This is the History of the World Podcast with me Chris Hasler

And you're listening to volume three the classical world

episode six

Dark Age and Archaic Greece. Oh, When we left Greece back in volume two we left it in Tatters. These were the lands of the mighty Mycenaeans of the second millennium, B.C.E.

Quite what's happened, we cannot be sure.

During the 13th century B.C. E. the Mycenians were a dominant warrior society who had achieved

superiority over their successful Minoan neighbours on the island of Crete in the centuries preceding.

Everything was looking good.

However, the end of the 13th century B.C. was the time of the late Bronze Age collapse and the Mycenae and

Greeks were one of the more famous casualties of this period.

Many of the mainland palaces and citadels of the Mycenians were destroyed by fire and left in ruin. The familiar Linear B writing system of the Mycenaeans disappeared

which demonstrated the demise of an organized society.

Some Peloponnesian scriptures suggest that there may have been invaders

looking to move into the lands of the Mycenaeans, but we don't really have anything to suggest

that this was a definite contributing factor to the fall of the Mycenaeans A study of the seismological data of the region of the Balkan and

Anatolian Peninsula suggests an unusually large number of earthquakes in a 50-year period around the year 1200

b.C. E Myceny and culture did not disappear suddenly like the Hittites did during this period.

The demise was gradual over the course of a century following the late Bronze Age collapse.

By around the year 1070 BCE there was nothing left of Mycenae in Greece. Aspects of Mycenae and culture need to be discussed when considering what could have happened in and around the Peloponnese after the late Bronze Age collapse.

The preamble to this period the late Bronze Age collapse.

The preamble to this period is in episode 24 of volume 2.

It was during this episode that we investigated the cultural aspects of the Myconian people

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