The Greek Dark Ages (c. 1200-800 BC), were earlier regarded as two continuous periods of Greek history: The first the Postpalatial Bronze Age (c. 1200-1050 BC),[1] the second currently known as Prehistoric Iron Age or Early Iron Age (c. 1050-800 BC), which included all the ceramic phases from the Protogeometric to the Middle Geometric I,[1] lasting until the beginning of the Protohistoric Iron Age around 800 BC.[2][3] Currently, the term Greek Dark Ages is being abandoned, and both periods are not considered "obscure."
At the beginning of the Postpalatial Bronze Age, the so-called Late Bronze Age collapse of civilisation in the Eastern Mediterranean world in c. 1200-1150 took place, as the great palaces and cities of the Mycenaeans were destroyed or abandoned. At around the same time, the Hittite civilization also suffered serious disruption, with cities from Troy to Gaza being destroyed. In Egypt, the New Kingdom fell into disarray, leading to the Third Intermediate Period of Egypt. Following the collapse, there were fewer, smaller settlements, suggesting widespread famine and depopulation. In Greece, the Linear B script used by Mycenaean bureaucrats to write the Greek language ceased to be used, and the Greek alphabet did not develop until the beginning of the Protohistoric Iron Age, c. 800 BC.[4] The decoration on Greek pottery after about 1050BC lacks the figurative decoration of Mycenaean ware and is restricted to simpler, generally geometric styles (1050–700BC).
Not Completely Dark periods
It was previously thought that all contact was lost between mainland Hellenes and foreign powers during these periods, yielding little cultural progress or growth. But archaeologist Alex Knodell considers that artifacts from excavations at Lefkandi on the Lelantine Plain in the island of Euboea in the 1980s "revealed that some parts of Greece were much wealthier and more widely connected than traditionally thought, as a monumental building and its adjacent cemetery showed connections to Cyprus, Egypt, and the Levant as markers of elite status and authority, much as they had been in previous periods,"[5] and this shows that significant cultural and trade links with the east, particularly the Levant coast, developed from c.900 BC onwards. Additionally, evidence has emerged of the new presence of Hellenes in sub-Mycenaean Cyprus and on the Syrian coast at Al-Mina.
During the so-called Dark Ages of Greece, the old major settlements were abandoned (with the notable exception of Athens), and the population dropped dramatically. Within these three hundred years, the people of Greece lived in small groups that moved constantly in accordance with their new pastoral lifestyle and livestock needs, while they left no written record behind leading to the conclusion that they were illiterate. However, Thomas R. Martin, considers that between 950 and 750 BC, the Greeks relearned how to write, but using the alphabet of the Phoenicians instead of the Linear B script used by the Mycenaeans, innovating in a fundamental way by introducing vowels as letters. "The Greek version of the alphabet eventually formed the base of the alphabet used for English today."[6]
Though life was harsh for the Greeks of the Dark Ages, and one major result of the period was the deconstruction of the old Mycenaean economic and social structures, along with the strict class hierarchies and hereditary rule forgotten, a gradual replacement with new socio-political institutions eventually allowed for the rise of democracy in 5th c. BC Athens. Notable events after the Dark Ages period that mark the transition to Classical Antiquity include the first Olympics, in 776 BC, and the composition of the Homeric epics the Iliad and the Odyssey.
The fall of Mycenaeans and the Bronze Age collapse were attributed to a Dorian or Sea Peoples invasion, but Sea Peoples could have been pirate bands which coalesced due to the collapse, and diverse in origin, like sailors, workers, or mercenaries, coming from ethnicities like those of the Lukka lands, but not necessarily or exclusively Achaeans (Ekwesh).[7]
Around this time, c. 1200-1150 BC, large-scale revolts took place in several parts of the eastern Mediterranean. Jonathan Hall (2013) considered that: "[T]he collapse of the political and economic system centered on the Mycenaean palaces provoked a climate of instability and insecurity and [s]ome people – whether for reasons of safety or economic necessity – decided to abandon their former homes and seek a living elsewhere."[8]
Culture
Geometric-style box in the shape of a barn. On display in the Ancient Agora Museum in Athens, housed in the Stoa of Attalus. From early geometric cremation burial of a wealthy pregnant woman, 850 BC.
With the collapse of the palatial centers, no more monumental stone buildings were built, and the practice of wall painting may have ceased. Writing in the Linear B script also ceased, and vital trade links were lost as towns and villages were abandoned. Writing in the Linear B script ended particularly due to the redistributive palace economy crashing; there was no longer a need to keep records about commerce.[9] The population of Greece declined.[10] The world of organized state armies, kings, officials, and redistributive systems disappeared. Most of the information about the period comes from burial sites and the grave goods contained within them.
The emerging fragmented, localized, and autonomous cultures lacked cultural and aesthetic cohesion and are noted for their diversity of material cultures in pottery styles (e.g. conservative in Athens, eclectic in Knossos), burial practices, and settlement structures. The Protogeometric style of pottery was stylistically simpler than earlier designs, characterized by lines and curves. On the other hand, generalizations about the "Dark Age Society" are considered simplifications, because the range of cultures throughout Greece at the time cannot be grouped into a single "Dark Age Society" category.[11]
Tholos tombs are found in Early Iron Age Thessaly and in Crete but not in general elsewhere, and cremation was the dominant rite in Attica but nearby in the Argolid, it was inhumation.[12] Some former sites of Mycenaean palaces, such as Argos or Knossos, continued to be occupied; the fact that other sites experienced an expansive "boom time" of a generation or two before they were abandoned has been associated by James Whitley with the "big-man social organization", which is based on personal charisma and is inherently unstable: he interprets Lefkandi in this light.[13]
Some regions in Greece, such as Attica, Euboea, and central Crete, recovered economically from these events faster than others, but life for common Greeks would have remained relatively unchanged as it had for centuries. There was still farming, weaving, metalworking and pottery but at a lower level of output and for local use in local styles. Some technical innovations were introduced around 1050BC with the start of the Protogeometric style (1050–900BC), such as the superior pottery technology that included a faster potter's wheel for superior vase shapes and the use of a compass to draw perfect circles and semicircles for decoration. Better glazes were achieved by higher temperature firing of the clay. However, the overall trend was toward simpler, less intricate pieces and fewer resources being devoted to the creation of beautiful art.
The smelting of iron was learned from Cyprus and the Levant and was exploited and improved upon by using local deposits of iron ore previously ignored by the Mycenaeans: edged weapons were now within reach of less elite warriors. Though the universal use of iron was one shared feature among Dark Age settlements,[14] it is still uncertain when the forged iron weapons and armour achieved strength superior to those that had previously been cast and hammered from bronze. From 1050, many small local iron industries appeared, and by 900, almost all weapons in grave goods were made of iron.
The distribution of the Ionic Greek dialect in historic times indicates early movement from mainland Greece to the Anatolian coast to such sites as Miletus, Ephesus, and Colophon, perhaps as early as 1000 BC, but contemporaneous evidence is scant. In Cyprus, some archaeological sites begin to show identifiably Greek ceramics;[15] a colony of Euboean Greeks was established at Al Mina on the Syrian coast, and the revival of an Aegean Greek network of exchange can be detected from 10th-century BC Attic Proto-geometric pottery found in Crete and at Samos, off the coast of Asia Minor.[16]
Religion in the Greek Dark Ages is seen to be a continuation of Bronze Age Greek Religion,[17] specifically the ideas of Hero worship, and how the gods' powers were attributed.
Post-Mycenaean Cyprus
Finds from an early geometric Cremation Burial of a pregnant wealthy woman, from the N.W. of the Areopagus, about 850 BC, Ancient Agora Museum (Athens); exhibit 14–16: broad gold finger rings; exhibit 17–19: gold finger rings; 20: pair of gold earrings with trapezoid endings
Cyprus was inhabited by a mix of "Pelasgians" and Phoenicians, joined during this period by the first Greek settlements. Potters in Cyprus initiated the most elegant new pottery style of the 10th and 9th centuries, the "Cypro-Phoenician" "black on red" style[18] of small flasks and jugs that held precious contents, probably scented oil. Together with distinctively Greek Euboean ceramic wares, it was widely exported and is found in Levantine sites, including Tyre and far inland in the late 11th and 10th centuries. Cypriot metalwork was exchanged in Crete.
Society
Greece during this period was likely divided into independent regions organized by kinship groups and the oikoi or households, the origins of the later poleis. Most Greeks did not live in isolated farmsteads but in small settlements. It is likely that at the dawn of the historical period two or three hundred years later, the main economic resource for each family was the ancestral plot of land of the Oikos, the kleros or allotment. Without this, a man could not marry.[19]
Excavations of Dark Age communities such as Nichoria in the Peloponnese have shown how a Bronze Age town was abandoned in 1150BC but then reemerged as a small village cluster by 1075BC. At this time there were only around forty families living there with plenty of good farming land and grazing for cattle. The remains of a 10thcentury building, including a megaron, on the top of the ridge has led to speculation that this was the chieftain's house.[20] This was a larger structure than those surrounding it but it was still made from the same materials (mud brick and thatched roof). It was perhaps also a place of religious significance and communal storage of food. High-status individuals did in fact exist in the Dark Age, but their standard of living was not significantly higher than others of their village.[21]
Lefkandi burial
Lefkandi on the island of Euboea was a prosperous settlement in the Late Bronze Age,[22] possibly to be identified with old Eretria.[23] It recovered quickly from the collapse of Mycenaean culture, and in 1981 excavators of a burial ground found the largest 10th-century building yet known from Greece.[24] Sometimes called "the heroon", this long narrow building, 50 metres by 10 metres, or about 164 feet by 33 feet, contained two burial shafts. In one were placed four horses and the other contained a cremated male buried with his iron weapons and an inhumed woman, heavily adorned with gold jewellery.[25]
The man's bones were placed in a bronze jar from Cyprus, with hunting scenes on the cast rim. The woman was clad with gold coils in her hair, rings, gold breastplates, an heirloom necklace, an elaborate Cypriot or Near Eastern necklace made some 200 to 300 years before her burial, and an ivory-handled dagger at her head. The horses appeared to have been sacrificed, some appearing to have iron bits in their mouths. No evidence survives to show whether the building was erected to house the burial, or whether the "hero" or local chieftain in the grave was cremated and then buried in his grand house; whichever is true, the house was soon demolished and the debris used to form a roughly circular mound over the wall stumps.
Between this period and approximately 820BC, rich members of the community were cremated and buried close to the eastern end of the building, in much the same way Christians might seek to be buried close to a saint's grave; the presence of imported objects, notable throughout more than eighty further burials, contrast with other nearby cemeteries at Lefkandi and attest to a lasting elite tradition.
End
An Ancient Greek pair of terracotta boots. Early geometric period cremation burial of a woman, 900 BC. Ancient Agora Museum in Athens.
The archaeological record of many sites demonstrates that the economic recovery of Greece was well underway by the beginning of the 8th century BC. Cemeteries, such as the Kerameikos in Athens or Lefkandi, and sanctuaries, such as Olympia, recently founded in Delphi or the Heraion of Samos, first of the colossal free-standing temples, were richly provided with offerings – including items from the Near East, Egypt, and Italy made of exotic materials including amber and ivory.[26] Exports of Greek pottery demonstrate contact with the Levant coast at sites such as Al-Mina and with the region of the Villanovan culture to the north of Rome.[27]
The decoration of pottery became more elaborate and included figured scenes that parallel the stories of Homeric Epic. Iron tools and weapons improved. Renewed Mediterranean trade brought new supplies of copper and tin to make a wide range of elaborate bronze objects, such as tripod stands like those offered as prizes in the funeral games celebrated by Achilles for Patroclus.[28] Other coastal regions of Greece besides Euboea were once again full participants in the commercial and cultural exchanges of the eastern and central Mediterranean and communities developed governance by an elite group of aristocrats, rather than by the single basileus or chieftain of earlier periods.[29]
New writing system
By the beginning of 8th century BC,[4] a new Greek alphabet system was adopted from the Phoenician alphabet by a Greek with first-hand experience of it. The Greeks adapted the abjad used to write Phoenician, a Semitic language used by the Phoenicians, notably introducing characters for vowel sounds and thereby creating the first truly alphabetic writing system. The new alphabet quickly spread throughout the Mediterranean and was used to write not only the Greek language but also Phrygian and other languages in the eastern Mediterranean. As Greece sent out colonies west towards Sicily and Italy (Pithekoussae, Cumae), the influence of their new alphabet extended further.
The ceramic Euboean artifact inscribed with a few lines written in the Greek alphabet referring to "Nestor's Cup", discovered in a grave at Pithekoussae (Ischia), dates from c.730BC. It seems to be the oldest written reference to the Iliad. The Etruscans benefited from the innovation: Old Italic variants spread throughout Italy from the 8th century. Other variants of the alphabet appear on the Lemnos Stele and in the alphabets of Asia Minor. The previous Linear scripts were not completely abandoned: the Cypriot syllabary, descended from Linear A, remained in use on Cyprus in Arcadocypriot Greek and Eteocypriot inscriptions until the Hellenistic era.
Continuity thesis
Some scholars have argued against the concept of a Greek Dark Age, on grounds that the former lack of archaeological evidence in a period that was mute in its lack of inscriptions (thus "dark") is an accident of discovery rather than a fact of history.[30][31] As James Whitley has put it, "The Dark Age of Greece is our conception. It is a conception strongly coloured by our knowledge of the two literate civilisations that preceded and succeeded it: the bureaucratic, palace-centred world of Mycenaean Greece and the chaotic and creative Archaic age of Hellenic civilisation."[32]
The 2nd millennium BC spanned the years 2000 BC to 1001 BC. In the Ancient Near East, it marks the transition from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age. The Ancient Near Eastern cultures are well within the historical era: The first half of the millennium is dominated by the Middle Kingdom of Egypt and Babylonia. The alphabet develops. At the center of the millennium, a new order emerges with Mycenaean Greek dominance of the Aegean and the rise of the Hittite Empire. The end of the millennium sees the Bronze Age collapse and the transition to the Iron Age.
The 12th century BC is the period from 1200 to 1101 BC. The Late Bronze Age collapse in the ancient Near East and eastern Mediterranean is often considered to begin in this century.
Human habitation of Cyprus dates back to the Paleolithic era. Cyprus's geographic position has caused Cyprus to be influenced by differing Eastern Mediterranean civilisations over the millennia.
Mycenaean Greece was the last phase of the Bronze Age in ancient Greece, spanning the period from approximately 1750 to 1050 BC. It represents the first advanced and distinctively Greek civilization in mainland Greece with its palatial states, urban organization, works of art, and writing system. The Mycenaeans were mainland Greek peoples who were likely stimulated by their contact with insular Minoan Crete and other Mediterranean cultures to develop a more sophisticated sociopolitical culture of their own. The most prominent site was Mycenae, after which the culture of this era is named. Other centers of power that emerged included Pylos, Tiryns, and Midea in the Peloponnese, Orchomenos, Thebes, and Athens in Central Greece, and Iolcos in Thessaly. Mycenaean settlements also appeared in Epirus, Macedonia, on islands in the Aegean Sea, on the south-west coast of Asia Minor, and on Cyprus, while Mycenaean-influenced settlements appeared in the Levant and Italy.
The Dorian invasion is a concept devised by historians of Ancient Greece to explain the replacement of pre-classical dialects and traditions in Southern Greece by the ones that prevailed in Classical Greece. The latter were named "Dorian" by the ancient Greek writers, after the Dorians, the historical population that spoke them.
The Prehistoric Period is the oldest part of Cypriot history. This article covers the period 11,000 to 800 BC and ends immediately before the documented history of Cyprus begins.
Helladic chronology is a relative dating system used in archaeology and art history. It complements the Minoan chronology scheme devised by Sir Arthur Evans for the categorisation of Bronze Age artefacts from the Minoan civilization within a historical framework. Whereas Minoan chronology is specific to Crete, the cultural and geographical scope of Helladic chronology is confined to mainland Greece during the same timespan. Similarly, a Cycladic chronology system is used for artifacts found in the Aegean islands. Archaeological evidence has shown that, broadly, civilisation developed concurrently across the whole region and so the three schemes complement each other chronologically. They are grouped together as "Aegean" in terms such as Aegean art and, rather more controversially, Aegean civilization.
Lefkandi is a coastal village on the island of Euboea, Greece. Archaeological finds attest to a settlement on the promontory locally known as Xeropolis, while several associated cemeteries have been identified nearby. The settlement site is located on a promontory overlooking the Euripos Strait, with small bays forming natural harbours east and west of the site. The cemeteries are located on the hillslopes northwest of the settlement; the plots identified so far are known as the East Cemetery, Skoubris, Palia Perivolia, Toumba, in addition to further smaller groups of burials. The site is located between the island's two main cities in antiquity, Chalkis and Eretria. Excavation here is conducted under the direction of the British School at Athens and is ongoing as of 2007.
The history of the Greek alphabet starts with the adoption of Phoenician letter forms in the 9th–8th centuries BC during early Archaic Greece and continues to the present day. The Greek alphabet was developed during the Iron Age, centuries after the loss of Linear B, the syllabic script that was used for writing Mycenaean Greek until the Late Bronze Age collapse and Greek Dark Age. This article concentrates on the development of the alphabet before the modern codification of the standard Greek alphabet.
The Late Bronze Age collapse was a time of widespread societal collapse during the 12th century BC associated with environmental change, mass migration, and the destruction of cities. The collapse affected a large area of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Near East, in particular Egypt, eastern Libya, the Balkans, the Aegean, Anatolia, and, to a lesser degree, the Caucasus. It was sudden, violent, and culturally disruptive for many Bronze Age civilizations, and it brought a sharp economic decline to regional powers, notably ushering in the Greek Dark Ages.
Geometric art is a phase of Greek art, characterized largely by geometric motifs in vase painting, that flourished towards the end of the Greek Dark Ages and a little later, c. 900–700 BC. Its center was in Athens, and from there the style spread among the trading cities of the Aegean. Though a not currently accepted concept by all scholars, the Greek Dark Ages were considered to last from c. 1100 to 800 BC and include the phases from the Protogeometric period to the Middle Geometric I period, which Knodell (2021) calls Prehistoric Iron Age. The vases had various uses or purposes within Greek society, including, but not limited to, funerary vases and symposium vases.
The Protogeometric style is a style of Ancient Greek pottery led by Athens produced between roughly 1050 and 900 BCE, in the first period of the Greek Dark Ages. After the collapse of the Mycenaean-Minoan Palace culture and the ensuing Greek Dark Ages, the Protogeometric style emerged around the mid 11th century BCE as the first expression of a reviving civilization. Following on from the development of a faster potter's wheel, vases of this period are markedly more technically accomplished than earlier Dark Age examples. The decoration of these pots is restricted to purely abstract elements and very often includes broad horizontal bands about the neck and belly and concentric circles applied with compass and multiple brush. Many other simple motifs can be found, but unlike many pieces in the following Geometric style, typically much of the surface is left plain.
In Europe, the Iron Age is the last stage of the prehistoric period and the first of the protohistoric periods, which initially meant descriptions of a particular area by Greek and Roman writers. For much of Europe, the period came to an abrupt end after conquest by the Romans, though ironworking remained the dominant technology until recent times. Elsewhere, the period lasted until the early centuries AD, and either Christianization or a new conquest in the Migration Period. Iron working was introduced to Europe in the late 11th century BC, probably from the Caucasus, and slowly spread northwards and westwards over the succeeding 500 years. For example, the Iron Age of Prehistoric Ireland begins around 500 BC, when the Greek Iron Age had already ended, and finishes around 400 AD. The use of iron and iron-working technology became widespread concurrently in Europe and Asia.
Mycenaean pottery is the pottery tradition associated with the Mycenaean period in Ancient Greece. It encompassed a variety of styles and forms including the stirrup jar. The term "Mycenaean" comes from the site Mycenae, and was first applied by Heinrich Schliemann.
Philistine Bichrome ware is an archaeological term coined by William F. Albright in 1924 which describes pottery production in a general region associated with the Philistine settlements during the Iron Age I period in ancient Canaan. The connection of the pottery type to the "Philistines" is still held by many scholars, although some question its methodological validity.
The Archaeological Museum of Eretria is a museum in Eretria, in the Euboea regional unit of Central Greece.
Euboean vase painting was a regional style of ancient Greek vase painting, prevalent on the island of Euboea.
Tell Sukas is a Late Bronze Age archaeological mound on the Eastern Mediterranean coast about 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) south of Jableh, Syria.
Cypriot Bichrome ware is a type of Late Bronze Age, and Iron Age, pottery that is found widely on Cyprus and in the Eastern Mediterranean. This type of pottery is found in many sites on Cyprus, in the Levant, and also in Egypt. It was typically produced on a pottery wheel. A large variety of decorations and motifs are attested. This pottery is very similar to certain types of the Mycenaean pottery from various locations.
The archaeology of Greece includes artificial remains, geographical landscapes, architectural remains, and biofacts. The history of Greece as a country and region is believed to have begun roughly 1–2 million years ago when Homo erectus first colonized Europe. From the first colonization, Greek history follows a sequential pattern of development alike to the rest of Europe. Neolithic, Bronze, Iron and Classical Greece are highlights of the Greek archaeological record, with an array of archaeological finds relevant to these periods.
↑ "The History of Greece". Hellenicfoundation.com. Archived from the original on 2016-12-07. Retrieved 2024-04-21.: "The period from 1100 to 800 B.C. is known as the Dark Age of Greece. As described in the Ancient Greek Thesaursus: Throughout the area there are signs of a sharp cultural decline. Some sites, formerly inhabited, were now abandoned."
↑ Martin, Thomas R., (October 3, 2019). "The Dark Ages of Ancient Greece": "...The Near East recovered its strength much sooner than did Greece, ending its Dark Age by around 900 B.C...The end of the Greek Dark Age is traditionally placed some 150 years after that, at about 750 B.C..." Retrieved October 24, 2020
↑ Martin, Thomas R., (October 3, 2019). "The Dark Ages of Ancient Greece": "Sometime between about 950 and 750 B.C. the Greeks adopted a Phoenician alphabet to represent the sounds of their own language, introducing important changes to the script by representing the vowels of their own language as letters. The Greek version of the alphabet eventually formed the basis of the alphabet used for English today." Retrieved April 21, 2024.
↑ Middleton, Guy D., (2018). "‘I would walk 500 miles and I would walk 500 more’...", in: Change, Continuity, and Connectivity, pp. 109-110: "[T]he Sea Peoples [were] pirate bands that developed out of the circumstances of collapse. These groups, Hitchcock and Maeir note, could be ethnically diverse […] coming from […] the Lukka, for example […] others relatively new c. 1200 BC . [And if] Ekwesh do refer to Achaeans […] there is still no necessary reason […] to assume they were all, or even predominantly Greek."
↑ "The most striking feature of the Dark Ages is its regionalism, its material diversity" (James Whitley, "Social Diversity in Dark Age Greece", The Annual of the British School at Athens86 [1991:341–365]) pp.342, 344ff.
↑ Whitley 1991:343, notes regional differences in iron-working in A.N. Snodgrass, The Dark Age of Greece (1971:213–95), and I.M. Morris, "Circulation, deposition and the formation of the Greek Iron Age," Man, n.s. 23(1989:502–19)
↑ R.W.V. Catling, "Exports of Attic protogeometric pottery and their identification by non-analytical means", Annual of the British School at Athens93 (1998:365–78), noted in Robin Lane Fox, Travelling Heroes in the Epic Age of Homer, 2008:48; Fox provides the cultural background to his study of Euboean cultural contacts in the Mediterranean in the 8th century.
↑ The candidates and their opponents are noted in Fox 2008:51 note 23.
↑ M. R. Popham, P. G. Calligas, and L. H. Sackett, (eds.), Lefkandi II: the Protogeometric Building at Toumba, Part2. The Excavation, Architecture and Finds, BSA Suppl. vol. 23, Oxford 1993.
↑ Edward Bispham, Thomas Harrison, Brian A. Sparkes, Ancient Greece and Rome, page 89, The Edinburgh Companion, Ed 2006.
Dickinson, Oliver (2006). The Aegean from Bronze Age to Iron Age: Continuity and Change Between the Twelfth and Eighth Centuries BC. New York: Routledge. ISBN0-4151-3589-3.
Faucounau, Jean, Les Peuples de la Mer et leur histoire, Paris: L'Harmattan, 2003.
Langdon, Susan, Art and Identity in Dark Age Greece, 1100–700BC, Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Latacz, J. '"Between Troy and Homer: The so-called Dark Ages in Greece", in: Storia, Poesia e Pensiero nel Mondo antico. Studi in Onore di M. Gigante, Rome, 1994.
Snodgrass, Anthony M. (c. 2000). The dark age of Greece: an archaeological survey of the eleventh to the eighth centuriesBC. New York: Routledge. ISBN0-415-93635-7.
Sandars, N.K. (c. 1978). The Sea Peoples: Warriors of the ancient Mediterranean 1250–1150BC. London: Thames and Hudson. ISBN0-500-02085-X.
Whitley, James (1991). Style and Society in Dark Age Greece: The Changing Face of a Pre-literate Society 1100–700 BC (New Studies in Archaeology). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN0-5213-7383-2.
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