Greek Art and Culture

Cycladic culture

Period: 3200 BCE to 1050 BCE

Cycladic culture (also known as Cycladic civilisation or, chronologically, as Cycladic chronology) was a Bronze Age culture (c. 3200–c. 1050 BC) found throughout the islands of the Cyclades in the Aegean Sea.

Minoan civilization

Period: 3000 BCE to 1100 BCE

The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age Aegean civilization on the island of Crete and other Aegean Islands, whose earliest beginnings were from c. 3000 BC, with the complex urban civilization beginning around 2000 BC, and then declining from c. 1450 BC until it ended around 1100 BC.

First Foritfied Greek Islands

2300 BCE

About 2300 BC some settlements are fortified

Mycenaean civilization

Period: 1750 BCE to 1050 BCE

Mycenaean civilization was the last phase of the Bronze Age in Ancient Greece, spanning the period from approximately 1750 to 1050 BC.[1] It represents the first advanced and distinctively Greek civilization in mainland Greece with its palatial states, urban organization, works of art, and writing system.

Destruction of Minoan Palaces

1700 BCE

The palaces began to be constructed during this period of prosperity and stability, during which the Early Minoan culture turned into a "civilization". At the end of the MMII period (1700 BC) there was a large disturbance on Crete—probably an earthquake, but possibly an invasion from Anatolia. The palaces at Knossos, Phaistos, Malia and Kato Zakros were destroyed

Santorini volcanic eruption

1600 BCE

Akrotiri, the 3,600-year-old city on the island of Santorini buried by ash from a gigantic volcanic eruption in 1600 BC, frozen in its Bronze Age glory, serves as an exquisite time capsule for contemporary archaeologists who learn more every day about the mysterious lives of its inhabitants.

Minoan natural catastrophy

1600 BCE

Natural catastrophe occurred around 1600 BC, possibly an eruption of the Thera volcano. The Minoans rebuilt the palaces with several major differences in function

Achaeans Ethnonym

1400 BCE

Homer interchangeably used the ethnonyms Achaeans, Danaans, and Argives to refer to the besiegers, and these names appear to have passed down from the time they were in use to the time when Homer applied them as collective terms in his Iliad. There is an isolated reference to a-ka-wi-ja-de in the Linear B records in Knossos, Crete dated to c. 1400 BC, which presumably refers to a Mycenaean (Achaean) state on the Greek mainland

Trojan War

1194 BCE

Trojan War are derived from a specific historical conflict usually date it to the 12th or 11th century BC, often preferring the dates given by Eratosthenes, 1194–1184 BC, which roughly correspond to archaeological evidence of a catastrophic burning of Troy VII, and the Late Bronze Age collapse

Pylos Palace Destruction

1180 BCE

The palace of Pylos, in the southwestern Peloponnese, was destroyed in c. 1180 BC

Geometric Age

Period: 1050 BCE to 700 BCE

Geometric Age (1050 BCE – 700 BCE) is a phase of Greek art, characterized largely by geometric motifs in vase painting, that flourished towards the end of the Greek Dark Ages. Its center was in Athens, and from there the style spread among the trading cities of the Aegean.[

Archaic years

Period: 800 BCE to 480 BCE

Archaic Greece was the period in Greek history lasting from circa 800 BC to the second Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC, following the Greek Dark Ages and succeeded by the Classical period. In the archaic period, Greeks settled across the Mediterranean and the Black Seas, as far as Marseille in the west and Trapezus (Trebizond) in the east; and by the end of the archaic period, they were part of a trade network that spanned the entire Mediterranean.

Homer

750 BCE

Homer is the legendary author to whom the authorship of the Iliad and the Odyssey (the two epic poems that are the foundational works of ancient Greek literature) is attributed. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential authors of all time.

Red Figure Pottery

530 BCE

Two techniques of this time period include red-figure pottery and black-figure pottery. The black figure pottery started around 700 BC, and it remained the dominant style until its successor, red figure pottery, was invented around 530 BC. The switch from black figure pottery to red figure pottery was made due to the enhanced detail that red figured pottery allowed its artists

First Persian Invasion

492 BCE

The first Persian invasion of Greece, during the Greco-Persian Wars, began in 492 BC, and ended with the decisive Athenian victory at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC. The invasion, consisting of two distinct campaigns, was ordered by the Persian king Darius the Great primarily in order to punish the city-states of Athens and Eretria.

Second Persian Invasion

480 BCE

The second Persian invasion of Greece (480–479 BC) occurred during the Greco-Persian Wars, as King Xerxes I of Persia sought to conquer all of Greece. The invasion was a direct, if delayed, response to the defeat of the first Persian invasion of Greece (492–490 BC) at the Battle of Marathon, which ended Darius I's attempts to subjugate Greece.

Herodotus Death

425 BCE

Herodotus Ancient Greek: Ἡρόδοτος, 484 – c. 425 BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria (Italy). He is known for having written the Histories – a detailed account of the Greco-Persian Wars. Herodotus was the first writer to perform systematic investigation of historical events. He is referred to as "The Father of History".