It was from Asia the Greeks learned to write and do complicated mathematics.
From them, civilization spread across the Fertile Crescent towards the Sea, then upward into Anatolia and downward to Egypt where it ran head long into a culture that was very much its cousin. (Let's stop here and remember that there is a strong relationship between civilization and culture, but they are two separate ideas.) It mixed with that civilization, and then spread to the Greek isles and eventually the mainland, coming at the Greeks from two directions; Anatolia from the east and Egypt from the south. "Asia" is a Greek based word that loosely means "That shore line right over there that I can see from here in Greece." It was that close. They had a deep relationship with the Mid-East and Egypt. It was from Asia the Greeks learned to write and do complicated mathematics. Even during the time of Alexander, it was Mid-Eastern ideas that crept into his way of thinking. (God King) When confronted by a Greek tourist around 500 BCE, an Egyptian priest was over heard to say "And to think, we taught those upstarts all they know."