Even in the ancient world, the lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea were never politically or culturally static. The crosscurrents of civilization moved across the area as empires rose and fell. One of the most pervasive and unifying cultural climates was that imposed on the eastern Mediterranean by the conquests of Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC. These resulted in the spread of Greek culture throughout Asia Minor, the Middle East, and Egypt. Three centuries later came the dominance of Rome that unified the whole Mediterranean world. This in turn was followed by the rise of Christianity and its spread to both East and West in the old Roman Empire. The Mediterranean region, therefore, has always been an area rich in a complex of cultural heritages. (See also Greece, Ancient; Greek and Roman Art; Roman Empire.)

This richness included the development of high skills in the arts?skills that penetrated even to people living in isolated villages. Contacts were, of course, facilitated by trade along the extensive coastlines; yet the whole region industrialized very slowly, and folk arts have continued to thrive to the present. In the whole region, only northern Italy and parts of Spain can be considered to be advanced industrial societies.