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PERIOD GUIDE · The Aegean

The Early Bronze Age in the Aegean: Helladic, Cycladic, Minoan

The Met's timeline dates the Early Bronze Age of Greece ca. 3200-2000 B.C. On the mainland, in the Cyclades and on Crete it is called Early Helladic, Early Cycladic and Early Minoan, and the three sequences do not share their dates.

Approximately 3200-2000 BCE
1 object 1 article or guide

Move through the periods

Its place in the The Aegean scheme

The whole scheme with this period marked; the periods before and after are its neighbours in the row. Boundaries follow the sources and are not to scale.

All periods and subdivisions
  1. The Neolithic in the Aegean7,000-3,200 BCE
  2. The Bronze Age in the Aegean3,200-1,050 BCE
  3. The Early Iron Age and Geometric period in the Aegean1,050-700 BCE
  4. The Archaic period in the Aegean700-480 BCE
  5. The Classical period in the Aegean480-323 BCE
  6. The Hellenistic period in the Aegean323-31 BCE
  7. Roman rule in Greece146 BCE - 330 CE
  8. Byzantine Greece and the Aegean330-1,204 CE
  9. Latin rule and the late Byzantine Aegean1,204-1,453 CE

Trails · Museums

Where the period’s objects lead

Trails that pass through an object of this period, and the museums that display its objects according to the records. Every chain is documented and labelled as such.

Where objects of the period are on view

Display status is what the public record said on the day it was checked; confirm on the museum's site before visiting.

The frame

The Met's timeline for southern Europe gives "Early Bronze Age, ca. 3200-2000 B.C." for Greece. Under ca. 3200-2000 B.C. it states that the olive and the vine, together with the traditional cereals and "the rapid expansion of metallurgy, play a major role in the earliest urbanization in the Aegean". For ca. 3000-2000 B.C. it describes a marble industry in the Cyclades "with notable quarries in Naxos and Paros", "uncompromisingly abstract sculptures that have been found mostly in burial contexts", and many settlements and burial grounds on the Cycladic islands and Crete. Source 1.

Boundaries and overlaps

The Dartmouth chronology names the Early Bronze Age by subregion: "Early Helladic (abbreviated EH)" on the mainland, subdivided into I, II and III; "Early Cycladic (abbreviated EC)" in the islands, where "to EC II belongs the Keros-Syros culture"; and "Early Minoan (abbreviated EM)" on Crete, subdivided into EM I, II and III. The Warsaw table, after S. W. Manning, gives the three sequences different figures: it opens with "EH I 3100+ to 3000", "EC I 3100-3000" and "EM I 3100-3000", figures around 3100 rather than 3200, and closes with "EC III 2400-2200" followed by "MC 2200-", "EH III 2250-2100/2050" followed by "MH 2100/2050-", and "EM III 2200-2100/2050" followed by "MM IA 2100/2050-1925/1900". The table does not say whether its figures mark the start of a phase or its span, so they are quoted as printed. On Crete, Dartmouth's "Pre-palatial EM I - MM IA (ca. 3100/3000-1925/1900 B.C.)" runs past 2000 B.C., and the Met's own row "Minoan culture (Crete)" begins at ca. 3000 B.C., not 3200. Sources 2, 3, 1.

On this site

Two pages are placed here, both Cycladic. The article "Keros: deposits of broken figurines" reports deposits of figurines and marble vessels broken elsewhere and dated by radiocarbon to 2800-2300 BC. The object page "Early Cycladic marble female figure" documents a figure in the Met attributed to the Bastis Master and dated 2600-2400 BCE, placed by date and by cultural and stylistic attribution, without a findspot. Not yet covered: an Early Helladic site on the mainland and an Early Minoan site on Crete. Sources 4, 5.

Source

Sources and further reading

The research and references behind this page. Rights to external content remain with their owners.

  1. 1 Southern Europe, 8000-2000 B.C. (Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, chronology)

    The Metropolitan Museum of Art · Checked

  2. 2 Chronology Overview - Aegean Prehistoric Archaeology

    Jeremy B. Rutter (Dartmouth College) · Checked

  3. 3 Aegean chronology: 2. the absolute chronology

    University of Warsaw (table after S. W. Manning) · Checked

  4. 4 Island of broken figurines

    University of Cambridge · 2011 · Checked

  5. 5 Marble female figure, collection record 68.148

    The Metropolitan Museum of Art · Checked

Related periods, objects and places

Period

The Neolithic in the Aegean: from Sesklo to Dimini

Approximately 7000-3200 BCEPeriod

The Middle Bronze Age in the Aegean: palaces on Crete, graves at Dimini

Approximately 2000-1600 BCE

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