Download Dark Ages in Greece

Dark Age Greece
1150-700 BC
Part 1: 1150-900
Collapse of Bronze age peoples
across the Eastern Mediterranean
(Myceneans)
Population decrease
Fortified cities abandoned
Strong government structures
disappeared
Loss of written inscriptions
Art on vases become simplistic and
geometric
Not All Lost …
Still farming, pottery, weaving,
metal working, etc but on a
smaller level
Some trade still existed
People continued to speak Greek
and pass down oral stories
Some technological innovations:
Potters wheel
Geometric compass
Iron learned from the East
Expansion
Ionian Migration
1050-950
Ionians migrated from mainland
Greece to Anatolian Coast
(Turkey)
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Geometric Period
Geometric designs on pottery
Becomes more elaborate over
time
Eventually incorporates living
creatures (birds, horses)
Human figures appear around
750
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Oral Tradition
Kept myths and legends going
throughout the Dark Ages
even without a writing system
Homer and Hesiod
Written down between 750700 BC
Homer’s Age of Heroes
Iliad and the Odyssey
Not a real historical period
Combined memories of the bronze
age with culture of dark ages
Can use as evidence for Dark Age
Culture
Believed to be real by the Greeks
Heroes were models of good and
bad behavior
Used to teach - didactic
Hesiod
Didactic Poetry
“Works and Days”
Lessons for daily life: man’s
Ultimate purpose in life is to
work, and if he is willing to
work, he will get by
Agrarian in theme
Honest labor, against idleness
Addressed to his brother
Religion
Systematized during the Dark Ages
by oral poetry
Homer’s gods in the Odyssey
become the gods of the Greeks
Hesiod’s “Theogony”
Creation myth, secession story
Gaia and Uranus gave birth to the
Titans (Kronos)
Kronos and Rhea have Zeus and
Olympian gods who take over
Recovery (900-750)
Material progress: gold jewelry,
iron, bronze
Grave goods indicating increase in
wealth
No major changes in building style
First freestanding temple built
around 800
Olympics thought to have begun in
776 BC
New writing system
Phoenicians