1. CLAS/HIST3001 Lecture 2: Early Greek Dark Ages and the Evidence from Homer

2. Review: Fall of Mycenae

3. The Sheep of Tiryns

4. Karphi in Crete (1050 - 950)

5. Karphi II ● "evidence of a gallant attempt by refugees of Minoan race, whose fathers had known better conditions, to construct something that might recall a small market town comparable to Gournia, but on a site that was exposed to bitter weather in winter and that had obviously been chosen for reasons of defence rather than of comfort."

6. The End of Bronze Age Civilization ● All civilization was connected to the palace, and failed with it: – Writing abandoned, art lost – Commercial network lost – Population declines – Decline of fine arts (grave goods now only poor 'submycenaean' pottery)

7. Submycenaean Pottery

8. The Greek Dark Ages ● disappearance of the palace economy – loss of writing – diminishment of trade – decrease in population and abandonment of settlements (destroyed or not) – metals no longer available – loss of the fine arts or at least the diminution of their quality, evidenced especially in pottery – end of law and order?

9. What Did it Matter to Commons? ● According to all evidence, agriculture continued apace ● Sea peoples seem to be elites ● Conflicts

11. Naming the Greeks ● Our 'Greek' comes from Latin word 'Graeci' – term for some Greeks who lived on the Italian penninsula as Rome was expanding down it; never before used for all Greek-speaking peoples ● In Classical times, general term was Hellenes ● But this word probably not widely used in Mycenaean Age or Dark Age ● Later Greeks thought their ancestors called themselves 'Achaeans' – Are these the 'Ahhiyawa' mentioned by a Hittite King as ruling island of Miletus?

12. Tribes of the Greeks ● C3 (p. 34) – What are the principal Greek tribes? – How are they recognized? – What are their characteristic habitats?

14. Defining the Dorians ● Name often thought to derive from Greek doru, 'spear' ● Alternatively, Δωρίς doris, woodland ● Neither definitive solutions, and there is a Dōrieus mentioned in the Linear B tablets from Pylos

15. The Problem of the Dorians ● Mycenaean script encodes dialect more akin to Ionic than Doric ● Big gap here: 13 th C and 8 th C., when writing returns ● Myth: 'Return of the Heracleidae' ● Modern scholars turned this into a hypothetical 'Dorian invasion' ● How is this a helpful concept?

16. Language and Early Migration

18. Protogeometric Pottery

19. Political Structure of Dark Ages ● Basileus (pl. baslieis), once lieutenant of wanax, now the primary figure – Translated 'king', but this is a term we have to use carefully – how widespread was their power? in what was it based? ● Answer with only two tools: – Archaeology of sites from the Dark Age – Early Greek poems, the epics of 'Homer'

21. Horse Burial at Lefkandi

23. 'Homer' ● Purported author of epics, Iliad and Odyssey ● These reached their final form in late 8 th C ● Encapsulate tales of long ago ● The more we know about these, the better we will understand this vital source for Dark Age history

24. Two Examples ● Homer's world does not really include writing – But there is a tale which includes communication by 'dire signs' (Il. 6.168) ● Homer's metaphors do include lions – They devour, but never roar ● Product of oral tradition

25. Milman Parry ● Studied bards of Slavic lands ● By comparison discovered that Homer was not fossilized, but rather a “oral literature” formulated on the spot ● Parry Collection available online http://chs119.harvard.edu/ mpc/index.html

26. What Does Homer Tell Us About The Values of the Basileus? ● C 5B ● Pomeroy document 2.2 p. 62