea was later invaded by the Persians and the Romans, and inhabited by the Byzantine Empire, the Venetians, the Seljuk Turks, and the Ottoman Empire. The Aegean was the site of the original democracies, and its seaways were the means of contact among several diverse civilizations of the Eastern Mediterranean.
Many of the islands in the Aegean have safe harbours and bays, but navigation through the sea was easier in ancient times than traveling across the rough terrain of the mainland of Greece (and to some extent the coastal areas of Anatolia). Many of the islands are volcanic, and marble and iron are mined on other islands. The larger islands have some fertile valleys and plains. Of the main islands in the Aegean Sea, two belong to Turkey – Bozcaada (Tenedos) and Gökçeada (Imbros); the rest belong to Greece. Between the two countries, there are political disputes over several aspects of political control over the Aegean space, including the size of territorial waters, air control and the delimitation of economic rights to the continental shelf.
The Aegean Sea covers about 214,000 square kilometres (83,000 sq mi) in area, and measures about 610 kilometres (380 mi) longitudinally and 300 kilometres (190 mi) latitudinally. The sea's maximum depth is 3,543 metres (11,620 ft), east of Crete. The Aegean Islands are found within its waters, with the following islands delimiting the sea on the south (generally from west to east): Kythera, Antikythera, Crete, Kasos, Karpathos and Rhodes.
The Greek Aegean Islands can be simply divided into seven groups:
The word archipelago was originally applied specifically to the Aegean Sea and its islands. Many of the Aegean Islands, or chains of islands, are actually extensions of the mountains on the mainland. One chain extends across the sea to Chios, another extends across Euboea to Samos, and a third extends across the Peloponnese and Crete to Rhodes, dividing the Aegean from the Mediterranean.
The bays and gulfs of the Aegean beginning and the South and moving clockwise include on Crete, the Mirabelli, Almyros, Souda and Chania bays or gulfs, on the mainland the Myrtoan Sea to the west, the Saronic Gulf northwestward, the Petalies Gulf which connects with the South Euboic Sea, the Pagasetic Gulf which connects with the North Euboic Sea, the Thermian Gulf northwestward, the Chalkidiki Peninsula including the Cassandra and the Singitic Gulfs, northward the Strymonian Gulf and the Gulf of Kavala and the rest are in Turkey; Saros Gulf, Edremit Gulf, Dikili Gulf, Çandarlı Gulf, İzmir Gulf, Kuşadası Gulf, Gulf of Gökova, Güllük Gulf.
Aegean surface water circulates in a counter-clockwise gyre, with hypersaline Mediterranean water moving northward along the west coast of Turkey, before being displaced by less dense Black Sea outflow. The dense Mediterranean water sinks below the Black Sea inflow to a depth of 23–30 metres (75–98 ft), then flows through the Dardanelles Strait and into the Marmara at velocities of 5–15 cm/s. The Black Sea outflow moves westward along the northern Aegean Sea, then flows southwards along the east coast of Greece[4].
The physical oceanography of the Aegean Sea is controlled mainly by the regional climate, the fresh water discharge from major rivers draining southeastern Europe, and the seasonal variations in the Black Sea surface water outflow through the Dardanelles Strait.
Analysis[5] of the Aegean during 1991 and 1992 revealed 3 distinct water masses:
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| Translations: Aegean Sea |
| Argolis, Gulf of (inlet of the Aegean Sea) | |
| Crete, Sea of | |
| Tiras |
| Mythical Aegean Sea Dweller? Read answer... | |
| Where is the aegean sea located? Read answer... | |
| Does the aegean sea border italy? Read answer... |
| Is the aegean sea an example of an archipelago? | |
| What are some seaports in the Aegean Sea? | |
| Why doesn't the aegean sea have tides? |
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