Early Greece and the Bronze Age
Ancient Greece
Greece – Bronze age
• Origins of civilization
– Prehistory
– History
Greece – Bronze age
• Origins of civilization
– Prehistory
• Includes Paleolithic and other prehistorical categories
– History
Greece – Bronze age
• Origins of civilization
– Prehistory
• Includes Paleolithic (=old stone age) and other
prehistorical categories
– History
Greece – Bronze age
• Origins of civilization
– Prehistory
• Includes Paleolithic (=old stone age) and other
prehistorical categories
• Relies on old age of earth and very long natural history
of human existence
– History
Greece – Bronze age
• Origins of civilization
– Prehistory
• Includes Paleolithic (=old stone age) and other
prehistorical categories
• Relies on old age of earth and very long natural history
of human existence
– History
• Begins with evidence
Greece – Bronze age
• Origins of civilization
– Prehistory
• Includes Paleolithic (=old stone age) and other
prehistorical categories
• Relies on old age of earth and very long natural history
of human existence
– History
• Begins with evidence
– Material
Greece – Bronze age
• Origins of civilization
– Prehistory
• Includes Paleolithic (=old stone age) and other
prehistorical categories
• Relies on old age of earth and very long natural history
of human existence
– History
• Begins with evidence
– Material (bones, buildings, pots, etc.)
Greece – Bronze age
• Origins of civilization
– Prehistory
• Includes Paleolithic (=old stone age) and other
prehistorical categories
• Relies on old age of earth and very long natural history
of human existence
– History
• Begins with evidence
– Material (bones, buildings, pots, etc.)
– Textual
Greece – Bronze age
• Origins of civilization
– Prehistory
• Includes Paleolithic (=old stone age) and other
prehistorical categories
• Relies on old age of earth and very long natural history
of human existence
– History
• Begins with evidence
– Material (bones, buildings, pots, etc.)
– Textual (writing on metal, stone, bones, other media)
Greece – Bronze age
• Major periods of Greek history:
– Ancient history
• Neolithic 5000-2500
• Bronze age 2500-1100
• Dark age / Iron age 1100-700
– Archaic Period 700-500
– Classical Period 500-350
– Hellenistic Period 350-150
– Roman Period 150bc – 31bc
Greece – Bronze age
• 3 ages we deal with in ancient history:
Greece – Bronze age
• 3 ages we deal with in ancient history:
– Neolithic
Greece – Bronze age
• 3 ages we deal with in ancient history:
– Neolithic
– Bronze
Greece – Bronze age
• 3 ages we deal with in ancient history:
– Neolithic
– Bronze
– Iron
Greece – Bronze age
• 3 ages we deal with in ancient history:
– Neolithic ( = new stone age)
– Bronze
– Iron
Greece – Bronze age
• 3 ages we deal with in ancient history:
– Neolithic ( = new stone age)
• ~ 5000-2500 bc
– Bronze
– Iron
Greece – Bronze age
• 3 ages we deal with in ancient history:
– Neolithic ( = new stone age)
• ~ 5000-2500 bc
– Bronze
– Iron
Greece – Bronze age
• 3 ages we deal with in ancient history:
– Neolithic ( = new stone age)
• ~ 5000-2500 bc
– Bronze
• Technological advance in metallurgy
– Iron
Greece – Bronze age
• 3 ages we deal with in ancient history:
– Neolithic ( = new stone age)
• ~ 5000-2500 bc
– Bronze
• Technological advance in metallurgy
• Lasts till the late second to early first millennium
– Iron
Greece – Bronze age
• 3 ages we deal with in ancient history:
– Neolithic ( = new stone age)
• ~ 5000-2500 bc
– Bronze
• Technological advance in metallurgy
• Lasts till the late second to early first millennium
– Iron
• Another technological advance in metallurgy
Greece – Bronze age
• 3 ages we deal with in ancient history:
– Neolithic ( = new stone age)
• ~ 5000-2500 bc
– Bronze
• Technological advance in metallurgy
• Lasts till the late second to early first millennium
– Iron
• Another technological advance in metallurgy
• Names based on materials in common use –
assume overlap
Greece – Bronze age
• Comparative history (cf. timeline in your text)
Greece – Bronze age
• Comparative history (cf. timeline in your text)
Ages
Western civilization
&
Mesopotamia
Egypt
civilizations
Neolithic
Bronze
Iron
Eastern civilization
Greece
China
India
~5000-2500
~5000-2500
~5000-2500
~5000-2500
~5000-2500
Flood
Old kingdom
/ pyramids
Preminoan /
Minoan
~2900-1100
~3150-1100
~3000-1100
~3100-771
~3300-1200
Sumer /
Akkad /
Hammurabi
Middle and
new
kingdoms /
Exodus
(Minoan /
Mycenaean
civilizations)
Shang /
Western
Zhou
Harappan
civilization
~1100-500
~1300-500
~1300-500
~1300’s OR
~500’s
~1200-180
Hittite,
Assyria,
Babylon
New kingdom Rise of polis
/ last pharaohs / archaic and
Indus valley
civilization
Western
Iron age
Zhou /
vedic
classical ages Eastern Zhou civilization
Greece – Bronze age
• Material remains give their names to this
relative epochal dating system
Greece – Bronze age
• Material remains give their names to this
relative epochal dating system
• Historicity relies on historiography
Greece – Bronze age
• Material remains give their names to this
relative epochal dating system
• Historicity relies on historiography
– Advent of hellenism in Greece (500’s sq.)
– Writing in any language is necessary
Greece – Bronze age
• Early Bronze Age
– 3000-2000bc
– Crete and mainland Greece: civilization rises
because of contact with palace-kingdoms of the
East
– 4th millennium bc: Rise of civilization in
Mesopotamia and Egypt
Greece – Bronze age
• Early Bronze Age
– 3000-2000bc
– Crete and mainland Greece: civilization rises
because of contact with palace-kingdoms of the
East
– 4th millennium bc: Rise of civilization in
Mesopotamia and Egypt
– Early bronze-age culture in Greece exists – the
Aegean peoples
Greece – Bronze age
• Bronze age civilizations:
– Cycladic (>2200-1800<)
– Minoan (>1900-1600)
– Mycenaean (1600-1100)
Greece – Bronze age
• Middle Bronze Age 2000-1600bc
– Early bronze-age peoples replaced by IndoEuropeans (cf. language)
• Early Greek speakers
• A fused Hellenic culture dependent on civilization:
– Herders, farmers
– Metallurgy
– Pottery and clothmaking
• Patrilineal and Patriarchal
Greece – Bronze age
• Sources:
– Heinrich Schliemann (1822-1890) (Troy and
Mycenae)
– Sir Arthur Evans (1851-1941) (Cnossus)
Greece – Bronze age
• Minoans
– Crete a land of
city-states (30001900)
– 1900: first palace;
1700: second
palace
– Palace is political,
economic, and
administrative
center; focus of
state and religious
ceremony
Greece – Bronze age
• Minoans
– Palace economy: redistribution and trade
• Requires record: WRITING (Linear A)
– Art and Architecture
• Color, painting, and bulls
– Eruption of Thera (1628bc)
Greece – Bronze age
• Mycenaeans
– Late Bronze Age – 1600-1100bc
– Chiefs evolve into monarchs
– Shaft graves shift to tholos tombs
– Cretan takeover: 1450bc
– 1375bc: Mycenae becomes the dominant center
in Greece
– Mycenaean palace system, again requires
WRITING: Linear B
Greece – Bronze age
• Mycenaeans
– Walled citadels
• Focus on megaron (long rectangular hall)
– Separate small kingdoms
– Reach their zenith 1400-1200
– In literature, the generations of the heroes
(leading up to and including the heroes of the
Trojan war)
• Cf. king lists
Greece – Bronze age
• Minoan and Mycenaean religion
– Gods and goddesses
– Honored with processions, music, dance
– Propitiated with gifts and sacrifice
• Animal sacrifice
• Human sacrifice
– Pantheon (be familiar with the big 12!)
Greece – Bronze age
• Warfare
– Wanax – warrior king
• Heavy armor
– Soldiers: large shields, bronze daggers and swords,
two spears, bows and arrows
– Mycenaean chariot
Greece – Bronze age
• Decline of bronze age Greece
– 1200-1100 : devastation
– Sea peoples? Dorians?
– Greece settles into the “Dark Age” (1100-700bc)
Greek sources and the Bronze age
• Homeric epics: Iliad and Odyssey (You MUST
be familiar with these)
• Hesiod:
– Theogony (to understand religion and tradition of
literature for the rest of the Greek material)
– Works & days 109-201 (cf. West’s edition)
• Herodotus (Finley, 29-31)
• Thucydides (Finley, 218-225)