The Greek Dark Ages Weren't That Dark | Greek Archaeology Episode 5
Ойын-сауық
Following on from the collapse of the Bronze Age mycenaean palatial system, we enter the period conventionally known as the Greek Dark Ages, although as I point out, a much better term is actually the Greek Early Iron Age. In this video I discuss what we know about this murky period archaeologically, paying special attention to the site of Lefkandi in Euboea. Here, the infamous shaft burial and cremation seems to be an early kind of Hero Cult, around which a cemetery later arose.
I also address the issues with the past generation of scholarship believing in a "Dorian Invasion" and why the reality is much more likely to be a general migration of pre-existing peoples.
In this Episode:
🏺 Early Iron Age Settlements - The changes in settlements and societal structures during the submycenaean phase and Early Iron Age.
📜 The Dorian "Invasion" - Theories around the Dorians and their impact on Greek culture.
🏛️ Lefkandi Heroon - The uninterrupted occupation and significant discoveries at Lefkandi, including its early Heroon structure.
📚 The 8th Century BCE Transition - How settlements, temple architecture, and the early Polis were expressed.
✍️ The Re-emergence of Writing - The development of Greek writing, including the significance of Nestor’s Cup.
Share your thoughts on the Early Iron Age and the Lefkandi Cult in the comments below. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and hit the notification bell for more archaeology!
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Sources & Bibliography:
Whitley, A. J. M. 2013: Homer's entangled objects: narrative, agency and personhood in and out of Iron Age texts. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 23(3), pp. 395-416
Faraone, C A. 1996: Taking the 'Nestor's Cup Inscription' Seriously: Erotic Magic and Conditional Curses in the Earliest Inscribed Hexameters. Classical Antiquity. 15 (1): 77-112.
Gaunt, J. 2017: Nestor's Cup and its Reception. In Slater, N, W. (ed.). Voice and Voices in Antiquity.
Morris, I. 1996: Negotiated Peripherality in Iron Age Greece: Accepting and Resisting the East. Journal of World-Systems Research. 2 (12)
Powell, B. 1993: Did Homer Sing at Lefkandi?, Electronic Antiquity 1(2)
Morris, I. 1992: Death-ritual and social structure in classical antiquity. Key themes in ancient history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
The Knossos Urban Landscape Project:
www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/res....
Whitelaw, T, et al. 2019: Long-term urban dynamics at Knossos: the Knossos Urban Landscape project, 2005-16. Conference: 12th International Congress of Cretan Studies Volume: 12.
Drews, R. 1993: The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe CA. 1200 B.C. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Five editions between 1993 and 1995
Morris, I. 1991 The early polis as city and state in J. Price and A. Wallace-Hadrill (eds) City and country in the ancient world, 25-57
Bonnier, Anton & Finné, Martin & Weiberg, Erika. 2019: Examining Land-Use through GIS-Based Kernel Density Estimation: A Re-Evaluation of Legacy Data from the Berbati-Limnes Survey. Journal of Field Archaeology. 44. 70-83.
Lemos, I. 1998: Euboea and its Aegean koine. In B. D’Agostino & M. Bats (Eds.), Euboica (1-). Publications du Centre Jean Bérard
Knodell, Alex. 2021: Transforming Village Societies in the Prehistoric Iron Age. 10.1525/luminos.101.f.
Popham, M, Touloupa, E, SAackett, L, H. 1982: The Hero of Lefkandi. Antiquity, LVI
#greekdarkages #homer #mycenaeancollapse #heroon #lefkandi #ironagegreece
Пікірлер: 11
Very cool video
Good stuff
@mystai
26 күн бұрын
Thanks, brother. The Lefkandi Krater has me really contemplating.
@johnnewton8017
25 күн бұрын
Vayu!!!! ❤❤❤
Why is there such resistance towards calling it the Dark Ages? If society regresses and started producing more simplistic art, isn't objective to call it a regression?
@mystai
26 күн бұрын
As I mentioned, Dark Age is a historical term that denotes an absence of texts, not an archaeological one. We see a scaling down and isolation of village economies, but it's certainly not a regression, it just becomes harder to discern in the record. Equally, we can't really base a period name purely on artistic expression relative to older ones, by that logic we would be living in a Dark Ages today compared to the Renaissance. Dark Age gives precisely the impression that Greek society underwent a regression or fall, which just isn't what we're seeing archaeologiclaly.
@notanplant
15 күн бұрын
OP already gave you an answer, but answering to your objection (that can be applied to other events in history, such as "age of enlightment" calling middle age the "dark ages"), this too inform us of the past - it inform us how people who came up with terms were thinking
This is the third channel with the Not Dark Ages" title. Yes they were very dark. When major civilizations end like the Hittite and Myceneans did, not to mention Ugarit. Writing and diplomatic treaties vanished, as did most long distance trade. It's pretty dark.
@mystai
22 күн бұрын
Writing and diplomatic treatise didn't end, they transformed and scaled down to village level economies. But as I mentioned, Lefkandi makes a strong case for continuing distance trade and elite culture given that Euboea was central to the LBA trade network and continued throughout the EIA. Equally, places like Cyprus and Sicily bounced back rapidly to the extent they were barely effected by the economic disruption. The period is only "dark" because of the absence of textual sources, not because it declined in quality.