TWOSome Minority Views on
the Coming of the Greeks
Today the debate about "the coming of the Greeks" has become
quite lively. The conventional date, as we have seen, has been
the interface between Early and Middle Helladic, ca. 1900
B.C., and some surveys still present this date without qualifi-
cation or defense. But specialists have for some time been can-
vassing other possibilities. The several dates currently pro-
posed for this event are, of course, all archaeologically based.
The disruptions or "breaks" in the material record are here all-
important, since the arrival of the Greeks is assumed to corre-
spond to one of these breaks. All along, those few scholars who
did not agree that the arrival of the Greeks occurred at the
break between Early and Middle Helladic (ca. 1900 B.C.) tra-
ditionally located it at the break between Middle and Late Hel-
ladic (ca. 1600 B.C.), or between Late Helladic IIIB and me
(ca. 1200 B.C.). And recently, a fourth possibility has found a
few strong advocates: the break between Early Helladic II and
HI (ca. 2100 B.C.). Let us briefly look at the evidence on which
each of these variant proposals is based.
The latest date—ca. 1200 B.C.—is now championed by
only a small minority of scholars, all of whom dispute Michael
Ventris's and John Chadwick's demonstration that the lan-
guage of the Linear B tablets is Greek.' The grounds for this
i. For a full argument in favor of the late date, see F. Hampl, "Die
Chronologie der Einwanderung der griechischen Stamme und das Problem
der Nationalitat der Trager der mykenischen Kultur," MH 17 (1960): 57-
86, and E. Grumach, "The Coming of the Greeks," BRL 51 (1968-1969):
73-103 and 399-430.
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