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Period: 3700 BCE to 1200 BCE
Minoan
-despite length of era, thrived during Neopalatial Period (1,700BC - 1,400BC)
-characterized large scale buildings of commercial "palaces"
-language 'Linear A' (yet to be deciphered)
-culture of trade & production, excellent seafarers (Mediterranean Sea) -
Period: 3000 BCE to 2000 BCE
Cycladic
- left traces of culture found through excavations of grave sites
- produced unique, geometric marble figures
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Period: 3000 BCE to 1100 BCE
Mycenaean (exact timespan unspecified)
-mainland culture that conquered the Aegean Islands and Crete
-fractioned and warlike, centered around one ruler -
Period: 1100 BCE to 900 BCE
Greek Dark Age
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Period: 900 BCE to 480 BCE
Archaic Greece
- new inhabitants
- change in language, adaption of Phoenician alphabet, new funerary practices and differentiating materials from previous culture
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Period: 900 BCE to 480 BCE
Geometric Period (exact timespan unspecified)
- centered on people and independent cities divining land into regions
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Period: 900 BCE to 480 BCE
Orientalizing Period (exact timespan unspecified)
- contact with the Near East, renewing trade
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Period: 600 BCE to 480 BCE
Colonization
- Greek population colonized along Mediterranean and Black Seas
- cities ruled by a single commander
- led to creation of democracy in Athens
- Athens, Sparta, Corinth, and Thebes gained power and were often at war with one another forming coalitions
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Period: 480 BCE to 323 BCE
Classical Greece
- era began with the sacking of Athens, uniting Greece against the Persian threat
- Athens defeated Persians and gained power until the Peloponnesian War (431BC - 400BC)
- height of Greek culture; most famous era for art and architecture
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Period: 323 BCE to 31 BCE
Hellenistic Greece
- began with death of Alexander the Great and ended with the Battle of Actium
- Greek cities under foreign rule (ie. Macedonia and Rome)