2000-1100 BC Middle and Late Bronze Age

Around 1900 BC palaces were built on Crete at Knossos, Phaestos and Mallia. They were centres of flourishing towns and of Minoan culture. Crete was widely settled and affluent throughout the Bronze Age.

Towards the end of the Middle Bronze Age at Mycenae on the Greek mainland, people began to bury their dead in shaft graves accompanied by rich grave goods. In the Late Bronze Age the Mycenaean rulers went on to build a fortified citadel with a palace and shrines surrounded by a lower town. Other citadels and palatial centres were established in Greece, but Mycenae was the most important. Cretan culture was admired throughout the Aegean and was an important influence on Mycenaean arts and crafts.

Certain island sites on Thera and Kythera, and others on the west coast of Turkey such as Miletus, may have been Minoan colonies or trading posts. Most sites on (Minoan) Crete were destroyed about 1450 BC, after which there was a Mycenaean presence on the island. The Mycenaean civilisation filled the vacuum left by the decline of the Minoans, and dominated the eastern Mediterranean until about 1100 BC, when it came to an end following a series of destructions at the palatial centres.