Dark Age GreeceANTONIS KOTSONAS

The concept of a “Dark Age” was unknown to

the Greeks of historical times, who viewed their

distant past as a process of slow progress or

decline. The concept was essentially invented

by early twentieth-century scholars and was for-

malized by major works of the 1970s. According

to these works, the “Dark Age” commenced

with the fall of the Mycenaean palatial adminis-

tration ca. 1200 BCE and persisted to either ca.

900 or ca. 750. To the text-based scholar, this

period seemed dark because little or no litera-

ture survives from it; to the archaeologist, the

darkness primarily lay in the period’s unim-

pressive culture, which bore no comparison

with that of earlier and later periods. According

to scholarly works of the 1970s, depopulation,

cultural isolation, economic stagnation, and

sociopolitical instability characterized the

“Dark Age.” Since the 1970s, “Dark Age” Greece

has attracted intensive study and fieldwork.

Recent developments have called into question

several of the earlier assumptions about this

period. The greatest challenge came from the

discovery of the Toumba building at LEFKANDI, in

EUBOEA, which dates from the tenth century

BCE, supposedly the darkest part of the “Dark

Age.” The unparalleled size of the structure

and rich finds from two human burials dis-

covered in its interior indicate a prosperous

community, which enjoyed considerable socio-

political complexity and close links with the

eastern Mediterranean. Other, less impressive

discoveries made throughout Greece have filled

out the archaeological landscape and have

shown that internal stability and external

contacts were not exceptional for Greek

communities of the period. On the other

hand, it is undeniable that in comparison with

the range, quantity, and quality of the data

available for study of the preceding Mycenaean

period and the subsequent Archaic phase, the

material for the period in question is not par-

ticularly rich. Burial sites and painted pottery

dominate the archaeological record of “Dark

Age” Greece, and interpretations of the period

often depend heavily on theoretical models or,

simply, on reasoned speculation. The term

“Dark Age” is today largely avoided because of

its potentially misleading nature, and repeated

pleas for its abandonment and adoption of an

alternative term, the “(Early) Iron Age,” have

become commonplace. This alternative term is

suggestive of a major cultural development of

the time – the introduction of iron working –

and allows for better understanding of the

period and its significance for Greek history.

SEE ALSO: Aegean Sea, Bronze Age; Chronology,

Bronze and Iron Age.

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS

Deger-Jalkotzy, S. and Lemos, I. S., eds. (2006)

Ancient Greece from the Mycenaean palaces to the

age of Homer. Edinburgh.

Desborough, V. R. d’A. (1972) The Greek Dark

Ages. London.

Dickinson, O. (2006) The Aegean from Bronze Age

to Iron Age: continuity and change between

the twelfth and eighth centuries BC. Oxford.

Lemos, I. S. (2002) The Protogeometric Aegean: the

archaeology of the late eleventh and tenth

centuries BC. Oxford.

Morris, I. (2000) Archaeology as cultural history:

words and things in Iron Age Greece. Oxford.

Snodgrass, A. M. (2000) The Dark Age of Greece,

2nd ed. Edinburgh.

The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, First Edition. Edited by Roger S. Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige B. Champion, Andrew Erskine,

and Sabine R. Huebner, print pages 1929–1930.

© 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

DOI: 10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah02050

1