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Period: 6500 BCE to 3000 BCE
Neolithic Period
Humans began to live in permanent farming villages cultivating plants, breeding animals for food and forming permanent settlements. It was the birth of agriculture as they started to divert from the typical hunter-gatherers. -
Period: 3000 BCE to 1150 BCE
The Bronze Age
This is when so called "rankings" were established for the social and society. Monumental palaces appeared toward the end of this period. -
1900 BCE
Gradual Rise of Palace Civilization on Crete ("Minoan")
The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age culture that was centered on Crete. This was known for the monumental architecture and flourishing art. These civilians were named after the mythical king of Crete named Minos but these civilians were not Greek speakers. -
1600 BCE
Rise of Palace Civilization on the Greek Mainland ("Mycenaean")
This was another culture that arose after the rise of Minoans that were more warlike. The centers that should be noted were Mycenae and Tiryns. "Mycenaean" was named after the home of Agamemnon in the Iliad. -
Period: 1250 BCE to 1225 BCE
The Trojan War
This war was depicted by Homer in the Iliad and was considered a historical event by the ancient Greeks although it is considered essentially fictional. These dates are roughly proved by archaeologists since destruction layers have dated to roughly the same dates. -
Period: 1200 BCE to 1170 BCE
Invaders Loot and Burn Palace Centers
Over the course of three to four decades, a massive tragedy ends urban and palace settlements throughout Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, Greece, and Crete, severely undermining Egypt. A number of thriving civilizations were totally destroyed, only to be rediscovered in the nineteenth century AD by archaeologists. There is substantial discussion around the causes and agents of this catastrophe. Greek mythology helped to retain recollections of a pre-Fall heroic era. -
Period: 1150 BCE to 900 BCE
Greek Dark Age
A pivotal time in Greek mythical history. After the Bronze Age towns fell, numerous smaller settlements reverted back to subsistence farming. The skill of writing was completely gone, and for hundreds of years there were neither magnificent structures nor ceramics. -
Period: 900 BCE to 750 BCE
Late Dark Age
In this age, population increases, trade and cultural contact expands with the wider Mediterranean world. Greek art, technology, and mythology started to become very influenced by Near Eastern cultures. -
799 BCE
Alphabet First Used in Greece
The Greeks added vowels to the alphabet that they had taken from Phoenician traders. One of the earliest examples of Greek letter use that is known to exist is the "Dipylon inscription". The writing is inscribed on a wine goblet, or oenochoe, discovered in 1871 and named after the spot it was discovered in—the cemetery close to the Dipylon Gate in the Kerameikos neighborhood of Athens. -
750 BCE
Homer
A singer by the name of Homer makes two expansive compositions based on the legend of Troy using a tradition of oral improvisation of poetry in the form of established hexameters, which at his time was hundreds of years old: 1. A 51-day story about "Achilles' wrath" (the Iliad) that delays Troy's capture; 2. A 40-day story about Odysseus's (Odyssey) miraculous return to Troy 20 years after setting out for the city. -
Period: 750 BCE to 500 BCE
Archaic Period
Rise of city-states, which gave ancient Greece its unique system of governance. The majority of Greek myths concern a certain city-state. Denotated the period of artistic development. -
725 BCE
Hesiod
writes Works and Days, a book about farming, and Theogony, the most reliable Greek story of the creation of the universe and the gods. "It was Homer and Hesiod who created for the Greeks a genealogy of the gods, gave the gods their epithets, distributed their offices and crafts, and stamped them with their forms." (Histories 2.53, Herodotus, 5th century BC). -
Period: 500 BCE to 324 BCE
Classical Period
The invention of history, philosophy, and rhetoric that we know was created in this period. Known for the literature and art that was created in this era. An Athenian theater flourished in the 400s BC which inspired the classic versions of many myths. -
Period: 496 BCE to 406
Sophocles
Athens-born tragedian who produced the classic adaptations of the stories of Philoctetes, Oedipus, Antigone, and Ajax, among others. -
Period: 480 BCE to 406 BCE
Euripides
Athens tragedian who wrote the traditional accounts of several Greek stories, such as those involving Pentheus and Phaedra. -
Period: 323 BCE to 30 BCE
Hellenistic Period
Various Greek kingdoms ruled the Eastern Mediterranean following Alexander the Great's death. Mediterranean, Near East, and other regions are home to Greek mythology. The organization of it is started by academics from Alexandria, Egypt. -
146 BCE
Fall of Corinth
The Roman Empire officially includes Greece. Greek myth is avidly embraced and modified by the Romans, who then incorporate it into their own customs. -
Period: 100 BCE to 100
Golden Age of Roman Literature
Greek mythology was highly regarded by Roman painters. During this period, Ovid's Metamorphoses and Vergil's Aeneid were written. -
Period: 70 BCE to 19 BCE
Vergil
Writes the highly significant epic Aeneid, which tells the story of the Trojan hero Aeneas's voyage to Italy following the fall of Troy and the establishment of the Roman race. -
Period: 43 BCE to 17
Ovid
Composes the Metamorphoses, a comprehensive compilation of stories on transformation. The Metamorphoses, sometimes referred to as "the Bible of the poets," was arguably the most significant source of Greek and Roman mythology for thereafter European authors and painters. -
100
Apollodorus
Although Apollodorus of Athens, a scholar from the second century BC, was mistakenly credited with writing the most significant literary work of Greek mythology to have survived from antiquity, the "Library" is still often known by that name. It was probably written in the first or second century AD, during the Roman era.