Orientalizing period

In the Archaic phase of ancient Greek art, the Orientalizing period or Orientalizing revolution (also spelled "Orientalising") is the cultural and art historical period that began during the later part of the 8th century BC, when there was a heavy influence from the more advanced art of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Ancient Near East. The main sources were Syria and Assyria as well as Phoenicia and Egypt. With the spread of Phoenician civilization by Carthage and Greek colonisation into the Western Mediterranean, these artistic trends also influenced the Etruscans and early Ancient Romans in the Italian peninsula.

Quotes

• There was not simply one ‘orientalizing’ period, there were several.
  • Stephanie Dalley, The Legacy of Mesopotamia (Oxford, 1998), p. 86; quoted from Nicholas Kazanas, Vedic and Indo-European Studies (Aditya Prakashan, 2015), Ch. 7: Archaic Greece and the Veda

• Angesichts dieser Sachlage wäre es durchaus nicht als abwegig zu bezeichnen, daß man fragte, was im archaischen Hellas eigentlich nicht aus dem Orient herstammte.
• In view of this state of affairs it could not be called out of the way to ask what there was in Archaic Greece which did not come from the orient.
  • H. E. Stier, Historia, I (1950), p. 227; quoted from M. L. West, The East Face of Helicon (Oxford, 1997), p. 12