To enhance clarity regarding the chronological classification and correlation of the exhibits of the Museum, we have created a foundational table outlining the major periods of Greek history.
Neolithic Greece
Pelasgians
(7000 BC - 3200 BC)
The name Pelasgians (Ancient Greek: Πελασγοί, romanized: Pelasgoí, singular: Πελασγός Pelasgós) was used by Classical Greek writers to refer either to the predecessors of the Greeks, or to all the inhabitants of Greece before the emergence of the Greeks. In general, "Pelasgian" has come to mean more broadly all the indigenous inhabitants of the Aegean Sea region and their cultures.
Greek Bronze Age
Cycladic
(c. 3100–1000 BC)
Cycladic culture (also known as Cycladic civilisation) was a Bronze Age culture (c. 3100–c. 1000 BC) found throughout the islands of the Cyclades in the Aegean Sea.
Minoan
(c. 3100–1100 BC)
The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age culture which was centered on the island of Crete. Known for its monumental architecture and energetic art, it is often regarded as the first civilization in Europe.
Mycenean
(c. 1750–1050 BC)
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 Greece with its palatial states, urban organization, works of art, and writing system. The Mycenaeans were mainland Greek peoples who were likely stimulated by their contact with insular Minoan Crete and other Mediterranean cultures to develop a more sophisticated sociopolitical culture of their own.
Ancient Greece
Greek Dark Ages
(1100 BC–750 BC)
The Greek Dark Ages (c. 1200–800 BC) were earlier regarded as two continuous periods of Greek history: the Postpalatial Bronze Age (c. 1200–1050 BC) and the Prehistoric Iron Age or Early Iron Age (c. 1050–800 BC). The last included all the ceramic phases from the Protogeometric to the Middle Geometric and lasted until around 800 BC.
Archaic Greece
(800 BC–480 BC)
Archaic Greece was the period in Greek history lasting from c. 800 BC to the second Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC, following the Greek Dark Ages and succeeded by the Classical period. In the archaic period, the Greeks settled across the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea: by the end of the period, they were part of a trade network that spanned the entire Mediterranean.
Classical Greece
(500 BC–323 BC)
Classical Greece was a period of around 200 years (the 5th and 4th centuries BC) in ancient Greece, marked by much of the eastern Aegean and northern regions of Greek culture (such as Ionia and Macedonia) gaining increased autonomy from the Persian Empire; the peak flourishing of democratic Athens; the First and Second Peloponnesian Wars; the Spartan and then Theban hegemonies; and the expansion of Macedonia under Philip II. Much of the early defining mathematics, science, artistic thought (architecture, sculpture), theatre, literature, philosophy, and politics of Western civilization derives from this period of Greek history, which had a powerful influence on the later Roman Empire.
Hellenistic Greece
(323 BC–31 BC)
Hellenistic Greece is the historical period of Ancient Greece following Classical Greece and between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the annexation of the classical Greek Achaean League heartlands by the Roman Republic. This culminated at the Battle of Corinth in 146 BC, a crushing Roman victory in the Peloponnese that led to the destruction of Corinth and ushered in the period of Roman Greece.
Roman Greece
(146 BC–330 AD)
Greece in the Roman era (Greek: Έλλάς, Latin: Graecia) describes the Roman conquest of ancient Greece (roughly, the territory of the modern nation-state of Greece) as well as that of the Greek people and the areas they inhabited and ruled historically. It covers the periods when Greece was dominated first by the Roman Republic and then by the Roman Empire.
Medieval Greece
Byzantine Greece
(330-1453)
Byzantine Greece has a history that mainly coincides with that of the Byzantine Empire itself. The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred in Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Surviving the conditions that led to the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD, it endured until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453. For much of its history, the empire remained the most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in the Mediterranean world.
Frankish and Latin states
(1204-1579)
The Frankish Occupation, also known as the Latin Occupation and, for the Venetian domains, Venetian Occupation, was the period in Greek history after the Fourth Crusade (1204), when a number of primarily French and Italian states were established by the Partitio terrarum imperii Romaniae on the territory of the partitioned Byzantine Empire.
Venetian Crete
(1205-1667)
The Realm or Kingdom of Candia (Venetian: Regno de Càndia; Italian: Regno di Candia; Greek: Βασίλειο της Κάντιας, romanized: Vasíleio tis Kántias) was the official name of Crete during the island's period as an overseas colony of the Republic of Venice, from the initial Venetian conquest in 1205–1212 to its fall to the Ottoman Empire during the Cretan War (1645–1669).
Venetian Ionian Islands
(1363-1797)
The Ionian Islands were an overseas possession of the Republic of Venice from the mid-14th century until the late 18th century. The conquest of the islands took place gradually.
Early modern Greece
Ottoman Greece
(1371-1822)
The vast majority of the territory of present-day Greece was at some point incorporated within the Ottoman Empire. The period of Ottoman rule in Greece, lasting from the mid-15th century until the successful Greek War of Independence broke out in 1821 and the First Hellenic Republic was proclaimed in 1822, is known in Greece as Turkocracy (Greek: Τουρκοκρατία, Tourkokratia, "Turkish rule"). Some regions, like the Ionian islands and various temporary Venetian possessions of the Stato da Mar, were not incorporated in the Ottoman Empire. The Mani Peninsula in the Peloponnese was not fully integrated into the Ottoman Empire, but was under Ottoman suzerainty.
Modern Greece
Septinsular Republic
(1800-1807)
The vast majority of the territory of present-day Greece was at some point incorporated within the Ottoman Empire. The period of Ottoman rule in Greece, lasting from the mid-15th century until the successful Greek War of Independence broke out in 1821 and the First Hellenic Republic was proclaimed in 1822, is known in Greece as Turkocracy (Greek: Τουρκοκρατία, Tourkokratia, "Turkish rule"). Some regions, like the Ionian islands and various temporary Venetian possessions of the Stato da Mar, were not incorporated in the Ottoman Empire. The Mani Peninsula in the Peloponnese was not fully integrated into the Ottoman Empire, but was under Ottoman suzerainty.
War of Independence
(1821-1829)
The Greek War of Independence, also known as the Greek Revolution or the Greek Revolution of 1821, was a successful war of independence by Greek revolutionaries against the Ottoman Empire between 1821 and 1829.[3] In 1826, the Greeks were assisted by the British Empire, Kingdom of France, and the Russian Empire, while the Ottomans were aided by their vassals, especially by the Eyalet of Egypt. The war led to the formation of modern Greece, which would be expanded to its modern size in later years. The revolution is celebrated by Greeks around the world as independence day on 25 March.
First Hellenic Republic
(1822-1832)
The First Hellenic Republic (in Greek: Αʹ Ελληνική Δημοκρατία) was the provisional Greek state during the Greek Revolution against the Ottoman Empire. From 1822 until 1827, it was known as the Provisional Administration of Greece, and between 1827 and 1832, it was known as the Hellenic State.
Kingdom of Greece (1832-1924 and 1935-1973)
The Kingdom of Greece (Greek: Βασίλειον τῆς Ἑλλάδος) was established in 1832 and was the successor state to the First Hellenic Republic. It was internationally recognised by the Treaty of Constantinople, where Greece also secured its full independence from the Ottoman Empire after nearly four centuries.
The Kingdom of Greece was dissolved in 1924 and the Second Hellenic Republic was established following Greece's defeat by Turkey in the Asia Minor Campaign. A military coup d'état restored the monarchy in 1935 and Greece became a kingdom again until 1973. The kingdom was finally dissolved in the aftermath of a seven-year military dictatorship (1967–1974) and the Third Hellenic Republic was established following a referendum held in 1974.
Second Hellenic Republic
(1924-1935)
The Second Hellenic Republic is a modern historiographical term used to refer to the Greek state during a period of republican governance between 1924 and 1935. To its contemporaries it was known officially as the Hellenic Republic (Greek: Ἑλληνικὴ Δημοκρατία) or more commonly as Greece (Greek: Ἑλλάς, Hellas). It occupied virtually the coterminous territory of modern Greece (with the exception of the Dodecanese) and bordered Albania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Turkey and the Italian Aegean Islands. The term Second Republic is used to differentiate it from the First and Third republics.
4th of August Regime
(1936-1941)
The 4th of August Regime (Greek: Καθεστώς της 4ης Αυγούστου, romanized: Kathestós tis tetártis Avgoústou), commonly also known as the Metaxas regime (Καθεστώς Μεταξά, Kathestós Metaxá), was a fascist regime under the leadership of General Ioannis Metaxas that ruled the Kingdom of Greece from 1936 to 1941.
Axis occupation (Collaborationist regime, Free Greece)
(1941-1944)
The occupation of Greece by the Axis Powers (Greek: Η Κατοχή, romanized: I Katochi, lit. 'the occupation') began in April 1941 after Nazi Germany invaded the Kingdom of Greece in order to assist its ally, Italy, in their ongoing war that was initiated in October 1940, having encountered major strategical difficulties. Following the conquest of Crete, the entirety of Greece was occupied starting in June 1941. The occupation of the mainland lasted until Germany and its ally Bulgaria withdrew under Allied pressure in early October 1944, with Crete and some other Aegean islands being surrendered to the Allies by German garrisons in May and June 1945, after the end of World War II in Europe.
Civil War
(1946-1949)
The Greek Civil War (Greek: Eμφύλιος Πόλεμος, romanized: Emfýlios Pólemos) took place from 1946 to 1949. The conflict, which erupted shortly after the end of World War II, consisted of a Communist-led uprising against the established government of the Kingdom of Greece. The rebels declared a people's republic, the Provisional Democratic Government of Greece, which was governed by the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and its military branch, the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE). The rebels were supported by Albania and Yugoslavia. With the support of the United Kingdom and the United States, the Greek government forces ultimately prevailed.
Military Junta
(1967-1974)
The Greek junta or Regime of the Colonels[a] was a right-wing military junta that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974. On 21 April 1967, a group of colonels overthrew the caretaker government a month before scheduled elections which Georgios Papandreou's Centre Union was favoured to win.
Third Hellenic Republic (1974-)
The Third Hellenic Republic (Greek: Γ΄ Ελληνική Δημοκρατία, romanized: Triti Elliniki Dimokratia) is the period in modern Greek history that stretches from 1974, with the fall of the Greek military junta and the final confirmation of the abolishment of the Greek monarchy, to the present day.
