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- Production of new art forms on the Greek Mainland:

- Application of frescoes in the palaces:
- Following the Minoan technique
- Generally applying Mycenaean style and iconography:
- Warriors and hunting scenes
- Representations depicted against a simplified background
- Use of strong colours (e.g. red and blue)
=> Similar paintings appearing on Crete reflecting Mycenaean control

Pylos, Palace, Freso with chariot scene Pylos, Palace, Freso with lyre player Pylos, Palace, Fresco with Mycenaean
warriors wearing kilts, sandals and boar’s
tusk helmets & barefoot men in animal
skins

Ψ Φ
- Female figurines in terracotta:
- Found in graves and settlements
- Presumably representing goddesses
- 2 main types (named after their ressemblance with Greek letters):
- Φ (Phi) statuettes
- Ψ (Psi) statuettes
- Decorated with red-brown stripes on a light background
=> Expressions of religion and piety

Late Helladic psi and phi statuettes (H.: ca. 10-15cm)

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- The Mycenaean Word in the later Greek sources:

- Homeros’ Iliad and Odyssea (written down ca. late 8th c. BC) referring to a war between the Greeks and Trojans
- In the Homeric epics: Greeks called ‘Akhaioi’ or ‘Akhaians’ (cf. Hittites using the term Achiyawa)
- Possibly referring to historical events in a far past that were passed via oral tradition:
- Troy VI:
- Important city in the early 13th c. BC with a fortified citadel, a large lower town and Mycenaean-style pottery
- Sacked and burned in the early 12th c. BC
=> Possibly reflecting a real military conflict between Mycenaeans and Trojans
- But: Homeric texts also including elements, stories and details that were added during the generation-long tradition and
refer to Homeros’ own time

Troy VI (in red) Troy VI, Eastern gate ‘Mykonos Vase’ with depiction of the Trojan
Horse (early 7th c. BC))

The Bronze Age Collapse:

- Mid and late 13th c. BC: gradual decline of prosperity of the Mycenaean centres:
- Earthquakes
- Internal warfare (e.g. construction of cisterns in preparation of sieges; evidence for destruction)
- End of the 13th c. BC (LH IIIB): large-scale destruction:
- Almost all citadels burned, sacked and destroyed (except for Athens)

Mycenae, Underground cistern (15m deep) (LH III) – Reconstruction drawing, entrance and staircase

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- Ca. 1200 BC:

- Systematic collapse of the Bronze Age society in the entire eastern Mediterranean:
- Troy destroyed
- End of the Hittite Empire
- Sack of Babylon
- Problems in the Levant
- Attacks on Egypt

Map showing invasions and migrations in the Eastern Mediterranean ca. 1200 BC

- In the past issues ascribed to the ‘Sea Peoples’:

- Raiding and pillaging groups
- Attested e.g. İn Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and Israel
- Egyptian sources: speaking of ‘Sea Peoples’:
- Composed of different ethnic groups
- Including Mycenaeans: depicted with hornet helmets (similar to examples found in Myceanean graves and
described in Homeros’ Iliad)

Medinet Habu (Thebes), Relief showing Ramesses III fighting the Sea Peoples (early 12th c. Mycenae, Boar’s tusk helmet
BC – 20th Dyn.)

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- Current interpretation: Combination of multiple factors:

- Environmental problems: drought; earthquakes
- Socio-economic difficulties: interruption of trade; food
shortages; unrest
- Political issues
- Military conflicts
- Migrations or raids
=> End of the Bronze Age World in the Eastern Mediterranean

Mycenae, ‘Warrior Vase’ (ca. 1200 BC) (H.: 41cm) (exceptable large- Climatological changes in the Bronze Age
scale vessel showing warriors with horned helmets)

II.3. The Sub-Mycenaean, Proto-Geometric and Geometric Periods:

Reviving the Greek World (ca. 1100-700 BC)
II.3.1. The Greek Dark Ages
The ‘Dark Ages’:
- Ca. 1200-8th c. BC: Period with very few historical and archaeological evidence:
- Many palaces in ruin after ca. 1200 BC
- Disappearance of writing
- End of mural paintings and the production of luxury items
- Decline of population
- Limited travel and trade
- However: After ca. 1 century of real ‘darkness’ (1200-1100 BC): revival

a. b.
Decline in the number of recorded sites and cemeteries in Greece, (a) LH IIIB period (628 sites and
cemeteries); (b) LH IIIC period (147 sites and cemeteries)

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- Use of iron:
- More durable material for tools and weapons
- Requiring higher technological skills
- Possibly encouraged by the discruption of the copper and tine trade
routes and the more easy availability of iron ores
- Again inserted in the Mediterranean network
=> Beginning of the Iron Age

The Iron Age in different regions

- 12th-11th c. BC: Greek migrations:

- Movement toward the East, to the West coast of
Asia Minor and Cyprus:
- Possibly connected with the arrival of the ‘Dorians’
in central and southern Greece, pressing other
population groups
- Three different Greek dialects also used in Anatolia:
- Aeolic: Aelians moved first to the NW of Asia
Minor (Aeolia) (‘Aeolic Colonization’)
- Ionic: Ionians settling a bit later in the centre
of the West coast of Asia Minor (Ionia) (‘Ionian
Colonization’)
- Doric: SW of Asia Minor

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- Transformative and inventive character of the ‘Dark Ages’:

- Re-appearing of writing:
- Late 9th-early 8th c. BC: Adoption of the Phoenician alphabet and adaption into the Greek alphabet
- First written works in ancient Greek: Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey (8th c. BC)
=> Availability of written sources

Phoenician and Greek alphabet Imaginary portrait of the blind poet Milan, Bibliotheca Ambrosiana, Greek manuscript of the
Homer (Roman ‘copy’ of a 2nd c. BC Iliad (VIII, 245-53) (Late 5th-early 6th c. AD)
original) (H.: 0.53m)

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- Establishment of the polis (plural: poleis) or Greek city-state:

- Group of city dwellers united due to their belonging to the same community
- Each worshipping their main polis god (e.g. Athens: Athena) along the other Greek gods
- Political rule through laws, constitutions and collective decision-making
- Each having their own army

Map showing Greek poleis Athens, Akropolis

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- Appearance of Panhellenic sites:

- Religious centres surpassing the individual polis
- Bringing together Greek-speaking people believing in the same pantheon
- Panhellenic games: sportive competitions in a religious framework:
- 776 BC: First Olympic Games for Zeus (every 4 years)
- Later followed by other games:
- Pythian Games at Delphi for Apollo
- Isthmian Games at Corinth for Poseidon
- Nemean Games at Nemea for Zeus and Herakles
=> Language, polis structure and common religion: contributing to a common ‘Greek’ identity

Rio Olympic Games 2016, Flame lighting ceremony

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- Art and the architecture of the ‘Dark Ages’:

- More modest than earlier and later periods
- Certainly existing but mainly pottery preserved (= durable
material)
- Pottery:
- Giving information about practical activities (e.g.
cooking, storage and drinking vessels; funerary urns)
- Sometimes revealing information about the social
composition the society (e.g. when having a high
quality: refinement of the clay, firing temperature,
decoration…):
- Reflecting an investment of additional
resources that are not needed to ‘function’
- Forming an indicator of the well-being and
status of the patron
- Pointing out regional variations

Proto-Geometric oinochoe (wine jar) decorated

with zigzag between lines in a reserved zone
around the belly (ca. 950-900 BC) (H.: 24.6cm)

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II.3.2. Sub-Mycenaean, Proto-Geometric and Geometric Pottery

Archaeological Context:
- Development of Sub-Mycenaean, Proto-Geometric and
Geometric pottery followable in Athens from the Sub-
Mycenaean throughout the Proto-Geometric and
Geometric Periods
- Main sites:
- Kerameikos: Burial area (later also potter’s quarter)
(cf. modern word ceramics)
- Agora: in this time functioning as residential,
funerary and workshop activity area
- Similar developments but with regional variations in
other parts of the Greek Mainland

Map of ancient Athens

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Sub-Mycenaean Pottery (Ca. 1085/1080-1050/1025 BC):

- Known from fossa graves: trenches or pits in which the bodies were placed
- Grave gifts including amphorae, drinking cups and oil containers
- Quality of pottery much lower than before: less well formed and more simple decoration
=> Much less investment in pottery production: functional use having the priority

Sub-Mycenaean pottery

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Proto-Geometric Pottery (‘First or Beginning Geometric’)

(Ca. 1050-900 BC):
- Found in a new type of grave:
- Cremation newly introduced alongside inhumation
- Cremation graves:
- Ashes of the dead placed in a large amphora
- Amphora with vessels and other grave gifts placed
in a pit and covered with a mound of earth and
stones
- Quality of pottery increased and higher number of
grave gifts than before
=> Reflecting changes in social and religious customs:
- Possibly underscoring the high status of a particular
group of people that separates itself from others
through cremation and grave gifts
Athens, Proto-Geometric vessels (late 11th-10th c. BC) (H. of skyphos (wine
cup): 15.5cm)

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- Innovations in the pottery:

- Clay more refined then before
- Shape of the vessels better formed by using the fast wheel, e.g.:
- Neck-handled amphorae (male graves)
- Belly-handled amphorae (female graves)
- Decoration:
- Paint applied more regularly
- Alongside wavy lines and thick bands: Introduction of the multiple-point compass to draw
concentric (half) circles
- Motifs adapted to the shape of the vessel (neck, shoulder, body)

Protogeometric skyphos (wine cup) Proto-Geometric neck-handled amphora Proto-Geometric belly-handled

(ca. 1050-900 BC) (ca. 975-950 BC) amphora (ca. 975-950 BC)

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