Dark Age Flashcards
DARK Age - Reasons for the Dark Age
1 - The SEA-People. People coming from the sea invaded Main Land Greece, Egypt, etc.
2 - The Dorian Invasion.
Dorians – because of the Dorian dialect (the evidences are seen by the end of the Dark Age).Dorian Greek – replaces what we believe was spoken.
Dorians believed in their mythical heritage : THE HERACLEIDAE - the descendant of Heracles who were kicked out by Mycenaean Greeks and who then came back to take their land back & the legend associated with civilizations.
a) SOME SAY: Either Dorian-speaking people from all over the place or from Asia Minor – and infiltrated. Big invasion is possibility because the palaces were destroyed.
b) OTHERS: Dorians infiltrated slowly. Mycenaeans fought against each other. And the Dorians just stayed there.
c) OTHERS: Dorians - the lower class who spoke this dialect and they finally rebelled against the palaces.
DARK AGE - REASONS - Who were Dorians?
a) SOME SAY: Either Dorian-speaking people from all over the place or from Asia Minor – and infiltrated. Big invasion is possibility because the palaces were destroyed.
b) OTHERS: Dorians infiltrated slowly. Mycenaeans fought against each other. And the Dorians just stayed there.
c) OTHERS: Dorians - the lower class who spoke this dialect and they finally rebelled against the palaces.
Homer, Iliad & Odyssey
- With the development of the Greek alphabet in the 8th c. BC, the Homeric poems were written down, serving us as sources.
- Homer - believed to be a blind poet from Ionia.
Iliad
- nobles and king (Achilles and Agamemnon quarrel over Achilles’ spoil of war);
- guest-host relationship (Paris breaking them taking away host’s wife, Helen)
- the use of enslaved women
Odessy
- kings doing their business (e.g. father of Odessus, king of Ithaca, plowing his fields, tending his flock)
- women and their behaviour (Dark Age princess interracting with Odessus)
- guest-host relationship (theyw ere expecting gifts when entered the caves)
- basileus-council of nobles relationship (after O. was gone - they were ready to marry his wife)
DARK Age - an Overview
- From now on, Greek History goes into a straight line.
- drastic depopulation.
- mass migration. After the destruction of the Mycenean fortress, people migrated which marked the EARLY IRON AGE – Dark Age herald the Early Iron Age:
- The conditions in Greece have worsened – they go live in the mountains.
- Very little material culture remained. Athens is the only one that shows unbroken habitations.
>> there was a break in civilization (differences in technology and burials).
It ends with accelerated with architectural, political and social flowering – leading into Archaic period.
DARK Age - dialects + what could we judge by them
Migration:
- Eastward migrations: (~11BC) Greeks from Thessaly and Boeotia;
- North-West, Asia Minor: Aeolian Greeks.
Greek dialects are consistent with the migration.
- Aeolic dialect: Thessaly, Boeotia, Aeolis, Lesbos;
- Ionic dialect: Cyclades, Asia Minor, Attica;
- Doric dialect: South-East Peloponnesus, Crete, South-West Asia Minor, Roads.
There is variations of letters in these dialects and the terminations of the verbs could vary as well >> so with the dialects we could note the migrations.
Some scholars say that Homer was a blind poet from Ionia since he uses Ionic Greek.
DARK Age - Aeolic dialect
- Aeolic dialect: Thessaly, Boeotia, Aeolis, Lesbos;
DARK Age - Ionic dialect
- Ionic dialect: Cyclades, Asia Minor, Attica;
DARK Age - Doric dialect
- Doric dialect: South-East Peloponnesus, Crete, South-West Asia Minor, Roads.
DARK Age is also called….
Early Iron
DARK Age - economy
- Agriculture - the basic economy; still cultivated the Mediterranean triad.
- In 1050 BC – appearance of iron smelting – they had difficulties finding tin (tin + copper = bronze); iron was plentiful though. Smelting = the advancement in civilizations. It is believed that knowledge of smelting comes from Asia Minor and Cyprus.
DARK AGE - SOCIAL STRUCTURE - living
- after the fortresses – tiny villages >> not much technology;
- houses – bricks, timber and thatch.
- rectangular houses;
- several rooms;
- on easily defendable hills.
- Village expansion at the late dark age. In the Dark Age, the rise of architecture – they built more and more.
DARK AGE - SOCIAL STRUCTURE - Basileus
- Tiny villages grew - started to unite themselves under one chieftain;
**- **no longer there was a wanax, but basileus;
- at the moment, in the Dark Age, a high noble; later - the king.
- the position of supremacy for a unity of small villages: if he could defend his people, more villages would go under his protection.
>> Basileus – military protection; also a priest.
He also plowed his fields himself (we understand this from Odyssey and Iliad – the father of Odysseus, an old king of Ithaca, tended his flock).
DARK AGE - SOCIAL STRUCTURE - NOBLES
If one was a noble, one would belong to several groups (in Archaic Era these groups were solidified into political associations):
1 - PHYLE The tribe one belong to – part of the country; the biggest group (e.g. ties of kingship).
2 - PHRATRIA The brotherhood – very often based on military bands, regiments, but it was from noble families.
3 - GENOS The clan - descended from a common hero or a common god.
4 - OIKOS The household (households had to go to the self-sufficiency) - the smallest unit:
The husband is the authority; the wife; the children; the dependence (slaves or somebody working for the house); the relations; the livestock.
The oikos of a noble was huge: tenant-farmers – gave the large percentage of the harvest to the lord; slaves (female); hired laborers; weavers.
5 - HETAIREIAI A class only for male companions: special class that one acquired and developed, normally for some activities (warfare, raiding, etc.) – like a country club.
The guest-host relationship was kind of sacred, normally hosts gave expensive gifts to the guests >> the bond established. And by the guest-host relationship one was united in the Hetaireiai. (Iliad: Paris broke the guest-host relationship by kidnapping the wife of the host, Helen. Odyssey: Before going into the cave to Cyclopes, they think they’d get expensive gifts).
DARK AGE - SOCIAL STRUCTURE - burrial habbits
Heroon, Lefkandi (from the word “hero”)** -** place for the burial of a hero warrior.
- He was cremated >> the d_evelopment of civilization_.
- The presence of weapons >> he was a warrior.
- There also was a woman with him; skeletons of horses.
- Outside – a full cemetery (and more horses buried).
- Long apsidal colonnaded building.
DARK AGE - SOCIAL STRUCTURE - lower class
Usually, the lower class - free men – the agriculture, herding, special skills (sculptures, bards, metal-smiths).
Barter was a way of trading >> merchant class would come later.
DARK AGE - SOCIAL STRUCTURE - free and enslaved women
ENSLAVED
- Usually, kill the men and enslave women and children, turn women into female slaves,
- Women- used as weavers, domestic, concubines as the spoils of war – from the Iliad.
The adult male, if enslaved, was doing heavy labor.
FREE WOMEN
- taking parts in big feasts, conversing with men >> in Dark Ages they appear to be more outspoken (we get this from Odyssey too: Nozika, the Dark Age princess of marriageable age, does her laundry, drives, talks to naked Odysseus; Plutarch: wife could get a divorce if could outrun the husband and get to the council first).
- Later on, it disappears: “Lower” Dark Age – women should be not heard, seen, etc. And their responsibility becomes:
- graining grain,
- weaving,
- food,
- kids,
- supervision of female salves.
DARK AGE - POLITICAL ORGANIZATION
- Basileus —- a council of nobles as advisory capacity.
- When king was weak, the strongest of the nobles becomes the Basileus >> the weak king could be overthrown.
- Political power shifted - from strong centralized monarchies to nobility composed of a small group of influential families
- if decided to start a war, king and nobles would put it to the assembly of the fighting men – to get public opinion >> the beginning of some sort of democracy: they knew the importance of public opinion.
Odyssey:
after Odysseus is gone, there was a line of nobles waiting to marry his wife.
DARK AGE - POLITICAL ORGANIZATION - justice
- justice - the responsibility of the family - private affair.
- a homicide - “eye for an eye” deal:
>> if it all went for too long, the nobles set the price of compensations for the wronged family (not in currency but in stoke or something like that)
>> if the murderer could not afford the price, he would go to the exile.
>> eventually, there are some sort of guidelines - eventually, would put in some sort of law codex.
- didn’t have a code, a king or the council of nobles didn’t enforce the law.
DARK AGE - RELIGION
- myths, stories of gods and heroes.
- a creation of the world.
- GODS
- all the gods of the pantheon - models of beauty except for the Hephaestus who was the blacksmith of the gods and who got Aphrodite.
- interfere aggressively in human affairs.
- often have human forms but could often metamorphose themselves.
- each had human personalities.
- live on Olympus, where they dine on ambrosia and nectar.
- could be influenced by ppl through sacrifices
Zeus – king of gods;
Hera – sister/wife of Zeus;
Athena – Zeus’s daughter born from his headache;
Artemis – goddess of the moon and hunt, protector of wild life; sister of Apollo, sun god;
Aphrodite – was born out of seafoam, goddess of love (roman Venus is a goddess of love but also the household; Aphrodite originally was very dangerous deity because she is the goddess of love);
Hephaestus – blacksmith; ugly, normally lives under the volcano; he was a son of Hera who threw his down the Olympus and that’s why he limps (eventually got Aphrodite).
DARK AGE - RELIGION - afterlife
ELYSIUM - aka Elysian Fields:
- (from Homer) beautiful place without pain or suffering located at the end of the earth.
- gods sent favorite heroes there - making them immortal.
Opposite:
- murky underground world of Hades.
- shades, ghosts survived temporarily there.
- shades - carried by the aged ferryman Charon;
DARK AGE - cultural phases
- Protogeometric
- most changes - come from pottery : it was important for survival >> it continued to be produced
- originated in Attica
- simplicity and rhythm
- repreated geometric patterns: wavy lines; crosshatching; lozenges, compass-drawn concentric circles, semicircles
- broad bands of dark and light
- Grometric
- covering the entire surface with geometic pattern
- Dipylon master
- battles scenes on land and sea
- called after Diplon cemerety, near Dipylon Gate
