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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 historical framework. Whereas Minoan chronology is specific to Crete, the cultural and geographical scope of Helladic chronology is confined to mainland Greece during the same timespan (c. 3200 – c. 1050 BC). Similarly, a Cycladic culture system is used for artifacts found in the Aegean Sea. Archaeological evidence shows that civilization developed at the same time across the region, so the three schemes align chronologically. They are grouped together as "Aegean" in terms such as Aegean art and, rather more controversially, Aegean civilization.
The systems derive primarily from changes in the style of pottery, which is a benchmark for relative dating of associated artifacts such as tools and weapons. On the basis of style and technique, Evans divided his Cretan Bronze Age pottery finds into three main periods which he called Early, Middle and Late Minoan. These were sub-divided into phases and some of those into sub-phases. The Helladic and Cycladic schemes were devised later and have similar sub-divisions. Evans' system has stood the test of time remarkably well but his labels do not provide firm dates because change is never constant and some styles were retained in use much longer than others. In fact it is partly this lack of dates that has been the strength of Evans's system; several of the dates Evans believed have certainly changed, and others remain under discussion, though within fairly narrow ranges, but the scheme just adjusts for such changes. Some pottery can be dated with reasonable precision by reference to Egyptian artifacts whose dates are more certain.
Helladic society and culture have antecedents in Neolithic Greece when most settlements were small villages which subsisted by means of agriculture, farming and hunting. The gradual development of skills such as bronze metallurgy, monumental architecture and construction of brought about the transition from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age. The Late Helladic (c. 1550 – c. 1050 BC) is sometimes called the Mycenaean Greece Age because Mycenae was then the dominant state in Greece. At the end of the Bronze Age (c. 1050 BC), Aegean culture went into a long period of decline, termed a Dark Age by some historians, as a result of invasion and war.
| + Table 1: 3700–2600 BC !City/settlement !3700 BC !3400 BC !3100 BC !2800 BC !2600 BC | |||||
| Agios Dimitrios | 120–180 | 120–180 | |||
| Askitario | 90–135 | 90–135 | |||
| Eutresis | 1,600–2,400 | 1,600–2,400 | |||
| Lerna | 200–700 | 200–700 | |||
| Manika. | 6,000–15,000 | 6,000–15,000 | |||
| Raphina | 600–900 | 600–900 | |||
| Thebes | 4,000–6,000 | 4,000–6,000 | |||
| Tiryns | 1,180–1,770 | 1,180–1,770 |
Pottery. The MH is characterized by the wide-scale emergence of Minyan ware, which may be directly related to the people whom ancient Greek historians called Minyans; a group of monochrome burnished pottery from Middle Helladic sites was conventionally dubbed "Minyan" ware by Troy's discoverer Heinrich Schliemann.
Gray Minyan ware was first identified as the pottery introduced by a Middle Bronze Age migration;. the theory, however, is outdated as excavations at Lerna in the 1950s revealed the development of pottery styles to have been continuous (i.e. the fine gray burnished pottery of the EHIII Tiryns culture was the direct progenitor of Minyan ware).; ; . In general, painted pottery decors are rectilinear and abstract until Middle Helladic III, when Cycladic and Minoan influences inspired a variety of curvilinear and even representational motifs.
Pottery is the most abundant object found from the Middle Helladic period, and it is matt-painted pottery that begins to appear during this period as a new style of ceramic works. While Minyan pottery is made on a wheel that produces sharp designs and shapes, matt-painted pottery is sculpted by hand and has dull paint applied.
Matt-painted pottery, from the Middle Helladic period demonstrates many stylistic motifs that can be traced back to the Early Helladic Period and even other Aegean cultures. Patterns like oblique lines, zigzags, lozenges, running dogs, spiraliforme, and circles and triangles alternating one another beneath the rim on Middle Helladic pottery have been found to be inspired by Cycladic pottery motifs. Spiraliforme can also be traced back to Crete, as well as Griffon motifs. However, patterns like lozenges and pendent-style triangles on matt-painted pottery is a continuation of stylistic motifs from the Early Helladic period, and the addition of vertical fringed lines on pottery is an advancement that took place during the Middle Helladic period itself. With the majority of designs and motifs on Middle Helladic pottery being Cycladic in influence it can be assumed that the Middle Helladic culture and the Cycladic culture interacted with one another heavily.
Grave types. There are four types of graves that are found at sites from the Middle Helladic period; pit graves, tholos graves, cist graves, and shaft graves. A pit grave is self explanatory, as it is simply a pit in the ground, while tholos styled graves are characterized as being more of a chamber like tomb. Cist graves and shaft graves are interesting because they are two styles of burial that originate from the Middle Helladic period itself, and it is believed that migrants who moved to Greece during this period influenced the creation of these new burial styles. Cist graves are deep and rectangular with a tumulus, or mound of earth, placed over top and came about during the beginning of the Middle Helladic period. Shaft graves are larger and deeper than cist graves (measuring on average 6 meters long, 4 meters wide, and 4 meters deep) and came about during the end of the Middle Helladic period. Additionally, infants are buried in special jars, pithoi, that generally measure around tall. Based on the archaeological evidence, at Middle Helladic burial ceremonies bodies are placed in graves on their sides with their knees bent (women are placed on their left sides, and men on their right), then those present at the ceremony drink from cups that they then leave at the tomb. Burial customs also included leaving valued items with the bodies like pottery, silver, or bronze.
At the Middle Helladic site Lerna, there are over 200 graves that have been excavated. While roughly a third of these graves are extramural burials (bodies are buried outside of the community), intramural burials (bodies are buried within the community) make up two thirds of the graves found including towns being built around a cist.
Settlement pattern. Communities during the Middle Helladic period, specifically Lerna, had irregular layouts with no specific pattern, and houses were tightly packed together. It is theorized that the arrangement of houses may have been based on living close to extended family or close to members of a similar group or faction. Houses were one story tall, built in a "U" shape, and made of clay. Generally houses would feature a porch, with up to three rooms, an inner chamber that would contain a hearth, and spaces for storage and cooking. A larger, free standing house has been identified as a possible home to a chief or leader of the community, and features a separate a storage facility as well as a courtyard with a hearth.
Economy. Agriculture included the growing of crops like wheat (which would be ground into flour for baking), barley, flax, peas, chickpeas, lentils, and beans. Animal husbandry had animals like sheep, goats, swine, oxen, horses, and dogs. The textile industry was prominent where they spin thread to be woven into fabrics on a loom, and the clothes they made were both fastened and often decorated with pins. The people would also adorn themselves in necklaces and bracelets made of stone and shells.
Skeletons. By studying the remains at sites like Lerna it was evident that men tended to eat more protein than women, and women tended to partake more in softer, more processed foods. Stress marks were identified on the skeletons of people of both genders, but men had them to a higher degree, denoting that men engaged more frequently in heavy physical labor than women did. More often than women, men also had higher level of lesions caused by infectious diseases, meaning they had greater exposure to foreign pathogens through direct contact with outside groups and people. This makes it appear as though there is division in labor between the genders.
| LHI | 1700–1600 BC |
| LHIIA | 1635–1470 BC |
| LHIIB | 1480–1410 BC |
| LHIIIA1 | 1420–1370 BC |
| LHIIIA2 | 1390–1315 BC |
| LHIIIB | 1330–1200 BC |
| LHIIIC (Early) | 1210–1160 BC |
| LHIIIC (Middle) | 1170–1100 BC |
| LHIIIC (Late) | 1100–1040 BC |
| Proto-Geometric | 1070–900 BC |
Not found at Thera, but extant in late LHI from Messenia, and therefore likely commencing after the eruption, is a material culture known as "Peloponnesian LHI".. This is characterised by "tall funnel-like Keftiu cups of Type III"; "small closed shapes such as squat jugs decorated with hatched loops ('rackets') or simplified spirals"; "dark-on-light lustrous-painted motifs", which "include small neat types of simple linked spiral such as varieties of hook-spiral or wave-spiral (with or without small dots in the field), forms of the hatched loop and double-axe, and accessorial rows of small dots and single or double wavy lines"; also, the "ripple pattern" on "Keftiu" cups. These local innovations continued into the LHIIA styles throughout the mainland.
The LHIIIA:2 pottery marks a Mycenaean expansion covering most of the Eastern Mediterranean. There are many new shapes. The motifs of the painted pottery continue from LHIIIA:1 but show a great deal of standardization. In Egypt, the Amarna site contains LHIIIA:1 ware during the reign of Amenhotep III and LHIIIA:2 ware during that of his son Akhenaten; it also has the barest beginnings of LHIIIB. LHIIIA:2 ware is in the Uluburun shipwreck, which sank in the 14th century BC. Again, Tsoungiza dates are earlier, 1390/1370 to 1360/1325 BC; but LHIIIA:2 ware also exists in a burn layer of Miletus which likely occurred early in the reign of Mursili II and therefore some years prior to Mursili's eclipse in 1312 BC. The transition period between IIIA and IIIB begins after 1320 BC, but not long after (Cemal Pulak thinks before 1295 BC).
LHIIIB pottery is associated in the Greek mainland palaces with the Linear B archives. (Linear B had been in use in Crete since Late Minoan II.) Pulak's proposed LHIIIA/B boundary would make LHIIIB contemporary in Anatolia with the resurgent Hittites following Mursili's eclipse; in Egypt with the 19th Dynasty, also known as the Ramessides; and in northern Mesopotamia with Assyria's ascendancy over Mitanni. The end of LHIIIB is associated with the destruction of Ugarit, whose ruins contain the last of that pottery. The Tsoungiza date for the end of LHIIIB is 1200/1190 BC. The beginning of LHIIIC, therefore, is now commonly set into the reign of Queen Twosret.
Another settlement was Lerna in the Argolid region, which was perhaps the most important and wealthiest of Early Helladic sites. The settlement has a monumental building known as the House of the Tiles, a "corridor house",. notable for several architectural features that were advanced for its time, such as its roof being covered by baked , which gave the building its name.. The structure dates to the Early Helladic II period (2500–2300 BC) and is sometimes interpreted as the dwelling of an elite member of the community, a proto-palace, or an administrative center. Alternatively, it has also been considered to be a communal structure or the common property of the townspeople.. The exact functions of the building remain unknown due to a lack of small finds indicating the specific uses of the building. The house had a stairway leading to a second story, and was protected by a tiled roof.; . Debris found at the site contained thousands of terracotta tiles having fallen from the roof.. Although such roofs were also found in the Early Helladic site of Akovitika,. and later in the Mycenaean towns of Gla and Midea,. they only became common in Greek architecture in the 7th century BC.. The walls of the House of the Tiles were constructed with mudbrick on stone socles.
Other fortified settlements include Tiryns, which covered an area of 5.9 hectares sustaining 1,180–1,770 people, and had a large tiled two-storeyed "round house" (Rundbau) with a diameter of 28 m on the upper citadel. It may have served as a palace or temple or perhaps it was a communal granary.; . "Tiryns. Reconstructed Groundplan of the Circular Building (Rundbau). Early Helladic II". Other sites include Ayia Irini, which covered an area of 1 hectare and had a population of perhaps up to 1,250; Eutresis covering 8 hectares with an estimated population of 1,600–2,400; Thebes covering 20 hectares with a population of 4,000–6,000; Lefkandi (unknown in size and population); and Kolonna (or Aegina), a densely populated settlement with impressive fortifications, monumental stone buildings and sophisticated town planning.
Already before 2500–2400 BC, Kolonna experienced remarkable economic growth and had its own administrative "Corridor House", the so-called "Haus am Felsrand". During the phase Aegina III 2400–2300 BC, which corresponds to the transition phase Lefkandi I-Kastri, the evidence of the economic structure and administrative and social organization of the community become more clear. The "White House" (Weisses Haus; 165 square metres) constitutes the monumental community building that succeeds the "Haus am Felsrand", which had the same function. Kolonna may constitute the Aegean's first state as it appears to be the earliest ranked society in the area outside Minoan Crete and perhaps a political center in the Middle Helladic period where it achieved state-level after the Minoans but before the Mycenaeans..
See also
Citations
Sources
(1975). 9780333154922, MacMillan Press. ISBN 9780333154922
Further reading
External links
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