Aegean Sea

The Aegean Sea (Greek: Αιγαίο Πέλαγος([Aigaío Pélagos] ); Turkish: Ege Denizi, Adalar 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.

Etymology

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".

In the Bulgarian language the sea is also known as White sea (Бяло море). According to legend, Bulgarian sailors and merchants in the Middle Ages found it a hospitable and timid sea to travel and called it White sea in contrast to the hostile and dangerous Black sea.

History

"Aegean civilization" is a general term for the Bronze Age civilizations that developed in Greece and the basin of the Aegean sea between 3000-1200 B.C.E. While ancient Greek writers recounted stories of heroes, little was actually known about the Aegean civilization until the late nineteenth century.

In ancient times the sea was the birthplace of two ancient civilizations - the Minoans of Crete and the Mycenean Civilization of the Peloponnese. Later arose the city-states of Athens and Sparta among many others that constituted the Athenian Empire and Hellenic Civilization. In other words, there were three distinct regions covered by the term, Aegean Civilization: Crete, the Cyclades and the Greek mainland. Crete is associated with the Minoan civilization from the Early Bronze Age, while the Cyclades and the mainland have distinct cultures. The Cyclades converged with the mainland during the Early Helladic ("Minyan") period and with Crete in the Middle Minoan period. From around 1450, the Greek Mycenaean civilization spread to Crete. Crete may have acted as a cultural bridge, since the culture and civilizations that evolved there appear to have engaged in commerce with a number of different centers, such as Ancient Egypt and the Middle East.

The Aegean region 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.

Physiographic Setting

The Aegean Sea from space

The Aegean Sea covers about 214,000 km² in area, and measures about 610 kilometres longitudinally and 300 kilometres latitudinally. The sea's maximum depth is 3,543 metres (11,624 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:

1. Northeastern Aegean Islands,
2. Euboea,
3. Northern Sporades,
4. Cyclades,
5. Saronic Islands (or Argo-Saronic Islands),
6. Dodecanese (or Southern Sporades),
7. Crete.

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.

Hydrographic and Hydrochemical Setting

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 23-30m, 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.

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 of the Aegean during 1991 and 1992 revealed 3 distinct water masses:

• Aegean Sea Surface Water - 40-50 m thick veneer, with summer temperatures of 21-26°C and winter temperatures ranging from 10°C in the north to 16°C in the south.
• Aegean Sea Intermediate Water - Aegean Sea Intermediate Water extends from 40-50 m to 200-300 m with temperatures ranging from 11-18°C.
• Aegean Sea Bottom Water - occurring at depths below 200-300 m with a very uniform temperature (13-14°C) and salinity (39.1-39.2%).

Islands

Aegean Sea Islands map showing island groups.

Many of the islands are volcanic, and marble and iron are mined on other islands. The larger islands have some fertile valleys and plains. In the Aegean Sea there are two islands belonging to Turkey: Bozcaada (in Greek, Τένεδος) and Gökçeada (in Greek, Ίμβρος), while the rest belonging to Greece. The Aegean Sea has about 1,415 islands and islets, of which 1,395 belong to Greece.

The Aegean Islands (Greek: Νησιά Αιγαίου, Nisiá Aigaíou; Turkish: Ege Adaları) are a group of islands in the Aegean Sea, with mainland Greece to the west and north and Turkey to the east; the island of Crete delimits the sea to the south. The ancient name of the Aegean Sea, Archipelago, was later applied to the islands it contains and is now used more generally, to refer to any island group. The Greek Aegean Islands traditionally subdivided into seven groups, from north to south:

• Northeastern Aegean Islands
• Sporades
• Euboea
• Argo-Saronic Islands
• Cyclades
• Dodecanese (Southern Sporades)
• Crete

Almost all of the Aegean Islands belong to Greece, being split among nine administrative peripheries. Turkish possessions include Imbros (Gökçeada), Tenedos (Bozcaada), and eight more islets off Turkey's western coast.

Territoriality regarding the sea and some of the islands, as well as the airspace above them, is a source of ongoing dispute between Greece and Turkey and has changed over time. The term Italian Aegean Islands (Italian: Isole Italiane dell-’Egeo) is sometimes used to refer to the Aegean islands conquered by Italy during the Italo-Turkish War in 1912 and annexed (through the Treaty of Lausanne) from 1923 until 1947: the Dodecanese, including Rhodes and Castelrosso (Kastelorizo).

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

Wikisource has an original article from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica about:

Aegean Sea

• Kormondy, Edward John. 1965. Readings in ecology. Prentice-Hall biological science series. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.
• Miller, Helen Hill. 1967. Bridge to Asia; the Greeks in the eastern Mediterranean. New York: Scribner.
• Sansal, Burak. Seas of Turkey All About Turkey. Retrieved October 28, 2008.
• United States. 2006. Aegean Sea Region. Washington, D.C.: Central Intelligence Agency.

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