The significant Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Cycladic culture is best known for its schematic flat idols carved out of the islands ' pure white marble centuries before the great Middle Bronze Age (" Minoan ") culture arose in Crete, to the south: these figures have been looted from burials to satisfy a thriving Cycladic antiquities market since the early 20th century.

Early Cycladic culture evolved in three phases, between ca 3300-2000 BCE, when it was increasingly swamped in the rising influence of Minoan Crete.

The eruption occurred during the " Late Minoan IA " period at Crete and the " Late Cycladic I " period in the surrounding islands.

The significant Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Cycladic culture is best known for its schematic flat female idols carved out of the islands ' pure white marble centuries before the great Middle Bronze Age (" Minoan ") culture arose in Crete, to the south.

2000 BC ) there was essential convergence between Cycladic and Minoan civilization.

The subjects hold tenaciously to Minoan traditions, whether directly derived or through Cycladic intervention, and have in some cases been reduced to decorative formulas, embodying themes appropriate to their locations: lions and wingless griffins in audience chambers, processional figures in corridors, etc.

Greek art began in the Cycladic and Minoan prehistorical civilization, and gave birth to Western classical art in the ancient period ( further developing this during the Hellenistic Period ).

Greek art began in the prehistoric Cycladic and Minoan civilizations.

Simultaneously but unrelatedly, c. 2200 BC in the Aegean region, the Cycladic culture decays, being substituted by the new palatine phase of the Minoan culture of Crete.

It was intended to complement two parallel terms, Cycladic, identifying approximately the same sequence with reference to the Aegean Bronze Age, and Minoan, with reference to the civilization of Crete.

The three terms Helladic, Cycladic, and Minoan refer to location of origin.

Thus Middle Minoan objects might be found in the Cyclades, but they are not on that account Middle Cycladic.

In general, painted pottery decors are rectilinear and abstract until Middle Helladic III, when Cycladic and Minoan influences inspire a variety of curvilinear and even representational motifs.

A number of culture-historical archaeologists subdivided and named separate cultures within their field of expertise: Heinrich Schliemann for instance, in examining the Bronze Age eastern Mediterranean, divided it up between such cultures as the Aegean, Mycenaean, Helladic and Cycladic.

Archeological evidence suggests the culture on the island had elements in common with the cultures of northwestern Anatolia and the Cycladic Islands.

Prehistoric sculptures were usually human forms, such as the Venus of Willendorf and the faceless statues of the Cycladic cultures of ancient Greece.

The Cyclades are part of a metamorphic complex that is known as the Cycladic Massif.

They are now at Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens.

In Parikia town, houses are built and decorated in the traditional Cycladic style, with flat roofs, whitewash walls and blue-painted doors and window frames and shutters.

Cycladic nude figurines are fairly primitive yet distinctive to the area.

* Cycladic culture — a distinctive Neolithic culture amalgamating Anatolian and mainland Greek elements arose in the western Aegean before 4000 BC

The centaur then walks about and then throws a spear of light into the center of the stadium, from which a giant statue that exemplified Cycladic art ( and thus one of the first depictions of the human form in Greek art ) emerged.

File: Cycladic Figurine. jpg | Cycladic Figurine, Greek, c. 2700-2100 B. C.

The collection spans from the Cycladic period to the decline of the Roman Empire.

Cycladic art includes a large number of marble idols, almost all representing an upright standing nude figure, most commonly female and with arms folded across chest.

Late Cycladic ( 17th century BCE ) gold ibex sculpture about 10cm long with lost wax cast feet and head, repoussé body, from an excavation on Santorini

Excavated sites include Saliagos and Kephala ( on Keos ) with signs of copper-working, Each of the small Cycladic islands could support no more than a few thousand people, though Late Cycladic boat models show that fifty oarsmen could be assembled from the scattered communities ( Rutter ), and when the highly organized palace-culture of Crete arose, the islands faded into insignificance, with the exception of Delos, which retained its archaic reputation as a sanctuary throughout antiquity and until the emergence of Christianity.

Moreover, the erudite Robert Greene was not in error, as the Isle of Delphos does not refer to Delphi, but to the Cycladic island of Delos, the mythical birthplace of Apollo, which from the 15th to the late 17th century in England was known as " Delphos ".

At the same period the neighborhood of Anafiotika, featuring traditional Cycladic architecture, was built by settlers from the Aegean island of Anafi.

Cycladic civilization ( also known as Cycladic culture or The Cycladic period ) is an Early Bronze Age culture of the Cyclades, Greece, in the Aegean Sea, spanning the period from approximately 3000 BC-2000 BC.

These figures have been stolen from burials to satisfy the Cycladic antiquities market since the early 20th century.

Each of the small Cycladic islands could support no more than a few thousand people, though Late Cycladic boat models show that fifty oarsmen could be assembled from the scattered communities ( Rutter ).

On the island of Keros ( Κέρος ), two marble statues from the late Neolithic culture called Early Cycladic culture ( 2900-2000 BCE ) were discovered together in a single grave in the 19th century.

Those that inhabited the Cycladic Islands during this time period left very little trace of their existence apart from their stone tombs.

The first archaeological excavations of the 1880s were followed by systematic work by the British School at Athens and by Christos Tsountas, who investigated burial sites on several islands in 1898-1899 and coined the term " Cycladic civilization ".

* Hellenic Seaways operate their Flying Dolphins service over many routes in the Aegean, between the Cycladic islands, Saronic Gulf islands such as Aegina and Poros and Athens.

* 2011 The Last Grand Tour, Cycladic Art Museum, Athens, Greece

Cycladic Art Museum, Athens, Greece.

* c. 3000 BC — Cycladic culture started in Ancient Greece.

Homer is most frequently said to be born in the Ionian region of Asia Minor, at Smyrna, or on the island of Chios, dying on the Cycladic island of Ios.

The mountain of Exobourgo is quite distinct, and unlike its more rounded Cycladic neighbors, has a more jagged appearance that would be more at home in the Alps.

Its capital, Ioulis, is inland at a high altitude ( like most ancient Cycladic settlements, for the fear of pirates ) and is considered quite picturesque.