MACEDONIA
4.000 Years of Greek History and Civilization
The remains of the first man to inhabit Greece were found in Chalkidiki,
in Petralona Cave. For tens of thousands of years he used tools
made only from stone. In the Neolithic era life took on another
aspect. By then he lived in sun-dried brick houses, he founded
settlements and cultivated the earth. He made his utensils working
clay with his hands and created objects of art. The small clay
figurines from Nea Nikomidia (6000 BC) and the clay heads from
Drama (4000 BC) reveal his sensitivity and his efforts for self-expression.
Around the year 2300 BC, new groups of people appeared in Macedonia.
In their traces, the course of the Greeks’ history can be discerned.
Little by little they learned the use of metals, bronze to start
with, and iron, later on. At the funeral mounds of Vergina, the
excavations revealed iron weapons bronze jewelry and decorative
objects indicating the level of civilization these people had
reached. During the Archaic period, colonies founded on the coastline,
brought Macedonia into closer contact with the rest of the Greek
world.
Pottery and Ionian architecture elements were disseminated from
Corinth and Athens to Macedonia. In the Classical era, the influence
of southern Greece became even more prolific and creative. King
Alexander, a forefather of Alexander the Great, took part in the
Olympic Games, which were closed to non-Greeks. The palace at
Vergina played host to philosophers, poets, artists and musicians.
Aristotle introduced the way to European thought. Masterpieces
influenced by the creative works of the Ionians took on a different
form in the hands of local artists. Cities were built according
to perfected plans. The royal palaces interior and the walls of
the royal tombs were decorated with masterpieces of great artists.
Craftsmen did wonders with gold. This art eventually spread to
the Far East and was adopted by the local populations together
with Alexander’s memory.
The Great King lived on in their myths, and his memory passed
on from the medieval man to Renaissance Europe. Christianity came
to Macedonia when it was still in tis infancy, taught by St. Paul
himself, who traveled in their land. Thessaloniki became the second
city of the Byzantine Empire. Grand and magnificent civic monuments,
churches and monasteries were erected throughout Macedonia. In
Kastoria and in Veria there are dozens of churches whose interiors
are decorated with portraits of archangels, saints and more recent
donors. Thessaloniki has it’s own treasures to offer; there are
fifty-seven churches and forty monasteries and dependencies with
vaulted ceilings and colorful mosaies. But nothing compares to
the exquisite, unsurpassed monastic state of Mount Athos.
In Turkish – occupied Macedonia, everything declined until the
moment when the Greeks were able to acquire some control over
the region’s economy in the 18th century. The art of that era
is expressed through the local craftsmen, whose superb work can
be seen in the carved doors, pottery, costumes, gold and silver
jewlery. It can be admired in Macedonia’s old mansions and churches.
In 1921, Macedonia was liberated and incorporated to the Greek
territory. Since then, it has been part of the Greek state, a
symbol of the origin of the Greek spirit and civilization.
