The
Aegean Sea (,
Egeo Pelagos ;
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.
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.
thumb|right|A possible etymology is a derivation from the Greek word
–
aiges = "
waves" (
Hesychius of Alexandria; metaphorical use of (
aix) "goat"), hence "wavy sea", cf. also (aigialos) "coast".
History
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.
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.
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". 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.
Economical and Political Setting
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.
Physiographic Setting
thumb|right|300px|[[Topographic map|Topographical and
bathymetric map]]
The Aegean Sea covers about in area, and measures about longitudinally and latitudinally. The sea's maximum depth is , 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.
Hydrographic and Hydrochemical Setting
thumb|right|250px|The cliffs in Santorini Island, GreeceAegean 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 , 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 – thick veneer, with summer temperatures of 21–26 °C and winter temperatures ranging from in the north to in the south.
- Aegean Sea Intermediate Water – Aegean Sea Intermediate Water extends from 40–50 m to 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%).
See also
