Greek art produced from about 1050 BC to 31 BC. Greek civilization encompassed not only mainland Greece but also nearby islands in the Aegean Sea, the western coast of Turkey, southern Italy and Sicily (a.k.a. Magna Graecia, or Great Greece), and by the late 300s BC,Egypt, Syria, and other Near Eastern lands. Among its monuments are stone temples, statues of human figures, painted vases and mosaics. The roots of this culture lie in Mycenaean culture, which lasted from about 1600 to about 1100 BC. This was a time of warrior-kings, fortified cities, and palaces, a time when highly developed monumental art and architecture first flourished. This era has become known as the age of heroes, through such stories as those of Achilles and Odysseus. Greek artists were the first to establish mimesis, i.e. imitation of nature, as a guiding principle for art. The repeated depiction of the nude human figure reflects a belief that ‘Man is the measure of all things’. Architecture is another Greek legacy that the West has inherited, as Greece established many of the structural elements, decorative motifs, and building types still used in architecture today. It begins with the simple houses of the Dark Age and culminates in the monumental temples of the Classical period and the elaborately planned cities and sanctuaries of the Hellenistic period.