The Greek Tradition

Indo-European Migrations ........3rd Millenium

Coming of Hellenic Peoples,............................ 2400? IE ancestors of the Greeks

conquest of Hellenic peninsula and syncretism with indigenous folk

Minoan dominance ..............................1600-1500?

Mycenean dominance (aka 'Achaeans') .....1450-1200?

Fall of Troy ..................twice in the 1200s

Fall of Mycenae .............................................1150

vs. 'Dorians' or 'Sea Peoples'

DARK AGE............................................down to 800

Dawn of the Polis....................................800-700?

Homer's epics of Trojan War, Hesiod's Theogony ca. 700

Tragedy at Athens:................................................ Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides ...........500-400

Plato and Aristotle ...........................................300s

Alexander the Great and Hellenistic Age

Roman reception of Greek Myth,........................... esp. Vergil and Ovid... ..............1st c. BC to 1st c. AD

The Near Eastern Traditon

3400 ... Cuneiform writing

ca 3000 BCE

Sumerians dominant in Tigris-Euphrates ..........syncretism of Semitic and Sumerian culture

2300 ...Semitic resurgence led by Sargon

2050 ... Fall of Ur (last Sumerian citadel)

1750 ...Hammurabi: Law Code at Babylon

1600-1200 ...Hittites in Asia Minor

1200 ...Assyrians capture Babylon (and Marduk)

ca. 11oo...Nebuchadnezzar gets Marduk back

900-800? Phoenicians bring writing back to Greece

ca. 530 .......Persians capture Babylon.................... (end of Babylonian captivity for the Jews)