THE DARK AGES
between 1200 and 1100 BC. The population
of their once-mighty cities crashed rapidly
until there was no urban culture left on the
Greek mainland. Most of the cities were
eventually destroyed, and all the great
craftsmen of the Mycenean cities faded away
when society could no longer support them.
How much of their culture they abandoned,
we don't know. For the one key element of
their culture that they did abandon
was writing , and we don't know why.
Without writing, they left us no history
following the collapse of Mycenean
civilization; we have, instead, only
five centuries of mystery: the Greek
Dark Ages. Also called, the Greek Middle
Ages, this period may have been precipitated
by migrations and invasions of a people
speaking a dialect of Greek, the Dorians.
Later Greeks believed this to be the case:
in Greek history and legend, the Dorians
were a barbaric northern tribe of Greeks
who rushed down into Greece and wrested
control over the area.
In the absence of archaeological evidence, it seems unlikely that a nomadic, tribal group could so easily overcome a highly efficient, warfare-centered society like the Myceneans. There is, though, no reason to disbelieve the Greeks. The best explanation is that a combination of economic decline and migrations of northern peoples slowly spelled the end of the Myceneans. The downfall of the Mycenean age, came swiftly and was due to multiple causes. Upon the advent of its destruction, the Iron Age Dorians invaded the Greek peninsula from the north (estimated time 1200BC to 1100BC). Atop the invasion, civil war also entered mainland Greece, directly following the Dorian invasion. What followed was a period known aptly as the Greek Dark Ages.