Ancient Greece and wine importance. Records inscribed on tablets in Linear B include details of wine, vineyards and wine merchants, as well as an early allusion to Dionysus, the Greek god of wine. Greeks embedded the arrival of winemaking culture in the mythologies of Dionysus and the cultural hero Aristaeus. Early remnants of amphoras show that the Mycenaeans actively traded wine throughout the ancient world in places such as Cyprus, Egypt, Palestine, Sicily and southern Italy. As the Greek city-states established colonies throughout the Mediterranean, the settlers brought grapevines with them and were active in cultivating the wild vines they encountered. Sicily and southern
Names of the Greeks used by the Romans. Some toponyms, especially an ancient city "Hellas" in southern Thessaly, and the Greek tradition seem to indicate that the name "Hellenes" was Pre-Dorian itself and that the homeland of the "Graikoi", who were later called "Hellenes", was in central Greece. The Greek tradition mentions an earlier deluge of Ogyges in the region of Boeotia which was occupied by the Minyans a group of autochthonous or Proto-Greek speaking people. The region was called Graïke in ancient times probably after the old city of Graea (Γραῖα "Graîa", from Proto-Greek "grau-j-", "old lady") on the coast. Homer refers to