This is not a troll question or some anti-Greek thread, but it just got me thinking. Aren't the Ancient Greeks essentially a middle eastern civilization. Much of their history takes place in the middle east, Ancient Greece has a lot of influences from near east civilizations such as Egypt, Phoenicia, Hittites, Assyrians, and they were the main trading partners of Greeks. I don't know much about the Minoans or Mycenaeans, but weren't the Minoans influenced by Mesopotamia and Egypt and Crete is almost close to Egypt and the Levant. So is Ancient Greece technically more Middle Eastern than it is European? And Europeans basically got their culture from Rome, who in turn copied from Greece.