Minoan pottery is more than a useful tool for dating the mute Minoan civilization(1900b.c.). Its restless sequence of rapidly-maturing artistic styles reveal something of Minoan patrons' pleasure in novelty while they assist archaeologists assign relative dates to the strata of their sites.

The extremely fine palace pottery called Kamares ware, and the Late Minoan all-over patterned "Marine style" are the high points of the Minoan pottery tradition.