NAME OF PERIOD

NAME OF PERIOD DATE	SITES	HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENTS	CULTURAL/INTELLECTUAL HIGHPOINTS
MYCENAEAN 1700 – 1100 BCE	Athens, Mycenae, Eleusis, Nauplion, Thebes.	Mycenaean civlization spreads on the mainland. ca. 1225 BCE – Trojan War.	Palace architecture is accompanied by a uniform economic and artistic culture. Linear B, an early form of the Greek alphabet is being used.
DARK AGES 1100 – 800 BCE	Eleusis, Kerameikos cemetery in Athens.	Mycenaean civilization disappears. Isolated rural settlements.	Protogeometric pottery and the first iron tools and weapons. Oral poetry.
GEOMETRIC/ ORIENTALIZING PERIOD 800 – 700 BCE	Athen, Olympia.	Trade re-established with Sicily, Southern Italy, and Asia Minor.	Geometric pottery from the Dipylon cemetery in Athens. Homer and Hesiod composed their poetry. Panhellenic athletic festivals begin. Olympian games – 775 BCE.
GEOMETRIC 700 – 550 BCE	Corinth, Athens, Sparta, Olympia, Delphi.	Colonization and the creation of organized law codes and forms of government.	Corinthian pottery flourished. Lyric poets. Early Greek philosophy.
ARCHAIC 550 – 479 BCE	Athens, Sparta, Olympia, Delphi, Corinth, Tainaron.	Period of the Persian Wars. By the end of the period, Athens has dominance in Greece, but Sparta is prominent in the Peloponnesos. Battle of Marathon – 490 BCE Battle of Salamis – 480 BCE Battle of Plataea – 479 BCE	Athenian black-figure pottery. Kouros/kore sculpture. Temple architecture advances. Aeschylus begins producing plays.
EARLY CLASSICAL 479 – 431 BCE	Athens, Sparta, Olympia, Delphi, Epidauros.	Athenians create an empire than is resented by other Greeks. Pericles is the lead statesman at Athens from 454 – 429 BCE.	Tragic drama of Sophocles and Euripides. Sophists begin to teach. Parthenon and other buildings on the acropolis and agora are built. Temple of Zeus at Olympia is built.
HIGH CLASSICAL 431 – 403 BCE	Athens, Sparta, Olympia, Delphi, Epidauros.	The Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta leads to the defeat of Athens.	Socrates began to teach. Aristophanes produced comedies. Herodotus (425) and Thucydides (404) write their histories.
LATE CLASSICAL 403 – 336 BCE	Delphi, Epidauros, Thebes	Athens, Sparta, and Thebes compete for leadership in Greece. King Philip of Macedon rises to power in the North and defeats Athens and Thebes at Chaeronea in 338 BCE.	Plato founds the Academy. Xenophon wrote his history. Political rhetoric becomes an art. Aristotle founds his own school, the Lyceum, and becomes tutor to the young Alexander.
HELLENISTIC PERIOD 336 – 30 BCE	Epidauros, Delphi, Athens.	Alexander the Great, after his father’s assassination in 336 BCE, becomes leader of a united Greece and extends the empire as far northwest as India. After Alexander’s death in 232 BCE, three Hellenistic kingdoms, Egypt, Syria, and Macedon, are created. Romans conquer the Greek world by 30 BCE.	Alexandria is founded. Aristotle and Demosthenes die in 322 BCE. Zeno and Epicurus created the Stoic and Epicurean philosophies. Great age of scientific research and rise in technology. Reflection of the turmoil and multiculturalism of this time period in the eclectic and highly emotional art.
GRAECO-ROMAN PERIOD 30 BCE – 181 CE	Athens.	Romans create the Pax-Romana, which governs a large percentage of the Mediterranean world for centuries.	A blending of Roman technical skill with the Greek aesthetic.
BYZANTINE EMPIRE 330 – 1453 CE	Athens, Sparta, Mistra.	Survival of the eastern Roman, or Byzantine, Empire ended with the capture of Constantinople by the Turks.	Much Greek literature was preserved and copied in monasteries.
TURKOKRATIA 1453 – 1821 CE		The Greek world languished under Turkish rule.	Many works of art and architecture taken from Greece. The western world rediscovered Greek literature during the Italian Renaissance.
WAR OF INDEPENDENCE 1821 – 1831 CE		The Greek War of Independence expelled the hated Turks.
GREEK EXPANSION MILITARY RULE 1831 – 1974		Civil War – 1946 – 1949 Dictatorship of the Colonels 1969 – 1974. 1981 – Greece becomes a member of the European Community.	Greek folk art develops in pottery, textiles, and woodworking.