Maps of East-West Cultural Exchange
Click on the maps below to get large versions and see the legends and captions. Source: A.A.M. Van Der Heyden and H. H. Scullard, eds. Atlas of the Classical World (New York: Nelson, 1959)
3000 B.C. - 1200 B.C.
Through war and trade, Asia Minor, the region in which Troy was situated, formed a crossroads of significant East-West cultural exchange. Two great trading blocs, the Mycenaean Greeks in the West and the Hittite Empire in the East, came into contact even before the fall of Troy. The Greeks had a longstanding and significant cultural presence in the area and traded regularly with it. Asia Minor, in turn, was in regular contact with many cultures to the East, across the bridge of the Anatoloian peninsula, including to the Hittites, and through the Hittites, to the Hurrians, Assyrians, and Babylonians. This trade routes served as conduits for goods, technologies, ideas, and myths.
1200 B.C. - 700 B.C.
Trade routes remained active into the time after the fall of Troy as well. The civilizations of central Anatolia maintained their contacts with Greeks in the West and Babylonians and Assyrians in the East.