Greeks themselves talk of Dorians invading from the north but archaeologists have
not found convincing evidence of a mass takeover by invading peoples. Other
explanations involve some natural catastrophe or internal conflict or both in
conjunction with external attacks.
The general picture of life in Dark Age Greece has been one of impoverishment
on all fronts. However, recent excavations at Lefkandi on the island of Euboea have
revealed a substantial and prosperous settlement that is so far a single exception to
this general rule. Artefacts have been found dating from the early Mycenaean period
down to about 800. Excavations have turned up fine examples of Levantine pottery
and Phoenician bronze bowls indicating contact with the outside world thought until
recently to have been lost in this period. But the most interesting finds are the remains
of a large building dating from about 950 and built in a style different from anything
Myceneaean but anticipating the first temples of some two hundred years later. In
one of its rooms are two pits, one containing the skeletons of four horses and the
other the cremated remains of a man in a bronze urn decorated with a hunting scene.
His iron sword and spearhead lay nearby. Also nearby is the skeleton of a woman
laid out with feet and hands crossed and decorated with items of gold jewellery.
Scholars have drawn parallels with burial customs elsewhere, notably with those
performed in the final book of Homer’s Iliad for Patroclus who is cremated with his
horses and with the human sacrifice of Trojan youths, though here the woman may
be a wife who died from natural causes and was subsequently buried with her
husband. The figure was evidently a man of substance and power, leading to
speculation about the social order of this prosperous community.
The Homeric Poems
The connection of the Homeric poems with pre-historic Greece has long been a
matter of debate. There are certainly Mycenaean survivals in Homer. In the Iliad,
Agamemnon, leader of the Greek expedition to Troy and most powerful of the Greek
princes, comes from Mycenae which Homer calls ‘rich in gold’, ‘broad-streeted’ and
‘well built’. In the Catalogue of Ships in Book Two, believed by some to describe
Greece as it was known in Mycenaean times, the largest numbers come from
Mycenae and Pylos. The golden cup of Nestor (Iliad 11, 632–637) resembles an actual
cup found in the graves at Mycenae. Another Mycenaean survival is the boar’s tusk
helmet of Odysseus (Iliad 10, 261–265), which is of a kind found in Mycenaean tombs
and not found in later excavations.
The main metal in Homer is bronze, but there are iron weapons too. In fact there
is a considerable historical mixture as the Homeric poems also record practices and
customs that differ from those of Mycenaean times. For example, the Mycenaeans
EARLY GREECE: HOMER AND HESIOD 11