![Museu arqueologic de Creta40](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/Museu_arqueologic_de_Creta40.jpg)
The Minoan chronology dating system is a measure of the phases of the
Minoan civilization. Initially established as a
relative dating system by English archaeologist Sir
Arthur Evans
Sir Arthur John Evans (8 July 1851 – 11 July 1941) was a British archaeologist and pioneer in the study of Aegean civilization in the Bronze Age. He is most famous for unearthing the palace of Knossos on the Greek island of Crete. Based on ...
between 1900 and 1903 based on his analysis of
Minoan pottery
Minoan pottery has been used as a tool for dating the mute Minoan civilization. Its restless sequence of quirky maturing artistic styles reveals something of Minoan patrons' pleasure in novelty while they assist archaeologists in assigning rela ...
during his excavations at
Knossos
Knossos (also Cnossos, both pronounced ; grc, Κνωσός, Knōsós, ; Linear B: ''Ko-no-so'') is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete and has been called Europe's oldest city.
Settled as early as the Neolithic period, the na ...
on
Crete
Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, ...
, new technologies including
carbon dating and
DNA analysis have led to significant revisions to the date ranges.
The Minoan
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second prin ...
period is divided into "Early Minoan" ("EM"), "Middle Minoan" ("MM"), and "Late Minoan" ("LM"), each sub-divided by Roman numerals I to III, and in many cases by a further "A" or "B," so, for example, "MM IIIB."
In 1958
Nikolaos Platon
Nikolaos Platon (Greek , Anglicised ''Nicolas Platon''; – ) was a renowned Greek archaeologist. He discovered the Minoan palace of Zakros on Crete.
He put forward one of the two systems of relative Minoan chronology used by archaeologists f ...
proposed a new chronology at the Prehistoric Conference in Hamburg, based on the development of the architectural complexes known as "palaces" at
Knossos
Knossos (also Cnossos, both pronounced ; grc, Κνωσός, Knōsós, ; Linear B: ''Ko-no-so'') is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete and has been called Europe's oldest city.
Settled as early as the Neolithic period, the na ...
,
Phaistos
Phaistos ( el, Φαιστός, ; Ancient Greek: , , Minoan: PA-I-TO?http://grbs.library.duke.edu/article/download/11991/4031&ved=2ahUKEwjor62y3bHoAhUEqYsKHZaZArAQFjASegQIAhAB&usg=AOvVaw1MwIv3ekgX-SxkJrbORipd ), also transliterated as Phaesto ...
,
Malia, and
Kato Zakros Zakros ( el, Ζάκρος; Linear B: zakoro) is a site on the eastern coast of the island of Crete, Greece, containing ruins from the Minoan civilization. The site is often known to archaeologists as Zakro or Kato Zakro. It is believed to have been ...
. In it, the terms "Pre-palace," "Old Palace," and "New Palace" were to replace Evans' scheme. The academic community accepted the scheme but not as a replacement, simply stating where in Evans' system the new terms fit. They are now usually called Prepalatial, Protopalatial, Neopalatial, and Postpalatial in English.
Evans and Knossos
Arthur Evans
Sir Arthur John Evans (8 July 1851 – 11 July 1941) was a British archaeologist and pioneer in the study of Aegean civilization in the Bronze Age. He is most famous for unearthing the palace of Knossos on the Greek island of Crete. Based on ...
began excavating on a hill called ''tou tseleve he
kephala Kephala is a hill landform in northern Crete, Greece. This location was chosen by ancient settlers for the site of the Palace of Knossos; the footprint of the Neolithic settlement at Kephala Hill was actually larger than the Bronze Age
T ...
'', "the headland of the chieftain", some three miles (5 km) from the north coast of
Crete
Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, ...
, on March 23, 1900. Two of the palace storerooms had been uncovered by Minos Kalokairinos in 1878, whose work ceased at the demand of the land owners. Simultaneously, coins and
seal
Seal may refer to any of the following:
Common uses
* Pinniped, a diverse group of semi-aquatic marine mammals, many of which are commonly called seals, particularly:
** Earless seal, or "true seal"
** Fur seal
* Seal (emblem), a device to imp ...
s inscribed with a mysterious script were also discovered. These came to Evans' attention as the curator of the
Ashmolean Museum at
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
, a position he held from 1884 to 1908. The area was rumored to have been the site of the ancient city of
Knossos
Knossos (also Cnossos, both pronounced ; grc, Κνωσός, Knōsós, ; Linear B: ''Ko-no-so'') is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete and has been called Europe's oldest city.
Settled as early as the Neolithic period, the na ...
.
Evans examined the site on March 19, 1894. In 1899 Evans purchased the land with his own funds and decided to set up an excavation. In the first two weeks he discovered
Linear A
Linear A is a writing system that was used by the Minoans of Crete from 1800 to 1450 BC to write the hypothesized Minoan language or languages. Linear A was the primary script used in palace and religious writings of the Minoan civi ...
tablets.
![Knossos Rekonstruktion](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Knossos_Rekonstruktion.jpg)
Attacking the site with crews of hundreds of diggers, Evans uncovered most of the site's within 6 seasons. By 1905 he had named the civilization whose traces he found there ''Minoan'', after the legendary king
Minos, and had created a detailed chronology of the serial phases of the pottery styles in Minoan Crete, based on what he found at
Knossos
Knossos (also Cnossos, both pronounced ; grc, Κνωσός, Knōsós, ; Linear B: ''Ko-no-so'') is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete and has been called Europe's oldest city.
Settled as early as the Neolithic period, the na ...
. Subsequently, he concerned himself mainly with restoration. He continued to excavate there and elsewhere and to restore until 1935.
In 1921, the first edition of Evans' work on Crete, ''Palace of Minos'', was released.
On Evans' death in 1941, the British School of Archaeology assumed responsibility for the excavation, later turning the property over to the Greek government, while retaining excavation rights.
Evans' chronology
Evans' chronological framework had triple divisions each triply divided, a formula that has been retained, thus Early Minoan (EM) I, II and III, Middle Minoan (MM) I, II and III etc. Each subsection he divided into A and B, early and late. In 1918
Alan J. B. Wace and
Carl Blegen
Carl William Blegen (January 27, 1887 – August 24, 1971) was an American archaeologist who worked at the site of Pylos in Greece and Troy in modern-day Turkey. He directed the University of Cincinnati excavations of the mound of Hisarlik ...
adapted Evans' chronology to the Greek mainland and the islands, where the culture was termed
Helladic
Helladic chronology is a relative dating system used in archaeology and art history. It complements the Minoan chronology scheme devised by Sir Arthur Evans for the categorisation of Bronze Age artefacts from the Minoan civilization within a h ...
and
Cycladic
The Cyclades (; el, Κυκλάδες, ) are an island group in the Aegean Sea, southeast of mainland Greece and a former administrative prefecture of Greece. They are one of the island groups which constitute the Aegean archipelago. The nam ...
. In 1941
Arne Furumark
Arne may refer to:
Places
* Arne, Dorset, England, a village
** Arne RSPB reserve, a nature reserve adjacent to the village
* Arné, Hautes-Pyrénées, Midi-Pyrénées, France
* Arne (Boeotia), an ancient city in Boeotia, Greece
* Arne (Thessaly) ...
applied the term Mycenaean to LH and LC. As the
Mycenaean Greeks
Mycenaean Greece (or the Mycenaean civilization) was the last phase of the Bronze Age in Ancient Greece, spanning the period from approximately 1750 to 1050 BC.. It represents the first advanced and distinctively Greek civilization in mainland ...
dominated at Knossos at some point in Late Minoan (LM), the latter is often included under "Mycenaean" or called "Minoan-Mycenaean".
Evans never intended to give exact calendrical dates to the pottery periods. He did correlate them roughly to better dated Egyptian periods using finds of Egyptian artifacts in association with Cretan ones and obvious similarities of some types of Cretan artifacts with Egyptian ones.
The one serious question concerns the date of the Knossos tablets. Allegations were made that Evans falsified the stratum in which the tablets were found to place the tablets at 1400 BCE when they ought to have been the same date as the Pylos tablets, 1200 BCE. This dispute became known as the Palmer-Boardman Dispute when it first appeared. A key part of the case was that a certain kind of vase, a stirrup jar (named from the handles) found in tablet contexts, is dated only to 1200.
Modern chronology
Beginning in the 1940s with the advent of technologies such as radiocarbon dating, and the expansion of historical knowledge of the
Mediterranean region
In biogeography, the Mediterranean Basin (; also known as the Mediterranean Region or sometimes Mediterranea) is the region of lands around the Mediterranean Sea that have mostly a Mediterranean climate, with mild to cool, rainy winters and wa ...
, Minoan chronologies have shifted away from Evans' purely relative system and incorporated more
absolute dates.
Modern chronologies are generally divided into three primary categories that retain the general framework developed by Evans: "high chronology," methods using technological solutions such as radiocarbon dating to determine the time period of an artifact's creation, "low chronology," composed of more traditional methods relying on Minoan artifacts found in contexts that allow them to be dated, such as next to an item produced by a different civilization or in a location outside of Crete, for example Cretan pottery found in the tomb of the Egyptian
Pharaoh
Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian: '' pr ꜥꜣ''; cop, , Pǝrro; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') is the vernacular term often used by modern authors for the kings of ancient Egypt who ruled as monarchs from the First Dynasty (c. 3150 BC) until the ...
Thutmose III
Thutmose III (variously also spelt Tuthmosis or Thothmes), sometimes called Thutmose the Great, was the sixth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Officially, Thutmose III ruled Egypt for almost 54 years and his reign is usually dated from 2 ...
.
The third modern chronological style is a combination of the two methods.
Theran eruption
![The Santorini Caldera](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/The_Santorini_Caldera.jpg)
The timing of natural disasters is of importance to high and low chronologies, which can use the resulting geological evidence to date co-located artifacts. The eruption of the
Thera
Santorini ( el, Σαντορίνη, ), officially Thira (Greek: Θήρα ) and classical Greek Thera (English pronunciation ), is an island in the southern Aegean Sea, about 200 km (120 mi) southeast from the Greek mainland. It is the ...
volcano on what is now the island of
Santorini is of particular significance to the chronology of Minoan history.
The Theran eruption plays a role in both the high and low chronological approaches, although there is a difference in the date range each system assigns to the event. In his initial framework, Evans vaguely assigned the eruption to the 17th century BCE. Low chronological assessments revise the eruption to the mid-15th century, while high and blended chronologies push the date back to a point in between Evans' and low chronologies, a more commonly accepted specific date of approximately 1628, though the date is by no means generally agreed. The precise date is of more concern to archaeologists of the Asian mainland and Ancient Egypt, where volcanic ash from Thera is widely evident, and there are established competing chronologies, than to those of Crete.
High chronological techniques such as radiocarbon dating can be used in conjunction with evidence from artifacts indirectly related to the eruption, such as eruption-caused
tsunami
A tsunami ( ; from ja, 津波, lit=harbour wave, ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater exp ...
debris to pinpoint the exact timing of the event, and therefore which Minoan period it belongs in. However, the broadness of radiocarbon dating has also resulted in dates for the eruption of Thera that do not precisely match evidence from the archeological record.
Palaces of Crete and the palatial periods
![Map Minoan Crete-en](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Map_Minoan_Crete-en.svg)
The island of Crete is home to several palaces constructed by the Minoan civilization, all of which are archeologically significant. The primary palaces were located at Knossos,
Malia, and
Phaistos
Phaistos ( el, Φαιστός, ; Ancient Greek: , , Minoan: PA-I-TO?http://grbs.library.duke.edu/article/download/11991/4031&ved=2ahUKEwjor62y3bHoAhUEqYsKHZaZArAQFjASegQIAhAB&usg=AOvVaw1MwIv3ekgX-SxkJrbORipd ), also transliterated as Phaesto ...
.
Each palace was constructed and rebuilt multiple times on the same sites. The palaces' distinct construction phases are used to further divide the relative periods of the Minoan chronology system into five distinct sections: prepalatial, protopalatial, neopalatial, late palatial or the final palace period, and the post-palatial period.
Prepalatial period
The prepalatial period is a broad time period, spanning from approximately 7000 to 1900, and is itself divided into neolithic, early prepalatial, and late prepalatial sections.
Characterized by the creation of large settlements at the locations where palaces would later be constructed and usage of early forms of the architecture later found at palatial sites, the prepalatial period contains the relative chronological divisions EM I through at least part of MM IA.
Protopalatial period
The protopalatial period lasted from approximately 1900 until 1750, or in the relative chronology MM IB through MM IIB.
The major palaces' completion occurred during this time-frame, distinguished by distinct
ashlar masonry with marks created by the responsible masons. The protopalatial phase also saw the emergence of both the
Linear A
Linear A is a writing system that was used by the Minoans of Crete from 1800 to 1450 BC to write the hypothesized Minoan language or languages. Linear A was the primary script used in palace and religious writings of the Minoan civi ...
and
Cretan hieroglyphic writing systems, although they likely initially saw use as early as the end of the previous period.
Neopalatial period
The neopalatial period occurred during the relative chronological divisions of MM III and LM IB, a roughly 260-year span between 1750 and 1490
The period is represented by the dramatic expansion and reconstruction of the palace at Knossos, associated with Evans' discoveries of paintings featuring bulls, which he interpreted as evidence for the existence of the
Labyrinth
In Greek mythology, the Labyrinth (, ) was an elaborate, confusing structure designed and built by the legendary artificer Daedalus for King Minos of Crete at Knossos. Its function was to hold the Minotaur, the monster eventually killed by t ...
of Greek myth. Additional palaces were built at Galatas and
Zakros Zakros ( el, Ζάκρος; Linear B: zakoro) is a site on the eastern coast of the island of Crete, Greece, containing ruins from the Minoan civilization. The site is often known to archaeologists as Zakro or Kato Zakro. It is believed to have be ...
, while the palaces at Malia and Phaistos underwent periods of destruction, abandonment, and reconstruction.
The Theran eruption occurred during the end of the neopalatial period, during the end of LM IA.
Late palatial period
![Linear B plaque cretan administration Knossos AMH](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/Linear_B_plaque_cretan_administration_Knossos_AMH.jpg)
Beginning in the LM II period, approximately 1490, and ending with the start of the LM IIIB period 130 years later in 1360, the late palatial period was the final use of intact palace structures on Crete.
The palaces at Phaistos, Galatas, Zakros, and Malia were largely destroyed and/or abandoned, while the palace at Knossos received its final additions.
The late palatial period marked the emergence of the
Linear B script, an early form of written
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
, used at Knossos to record economic and administrative information.
Post-palatial period
The post-palatial period of Minoan chronology, a roughly 140-year period between 1360 and 1200, falls into the last relative period defined by absolute dates, LM IIIB.
The period saw Knossos lose prominence as a settlement, with the majority of new construction taking place at the agricultural and trade center of Mesara. The end of the post-palatial period also represented an emphasis of
Mycenaean Greek
Mycenaean Greek is the most ancient attested form of the Greek language, on the Greek mainland and Crete in Mycenaean Greece (16th to 12th centuries BC), before the hypothesised Dorian invasion, often cited as the '' terminus ad quem'' for th ...
styles of construction and architecture over traditional Minoan methods.
Other tables on the Internet
The search for a consistent chronology of Cretan civilization goes on. Other tabular chronologies have been published on the Internet by:
Ian Swindale using the chronology of Andonis Vasilakis in his book on ''Minoan Crete'', published by Adam Editions in 2000
Dartmouth CollegeThera Foundationin the Foundation of the Hellenic World site
Companion to Manning(Cornell)
Notes
References
*Hemingway, Seán, '' Art of the Aegean Bronze Age'', ''The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin'', Spring 2012 Volume LXIX, Number 4 (chronology table on p. 48)
* Hutchinson, ''Prehistoric Crete'', many editions hardcover and softcover
* Matz, Friedrich, ''The Art of Crete and Early Greece'', Crown, 1962
* Mackenzie, Donald A., ''Crete & Pre-Hellenic'', Senate, 1995,
* Palmer, L. A., ''Mycenaeans and Minoans'', multiple editions
* Platon, Nicolas, ''Crete'' (translated from the Greek), Archaeologia Mundi series, Frederick Muller Limited, London, 1966
*Vasilakis, Andonis, ''Minoan Crete: From Myth to History'', 2000, Adam Editions, Athens,
* Willetts, ''The Civilization of Ancient Crete'', Barnes & Noble, 1976,
{{Refend
External links
Myrtos Museum site.
''The First Great Expansion of Aegean Commerce'' Chapter 9 in H. J. Kantor, ''Plant Ornament in the Ancient Near East''
''The Impact of Cycladic Settlers on Early Minoan Crete'' article by Philip P. Betancourt in ''Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry'', Vol. 3 No. 1 2003.
*
ttps://web.archive.org/web/20110524083709/http://www.athenapub.com/11knoss.htm ''The Palaces of Minos at Knossos'' article by Colin F. Macdonald in ''Athena Review'', Vol.3, no.3: Minoan Crete
''A brief history of Knosós'' British School at Athens
UT Arlington
''Settlement Patterns ... in East Crete in the Final Neolithic'' Peter Tomkins et al.
article by Ioannis Georganas in Antistoreton, Issue E985 of 1 July 1998.
MINOAN TRADE: ASPECTS AND AMBIGUITIES unrestricted thesis at the University of South Africa, by Deanne Kieser
Michele A. Miller, Athena Review, Vol.3, no.3y
Chronology
Chronology (from Latin ''chronologia'', from Ancient Greek , ''chrónos'', "time"; and , ''-logia'') is the science of arranging events in their order of occurrence in time. Consider, for example, the use of a timeline or sequence of events. I ...
Chronology
Chronology (from Latin ''chronologia'', from Ancient Greek , ''chrónos'', "time"; and , ''-logia'') is the science of arranging events in their order of occurrence in time. Consider, for example, the use of a timeline or sequence of events. I ...
Chronology