Olives are cultivated in Crete and will provide, in the form of olive oil, one of the main staples of Mediterranean trade

The sculptors of the Cyclades produce stylized and formal figures, mainly female, in white marble

Knossos, and other such palaces, are built for dynasties in Minoan Crete

A bull-fighting fresco in the palace of Knossos is linked with the island's cult of the bull

The eruption of a volcano, on the island of Thera, entombs and preserves houses with frescoes in the Minoan city of Akrotiri

Texts written at Mycenae, in the script known as Linear B, are the earliest surviving version of Greek

The massive architecture of Mycenaean cities such as Tiryns is said in Greek legend to have been built by one-eyed giants, the Cyclopes

The so-called Treasury of Atreus, at Mycenae, is the most spectacular of the beehive tombs of this period

Mycenae prevails as the dominant power throughout the Peloponnese and the entire Aegean

The earliest known suit of armour, made of bronze, survives from a tomb in Mycenaean Greece

Mycenae and other states of the Peloponnese are overwhelmed by invading Dorian Greeks

The traditional date for the first athletic contest at Olympia

Ionia emerges as a political entity, forming a league of twelve Greek cities in Asia Minor

The Homeric texts, the Iliad and the Odyssey, are written down - probably in Ionia

Wrestling is included in the Olympic games, followed by a terrifying form of all-in wrestling from 652 BC

The Greeks make the Phoenician alphabet much more flexible by the addition of vowels, from alpha to omega

The island of Sicily is colonized from the eastern Mediterranean by both Phoenicians and Greeks

Boxing is included in the Olympic games, with each bout going on until one fighter gives up

Byzantium (the future Constantinople) is founded as a colony of Megara, a Greek city-state

The Greek city states make a habit of consulting the oracle at Delphi, hoping mainly for reassurance

The capitals of Greek pillars are by now in the two basic patterns of Doric and Ionic

The inhabitants of Messenia revolt against Spartan rule and are reduced, in retaliation, to the status of serfs or helots

The Areopagus, named from the hill on Athens where it meets, is the council through which the nobles keep power in their own hands

The choros, originally danced in a circle by temple virgins, is the centrepiece of the developing Greek theatre

Frenzied dances, in honour of the god Dionysus, become part of Greek theatre - deriving probably from the northeast, in Thrace