Starting My Treasure Hunting In England - Chapter 985

c985 dark ages

As Troy on the sixth floor was destroyed by an earthquake, the land was silent for a short period of time. Then a group of residents from the Asia Minor Peninsula came to the ruins and began to build their own city.

This is the seventh layer of the current Troy ruins, which existed from 1275 BC to 1100 BC, belonging to the era of Troy recorded in history and “Homer’s Epic”.

Different from the previous situation where each layer was in the same stage, this layer of ruins can be divided into two stages, A and B. A belongs to the Trojan War period and was created by people in the same cultural system as the subsequent stage B.

The famous war that broke out over the peerless beauty Helen broke out in this important era, and a large number of traces of the war can also be found in the ruins of Phase A.

As for the ruins reconstructed in Phase B, they are obviously much smaller than those in Phase A, and they are no longer as rich as before. This is also consistent with the record of the Trojan survivors rebuilding their homes in the epic.

At the same time, unlike the previous Bronze Age, this era has entered the late Bronze Age, and some iron tools began to be put into use sporadically.

This is especially true for Troy, which is closely related to the Hittites, the earliest kingdom to use iron tools. Although the few ancient iron tools excavated have been so rusted that it is impossible to tell what they were originally, the existence of iron tools can be proved.

In addition, Liang En and the others also determined that the city in Phase B did not last long. In just a few decades, this group of people abandoned the city, and their civilization also disappeared.

“Are these Greeks back again?” After looking at the conclusions everyone had reached that day, a professor from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland looked at the current report with doubts on his face.

“Of course not. The destruction of this city is most likely related to the famous Dark Ages in ancient Greece. Don’t forget that the core of this city is international trade, and in that era-”

Liang En smiled and explained to the companion in front of him. And when he said the word dark age, the professor in front of him suddenly understood.

“Yes, the Dark Ages. This era is the Dark Ages. I actually forgot about this. If this is the case, everything will make sense.”

The Dark Ages that Liang En and the others described began in 1250 BC, when the Dorians from northern Greece began to move south on a large scale.

In the past 50 years, the Dorians attacked Greece step by step and adopted various methods. The Mycenaeans had to thicken the city walls to resist the invasion.

For example, the ruins of the Mycenaean city that Liang En and the others discovered and excavated before had obvious traces of fortifying the city, but the effect of this can only be said to be very average.

For example, Pylos was a powerful kingdom in the Messenia region in the southwest of the Peloponnese Peninsula. During the Trojan War, the old hero Nestor led 90 warships into the war, which was only less than Agamemnon’s fleet. 100 battleships.

But even such a powerful country could not withstand the wave of Dorian invasion. According to current archaeological data, the Nestor Palace was destroyed by war around 1200 BC, and the remaining royal family fled to Athens by boat.

Perhaps because they are descendants of Trojan heroes and also members of the royal family, stories about their ancestors have been passed down in their family. Therefore, modern people can know from history books that Peisistratus, the later famous tyrant reformer of Athens, was a descendant of the Pylos royal family.

In other words, the Mycenaean countries, which had just won the Trojan War not long ago, collapsed under the turbulent wave of Dorian invasion. Some Mycenaeans’ countries were destroyed, their cities destroyed and people killed; some left their homes and fled to other places. .

After the Dorians destroyed the Mycenaean civilization, the ancient Greek world fell into a dark age that lasted four hundred years (1200 BC to 800 BC).

The so-called Dark Ages refer to the fact that the Greek world during this period was different from the previous trading country Mycenae. It was almost isolated from the world, and other surrounding countries had no records of contact with the Greek world.

After 1100 BC, the cultural heritage of the Mycenaean civilization completely disappeared. For example, some of the pottery paintings on ancient Greek pottery and the iconic decorations like those of the Mycenaean period disappeared and were replaced by simple geometric patterns.

The remains of Greek cities discovered during this period were also significantly smaller than those of the Mycenaean civilization, and the population also dropped significantly. The Linear B script used by the Mycenaean civilization was also abandoned.

But this does not mean that the Dorians are a group of barbarians. The reason why they destroyed everything of the Mycenaeans is because they have their own buildings, their own customs, and their own clothes, and there is no need to learn Mycenaean culture at all.

Unlike the Mycenaeans, the iron weapons used by the invaders Dorians were much more advanced than the Mycenaeans in the Bronze Age. After the demise of the Mycenaean civilization, iron weapons began to become popular in Greece.

The city palace style favored by the Mycenaeans was abolished by the Dorians. The Dorians liked a rectangular central hall, just like the traditional Acropolis temple we see now. Greek temples built in later generations basically followed this Built in style.

In terms of writing, although the Dorians did not have their own writing, they would rather learn from the Phoenicians to form new letters than use Mycenaean Linear B.

The new Greek alphabet retained all the Phoenician symbols, but marked the unused Phoenician consonants as vowels representing Greek. This new Greek alphabet is still in use today. .

However, not all Mycenaean civilization was destroyed. Athens successfully repelled the Dorians and became a survivor of the catastrophe in the Mycenaean world. During the subsequent Dark Ages, it became the most economically developed and economically developed city in the entire Greek world. A region with the most active humanities and the most creative arts.

The victory of the Athenians came from the Great Union of Attica. In the face of the massive invasion of the Dorians, several cities around Athens on the Attic Peninsula united around Athens to form a political and military alliance.

This alliance jointly supported Athens as its leader and recognized the king of Athens as the supreme leader in Attica. Although it was only a temporary measure, it also provided the basis for the Athenians to integrate the entire region later.

After the invasion of Athens was blocked, another group of Dorians sailed out from the Peloponnese Peninsula and occupied Crete, and then went north to occupy Rhodes Island and the southwestern corner of Asia Minor.

But most of the Dorians stayed on the Peloponnese Peninsula and began to live and establish countries. The most famous of them, Sparta, was the city-state established by the Dorians.

In other words, the various grudges and grudges between the Athenians and the Spartans lasted for a long time, so the battle between the two would last throughout the following Archaic Era until Alexander ended it all.

The reason why “Homer’s Epic” is famous is also related to this era, because this epic is the only cultural crystallization of the Dark Ages. According to the large number of Ionian dialects in the epic, people infer that the author should live in Ionia in Asia Minor. area.

However, there is no evidence of Homer’s existence. There is no evidence of birth or death. Therefore, many people believe that Homer does not exist. The epic poems collected in the four hundred years of the Dark Ages are just named after Homer. .

But in any case, this epic is an important reference material for studying the Mycenaean civilization. The archeology carried out by Liang En and others this time is also based on the epic, and in turn, the authenticity of the epic records has been proved through archaeological data.

“So as Greece entered the Dark Ages, this city that relied on trade naturally declined.” Liang En concluded after briefly explaining a few sentences.

“Even due to repeated invasions by the Sea Peoples and Dorians, the city was completely abandoned. It was not until hundreds of years later that another group of Greeks from the Aegean islands resettled here.”