FR does not allow Greek character or we would be able to post some real funny keyboard jokes.
Of course SOME ivory tower lunatic will condemn this because it comes from dead europeans.
Rather than it being a European culture back then, Greece was more of a Mediterranean culture (part of Rome, also Mediterranean) containing the (at least formerly) powerful civilizations of Egypt, Carthage, Greece (not so powerful, but they made many innovations), Asia Minor, Babylon, and Assyria.
In any case, there was about (not as much, but more than you might suspect) as much technology transfer around the world as there is today.