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The Protogeometric style (or Proto-Geometric) is a style of Ancient Greek pottery led by Athens and produced, in Attica and Central Greece, between roughly 1025 and 900 BCE,Van Damme, Trevor, and Lis Bartłomiej, (29 October 2024). "The origin of the Protogeometric style in northern Greece and its relevance for the absolute chronology of the Early Iron Age", in: Antiquity, 2024, Vol. 98, No. 401, pp. 1271-1289, Table 1: "Early Protogeometric in Central Greece and Attica, 1025 cal BC."Toffolo, Michael B., et al., (December 26, 2013). "Towards an Absolute Chronology for the Aegean Iron Age: New Radiocarbon Dates from Lefkandi, Kalapodi and Corinth", in: PLoS ONE 8(12): e83117.Fantalkin, Alexander, Assaf Kleiman, Hans Mommsen, and Israel Finkelstein, (2020). "Aegean Pottery in Iron IIA Megiddo: Typological, Archaeometric and Chronological Aspects", in Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry Vol. 20, No 3, (2020), p. 143: "...This would imply that the preceding Aegean sequence from Early Protogeometric to the end of Late Protogeometric should cover the last few decades of the 11th century BCE and the entire 10th century BCE..." during the Greek Dark Ages.Cook, 30 It was succeeded by the Early Geometric art.
Earlier studies considered the beginning of this style around 1050 BCE.
Like many pieces, the example illustrated includes a colour change in the main band, arising from a firing fault. Both the red and black colour use the same clay, differently Elutriation and fired. As the Greeks learnt to control this variation, the path to their distinctive three-phase firing technique opened.
Some of the innovations included some new Mycenean influenced shapes, such as the belly-handled amphora, the neck handled amphora, the krater, and the lekythos. Attica artists redesigned these vessels using the fast wheel to increase the height and therefore the area available for decoration.
Alex Knodell, in his (2021) book, classifies Protogeometric period in three sub-periods:Knodell, Alex, (2021). Societies in Transition in Early Greece: An Archaeological History , University of California Press, Oakland, Table 1, p. 7.
| 1025–1000 |
| 1000–950 |
| 950–900 |
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