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The Protogeometric style (or Proto-Geometric) is a style of Ancient Greek pottery led by Athens produced between roughly 1050 and 900 BCE, [1] [2] [3] during the Greek Dark Ages. [4] It was succeeded by the Early Geometric period.
After the collapse of the Mycenaean-Minoan Palace culture and the ensuing Greek Dark Ages, the Protogeometric style emerged around the mid 11th century BCE as the first expression of a reviving civilization. Following on from the development of a faster potter's wheel, vases of this period are markedly more technically accomplished than earlier Dark Age examples. From Athens the style spread to several other centres. [5]
The decoration of these pots is restricted to purely abstract elements and very often includes broad horizontal bands about the neck and belly and concentric circles applied with compass and multiple brush. Many other simple motifs can be found, but unlike many pieces in the following Geometric style, typically much of the surface is left plain. [6]
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 levigated 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 . Attic 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: [7]
| Ceramic period | Dates BCE |
|---|---|
| Early Protogeometric | 1070/40–1000 |
| Middle Protogeometric | 1000–950 |
| Late Protogeometric | 950–900 |
The Carians were the ancient inhabitants of Caria in southwest Anatolia, who spoke the Carian language.
The Greek Dark Ages were earlier regarded as two continuous periods of Greek history: the Postpalatial Bronze Age and the Prehistoric Iron Age or Early Iron Age, which included all the ceramic phases from the Protogeometric to the Middle Geometric I and lasted until the beginning of the Protohistoric Iron Age around 800 BC. Currently, the term Greek Dark Ages is being abandoned, and both periods are not considered "obscure".
Pottery, due to its relative durability, comprises a large part of the archaeological record of ancient Greece, and since there is so much of it, it has exerted a disproportionately large influence on our understanding of Greek society. The shards of pots discarded or buried in the 1st millennium BC are still the best guide available to understand the customary life and mind of the ancient Greeks. There were several vessels produced locally for everyday and kitchen use, yet finer pottery from regions such as Attica was imported by other civilizations throughout the Mediterranean, such as the Etruscans in Italy. There were a multitude of specific regional varieties, such as the South Italian ancient Greek pottery.
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. Similarly, a Cycladic chronology system is used for artifacts found in the Aegean islands. Archaeological evidence has shown that, broadly, civilisation developed concurrently across the whole region and so the three schemes complement each other chronologically. They are grouped together as "Aegean" in terms such as Aegean art and, rather more controversially, Aegean civilization.
Aegean art is art that was created in the lands surrounding, and the islands within, the Aegean Sea during the Bronze Age, that is, until the 11th century BC, before Ancient Greek art. Because is it mostly found in the territory of modern Greece, it is sometimes called Greek Bronze Age art, though it includes not just the art of the Mycenaean Greeks, but also that of the Cycladic and Minoan cultures, which converged over time.
Lefkandi is a coastal village on the island of Euboea, Greece. Archaeological finds attest to a settlement on the promontory locally known as Xeropolis, while several associated cemeteries have been identified nearby. The settlement site is located on a promontory overlooking the Euripos Strait, with small bays forming natural harbours east and west of the site. The cemeteries are located on the hillslopes northwest of the settlement; the plots identified so far are known as the East Cemetery, Skoubris, Palia Perivolia, Toumba, in addition to further smaller groups of burials. The site is located between the island's two main cities in antiquity, Chalkis and Eretria. Excavation here is conducted under the direction of the British School at Athens and is ongoing as of 2007.
A pyxis is a shape of vessel from the classical world, usually a cylindrical box with a separate lid and no handles. They were used to hold cosmetics, trinkets or jewellery, but were also used for dispensing incense and by physicians to contain medicine. Surviving pyxides are mostly Greek pottery, but could also be made from a range of other materials: wood, bronze, ivory, marble, terracotta, silver, or stone. The name derived from Corinthian boxes made of wood from the tree puksos ("boxwood"). During the Classical period, the Attic word "kylichnis" was also used to refer to the same shape. The shape of the vessel can be traced in pottery back to the Protogeometric period in Athens, however the Athenian pyxis has various shapes itself.
The Minoan civilization produced a wide variety of richly decorated Minoan pottery. Its restless sequence of quirky maturing artistic styles reveals something of Minoan patrons' pleasure in novelty while they assist archaeologists in assigning relative dates to the strata of their sites. Pots that contained oils and ointments, exported from 18th century BC Crete, have been found at sites through the Aegean islands and mainland Greece, in Cyprus, along coastal Syria and in Egypt, showing the wide trading contacts of the Minoans.
Geometric art is a phase of Greek art, characterized largely by geometric motifs in vase painting, that flourished towards the end of the Greek Dark Ages and a little later, c. 1050–700 BC. Its center was in Athens, and from there the style spread among the trading cities of the Aegean. The so-called Greek Dark Ages were considered to last from c. 1100 to 800 BC and include the phases from the Protogeometric period to the Middle Geometric I period, which Knodell (2021) calls Prehistoric Iron Age. The vases had various uses or purposes within Greek society, including, but not limited to, funerary vases and symposium vases.
In the Archaic phase of ancient Greek art, the Orientalizing period or Orientalizing revolution is the cultural and art historical period that began during the later part of the 8th century BC, when there was a heavy influence from the more advanced art of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Ancient Near East. The main sources were Syria and Assyria as well as Phoenicia and Egypt. 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.
Mycenaean pottery is the pottery tradition associated with the Mycenaean period in Ancient Greece. It encompassed a variety of styles and forms including the stirrup jar. The term "Mycenaean" comes from the site Mycenae, and was first applied by Heinrich Schliemann.
The Archaeological Museum of Aegina is a museum in Aegina, Greece, founded on 21 October 1828 by Ioannis Kapodistrias, the first governor of independent Greece.
The Archaeological Museum of Eretria is a museum in Eretria, in the Euboea regional unit of Central Greece.
Submycenaean pottery is a style of Ancient Greek pottery that is transitional between the preceding Mycenaean pottery and the subsequent styles of Greek vase painting, particularly the Protogeometric style. The vases from this period date between 1030 and 1000 BC.
The pottery of ancient Cyprus starts during the Neolithic period. Throughout the ages, Cypriot ceramics demonstrate many connections with cultures from around the Mediterranean. During the Early and Middle Bronze Ages, it is especially imaginative in shape and decoration. There are also many early terracotta figurines that were produced depicting female figures.
Ancient Greek art stands out among that of other ancient cultures for its development of naturalistic but idealized depictions of the human body, in which largely nude male figures were generally the focus of innovation. The rate of stylistic development between about 750 and 300 BC was remarkable by ancient standards, and in surviving works is best seen in sculpture. There were important innovations in painting, which have to be essentially reconstructed due to the lack of original survivals of quality, other than the distinct field of painted pottery.
Irene S. Lemos is a British classical archaeologist and academic, specialising in the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age of Greece. She is Professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford.
John Manuel Cook, (1910–1994) was a British classical archaeologist. He was educated at Marlborough College, and went to King's College, Cambridge (1929–32).
The Dipylon Amphora is a large Ancient Greek painted vase, made around 760–750 BC, and is now held by the National Archaeological Museum, Athens. Discovered at the Dipylon cemetery, this stylistic vessel belonging to the Geometric period is credited to an unknown artist: the Dipylon Master. The amphora is covered entirely in ornamental and geometric patterns, as well as human figures and animal-filled motifs. It is also structurally precise, being that it is as tall as it is wide. These decorations use up every inch of space, and are painted on using the black-figure technique to create the silhouetted shapes. Inspiration for the Greek vase derived not only from its intended purpose as a funerary vessel, but also from artistic remnants of Mycenaean civilization prior to its collapse around 1100 BC. The Dipylon Amphora signifies the passing of an aristocratic woman, who is illustrated along with the procession of her funeral consisting of mourning family and friends situated along the belly of the vase. The woman's nobility and status is further emphasized by the plethora of detail and characterized animals, all which remain in bands circling the neck and belly of the amphora.
The archaeology of Greece includes artificial remains, geographical landscapes, architectural remains, and biofacts. The history of Greece as a country and region is believed to have begun roughly 1–2 million years ago when Homo erectus first colonized Europe. From the first colonization, Greek history follows a sequential pattern of development alike to the rest of Europe. Neolithic, Bronze, Iron and Classical Greece are highlights of the Greek archaeological record, with an array of archaeological finds relevant to these periods.