Timeline of early Greek history: CLA2323 A: Greek Mythology

Mainland Greece, top centre, amounts to a jagged peninsula that juts southward into the eastern Mediterranean
Sea. Greece’s overseas neighbours are Italy, at left, and Asia Minor (modern Turkey), right. Along the lower map
is the dry expanse of North Africa, with the distinctive green ribbon created by the River Nile in Egypt.

Mainland Greece, at left. The Aegean Sea, at centre, reaches east to Asia Minor, centre-right, and south
to the long island of Crete, bottom. The Aegean is simply a northeastern section of the Mediterranean Sea.

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Timeline of early Greek history: CLA2323 A: Greek Mythology

Archaeology: definition: the systematic study of the past through discovery and
interpretation of material remains. Some mention in our textbook (“Buxton”) pp. 16–
17, 194–196, 202–204.

A timeline of early Greek history

—All dates are B.C. and are approximate
—See also the map at Buxton pp. 12–13

● 7000–3000 B.C.: the Neolithic Age (or “New Stone” Age) in the eastern
Mediterranean and Near East
—This was the few thousand years before the first Greeks arrived.

At this time, the mainland of Greece was inhabited by non-Greek-speaking people.

Modern scholars believe that the mainland people had strong trade-and-cultural links
to the Aegean islands, particularly the island of Crete, and to the west coast of Asia
Minor.

For a glimpse into what might have been the religion of these pre-Greek inhabitants,
see the “Prehistoric Aegean mother goddess” module on Brightspace.

● 3000–1200 B.C.: the Bronze Age in the eastern Mediterranean and Near East

The Bronze Age marks a crucial phase of human development and organizing: In that
era, humans started manufacturing the metal bronze (an alloy of copper and tin) for
use in tools, weapons, etc. For our CLA2323 course, the Bronze Age is when Greek
history and mythology begin.

See the accompanying Word doc, titled “The label ‘Bronze Age’”, inside this same
module.

Circa 2100 B.C.: arrival of the earliest Greek-speakers into Greece. They invaded
overland from the north.

The arriving Greeks were different from the pre-existing inhabitants of Greece. The
two peoples spoke different (and unrelated) languages; they had different cultures and
presumably different religious worships.

The Greeks’ arrival was part of a much larger proliferation of Indo-European-

speaking migrants or invaders across Eurasia during approximately 4000–500 B.C.
The Indo-European speakers originated (probably) on the steppes of southern Russia.
Around 4200 B.C. they began migrating outward from the steppes, west and east.
Ancient Greek was one of the early Indo-European languages. Today, the existing
Indo-European languages include English, French, German, Russian, Farsi, Hindi,
modern Greek, and many others.

1900–1490 B.C.: the Minoan Civilization on the island of Crete

—See Buxton pp. 16–17 (brief comments) and 194–196.
—The Minoans were not Greeks, not Indo-Europeans. However, their technologically
advanced society would provide a model for the early Greeks to copy.
—Today, aspects of the ancient real-life Minoans apparently survive, distortedly, in
some of our Greek myths.

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Timeline of early Greek history: CLA2323 A: Greek Mythology

1600–1200 B.C.: the Mycenaean Civilization in mainland Greece

—See Buxton page 16.
—The Mycenaeans were Greeks, that is, Indo-Europeans. The Mycenaeans spoke
Greek and had social institutions and a religious worship that we would recognize as
Greek. Their “Mycenaean” phase is the earliest form of Greek civilization that we have
record of. (This thanks to modern archaeology.)

The fact of a Mycenaean Civilization is centrally important to any modern study of

Greek mythology. The real-life Mycenaeans stand in some relationship to many of the
specific myths—as we will examine in this course.

More
…

1220 B.C.: a real-life Trojan War?

—In what is now northwestern Turkey, archaeology has revealed a non-Greek fortified
city, destroyed by fire sometime 1250–1200 B.C. Was this the real-life city of Troy,
captured and burned by the Mycenaean Greeks—as commemorated distortedly in
myth? We cannot know who destroyed the city, but speculation is tantalizing.

1200–1150 B.C.: downfall of the Mycenaean Civilization

—Destruction of all the Mycenaean cities, in close succession. Modern scholars are
not sure who exactly destroyed the Mycenaean world.

● 1200–750 B.C.: the “Dark Age” of Greece

—Archaeology reveals signs of widespread economic depression, as compared with the
foregoing Mycenaean era. The Greeks survived as a people, but in greatly reduced
material circumstances.
—At this point in history, until about 800 B.C., the Greeks lacked any knowledge of
writing.
—Gradual revival of Greek culture and trade, 900–750 B.C.

1100–800 B.C.: In an illiterate Greece, there nevertheless flourished an oral

storytelling tradition, under the bards (Greek: aoidoi, “song singers”). The bards
maintained a Greek national “poetry” of unwritten traditional stories (Greek: muthoi,
“myths”), memorized and repeated in performance.

1100–700 B.C.: the birth of Greek mythology? The bards commemorate the vanished
Mycenaeans as a race of superhuman heroes (Greek: hērōes, “protectors”), beloved of
the gods.

● 1050–750 B.C.: the early Iron Age in Greece (overlapping with the Dark Age)
—Widespread use of a new metal, iron, for certain tools, especially cutting-edges: axes,
swords, plowshares, etc.
—Iron as a novelty would be distortedly remembered in Greek mythology. In Greek
myth, iron is associated with humanity’s decline into an era of violence and injustice.

● 800 B.C.: creation of the Greek alphabet, copied from the Phoenician alphabet
—The Greeks now start to become a literate people. The orally preserved myths begin
to get written down.

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Timeline of early Greek history: CLA2323 A: Greek Mythology

—By 600 B.C., Greece will see widespread literacy, with the upper and middle social
classes able to read and write.

750 B.C.: The poet Homer composes the epic poems Iliad and the Odyssey
—See Buxton pp. 31–35.
—Together totalling about 27,800 lines of verse, the two poems detail certain episodes
of the mythical Trojan War and aftermath. The name Iliad means “Story of Troy”; the
name Odyssey means “Story of Odysseus”. The two poems are the earliest surviving
items of Western literature, and their influence on subsequent Western thought and
literature has been immense.
—The Iliad does not recount the whole Trojan War story, but rather some dramatic
events from the war’s last year, prior to the fall of Troy, centering on the Greek hero
Achilles.
—According to tradition, Homer was a blind bard, perhaps at the Aegean island of
Chios.
—Probably (we will never know for sure) Homer was illiterate, he created his poetry
through the age-old process of oral composition, and he dictated his verses to scribes
who wrote them down.

700 B.C.: The poet Hesiod composes the poems Theogony and Works and Days
—See Buxton pp. 33 bottom to 34, and 44–48.
—According to his autobiographical comments in his work, Hesiod lived in the central-
mainland Greek region of Boeotia or Boiotia [pronounced as bee-O-sha] and was a
(rather grumpy) middle-class farmer. Probably he composed his poetry by writing it.
—Hesiod’s Theogony (meaning “Birth of the Gods”) is an important source of Greek
myths about the beginning of the world.
—His Works and Days (that title = an exact translation of the Greek title) is a glorified
farming calendar, with some added mythology, social comment, and ethical musings:
quirky and of great interest.

For a timetable of later Greek authors, see Buxton page 8.