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by the Analatos Painter.]]The Orientalizing period or Orientalizing revolution is an art history period that began during the later part of the 8th century BC, when art of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Ancient Near East heavily influenced nearby Mediterranean cultures, most notably Archaic Greece. The main sources were Syria, Assyria, Phoenicians, and Egypt.Robert Manuel Cook, Pierre Dupont, East Greek Pottery, Routledge, 1998 pp. 29ff.Robert Manuel Cook, Greek Painted Pottery,'' Routledge, 3rd edition (1997), p. 41: "The technique of these works is generally incompetent, their style often a stale and varying medley of the traditional Hittite, Assyrian and Egyptian elements that were currently available in North Syria." With the spread of Phoenician civilization by Carthage and Greek colonisation into the Western Mediterranean, these artistic trends also influenced the Etruscans and early Ancient Romans in the Italian peninsula.
The emergence of Orientalizing motifs in Greek pottery is clearly evident at the end of the Geometric art, although two schools of thought exist regarding the question of whether or not Geometric art itself was indebted to eastern models.Glenn Markoe, 'The Emergence of Orientalizing in Greek Art: Some Observations on the Interchange between Greeks and Phoenicians in the Eighth and Seventh Centuries B.C.' Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 301 (Feb., 1996), pp. 47–67. In Attica pottery, the distinctive Orientalizing style known as "proto-Attic" was marked by floral and animal motifs; it was the first time discernibly Greek religious and mythological themes were represented in vase painting. The bodies of men and animals were depicted in silhouette, though their heads were drawn in outline; women were drawn completely in outline. At the other important center of this period, Ancient Corinth, the orientalizing influence started earlier, though the tendency there was to produce smaller, highly detailed vases in the "proto-Corinthian" style that prefigured the black-figure technique.Cook, 39–51
From the mid-sixth century, the growth of Achaemenid power in the eastern end of the Aegean and in Asia Minor reduced the quantity of eastern goods found in Greek sites, as the Persians began to conquer Greek cities in Ionia, along the coast of Asia Minor.
The period from roughly 750 to 580 BC also saw a comparable Orientalizing phase of Etruscan art, as a rising economy encouraged Etruscan families to acquire foreign luxury products incorporating Eastern-derived motifs.Fred S. Kleiner, ed. Gardner's Art Through the Ages: The Western Perspective 2010:14. Similarly, areas of Italy—such as Magna Graecia, Sicily, the Picenum,Elena Di Filippo Balestrazzi, L'orientalizzante adriatico, L'Erma" di Bretschneider, Roma 2004 (Italian) Latium vetus,Francesca Fulminante, Le sepolture principesche nel Latium vetus. Tra la fine della prima età del ferro e l'inizio dell'età orientalizzante, Roma, L'Erma di Bretschneider, 2003, (Italian)Massimo Botto, Considerazioni sul periodo orientalizzante nella penisola Italica: la documentazione del Latium Vetus, in Javier Jiménez Avila, Sebastián Celestino Pérez (a cura di), El periodo orientalizante: Actas del III Simposio Internacional de Arqueología de Mérida, Protohistoria del Mediterráneo Occidental, Vol. 1, 2005, pp. 47–74, (Italian) Falisci, the Este culture,Giulia Fogolari, La componente orientalizzante nell'arte delle situle, pp. 10–11, in A.a.V.v. Arte delle situle dal Po al Danubio, mostra di Padova, Sansoni 1961. (Italian) and the Nuragic civilization in SardiniaPaolo Bernardini, L'Orientalizzante in Sardegna: modelli, cifrari, ideologie, in Javier Jiménez Avila, Sebastián Celestino Pérez (a cura di), El periodo orientalizante: Actas del III Simposio Internacional de Arqueología de Mérida, Protohistoria del Mediterráneo Occidental, Vol. 1, 2005, pp. 75–96, (Italian)P. Bocci, Orientalizzante, padana, civiltà atestina, in « Enciclopedia dell'Arte Antica», V volume, Treccani, Roma 1963, pp. 758–759 (Italian)—also experienced an Orientalizing phase at this time. There is also an Orientalizing period in the Iberian peninsula, in particular in the city-state of Tartessos.Diana Neri, Bologna nell'epoca orientalizzante p. 16 in (a cura di) Luana Kruta Poppi, Diana Neri, Donne dell'Etruria padana dall'VIII al VII secolo a.C., All’Insegna del Giglio, Firenze 2015, (Italian)
Among surviving artefacts, the main effects are seen in painted pottery and metalwork, as well as . Monumental and figurative sculpture was less affected,Cook, 5–6 and there the new style is often called Daedalic. A new type of face is seen, especially on Crete, with "heavy, overlarge features in a U- or V-shaped face with horizontal brow"; these derive from the Near East.Boardman (1993), 16 (quoted), 17, 29, 33 The greatest number of examples are from pottery found at sites. There were three types of new motifs: animal, vegetable, and abstract.Cook, 39 Much of the vegetable repertoire tended to be highly stylised. Vegetable motifs such as the palmette, Lotus tree and tendril volute were characteristic of Greek decoration, and through the Greek culture these were transmitted to most of Eurasia. Exotic animals and monsters, in particular the lion (no longer native to Greece by this period) and were added to the griffin, as found at Knossos.Boardman (1993), 15–16
In bronze and terracotta figurines, the introduction from the east of the mould led to a great increase in production of figures mainly made as votive offerings.Boardman (1993), 15
Cultural predominance of the East, identified archaeologically by pottery, ivory and metalwork of eastern origin found in Hellenic sites, soon gave way to thorough Hellenization of imported features in the Archaic Period that followed.
The intense encounter during the orientalizing period also accompanied the invention of the Greek alphabet and the Carian alphabet, based on the earlier Levantine writing, which caused a spectacular leap in literacy and literary production, as the oral traditions of the epic began to be transcribed onto imported Egyptian papyrus (and occasionally leather).
It is likely that the earliest writing systems in Italy developed from the Etruscan script. However, one of the earliest pieces of writing in Italy that dates to the Orientalizing period possibly contains text in a Euboean alphabet. The writing was inscribed by a metal point onto a globular flask in a double burial from Osteria dell'Osa. It is unclear precisely what the text reads, although it is most often interpreted as containing the letters "ΕΥΛΙΝ" ("Eulin"). Further interpretation of the text is likewise unclear, although it may have been a noun or name related to the Ancient Greek term "εὔλινος" ("eúlinos", "spinning well"), a word that may have been chosen to connect to the weaving themes within the female burials of the Latial culture. The term is otherwise interpreted as the Latin phrase "ni lue" ("do not untie me") or the Greek term "εὐοῖ" ("euoî"), a chant used in the cult of Dionysus.
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