This name is known to the civilization that is found on the island of Crete, located in the Aegean Sea, since the end of the third millennium BC. and that survived until 1050 BC Such civilization is also known as the Minoan civilization, the name was given by the main excavator of that island, Arthur Evans, who took the name of the mythical Minos, king of Knossos, and figures among others, by Homer, Thucydides and Diodorus of Sicily.
Since the discovery of the Cretan civilization, it was possible to establish a suitable chronological system that harmonizes with the rest of the Aegean civilizations of the Bronze Age. From the pottery, found in a type of excavation carried out in the western courtyard of the palace of Knossos, of a stratigraphic power of 5.33 m, the English archaeologist A. Evans in various periods of the evolution of the Cretan civilization and made known its function in 1905. It articulates these periods and designs them as Ancient Minoic (MA), Middle Minoic (MM) and Recent Minoic (MR); He divided these periods into three phases, followed by Arabic letters and numbers in an attempt to qualify their length.
This chronological system, which spans from 3200 BC to 1900 BC, was accepted and used for a long time, but had to be readjusted before new finds and new chronologies given to certain Egyptian and Eastern times. JDS Pendlebury and G. Glotz modified some temporal corrections and downgraded A. Evans's chronology by approximately two centuries.
In 1952, P. Demargne pointed out that the chronology of Crete was not uniform and that the dates did not correspond to the coincidence in the regions of Crete. He argued that the new chronologies given the material events of the Ancient East and Egypt and the typological differentiation of the material remains required the reduction of the dates of the periods devised by A. Evans. Finally, in 1960.
The Minoan civilization, according to their stratigraphic works at Phaestos, suggests a new chronology and nomenclature for the Cretan civilization, which can be ordered as follows:
- Chalcolithic period: up to 2000 BC
- Preparation: 2000-1850 BC
- Protopalacial Period Ia, Ib and II: 1850-1700 BC
- Proto-Palatial Period III: 1700-1550 BC
- Recent Minoan a and b: 1550-1400 BC
- Minnesota State: 1400-1100 BC
