Sentence:  The focus of novelty in this world now lay in the south-eastern districts of the Greek mainland , and by 800 virtually the entire <WSD>Aegean</WSD> , always excepting its northern shores , had accepted the Geometric style of pottery . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  an arm of the Mediterranean between Greece and Turkey; a main trade route for the ancient civilizations of Crete and Greece and Rome and Persia