The Greek Dark Age or Ages and Geometric or Homeric Age (ca. 1200 BC–800 BC) are terms which have regularly been used to refer to the period of Greek history from the presumed Dorian invasion and end of the Mycenaean Palatial civilization around 1200 BC, to the first signs of the Greek city-states in the 9th century BC. These terms are gradually going out of use, since the former lack of archaeological evidence in a period that was mute in its lack of inscriptions (thus "dark") has been shown to be an accident of discovery rather than a fact of history.

The archaeological evidence shows a widespread collapse of Bronze Age civilization in the eastern Mediterranean world at the outset of the period, as the great palaces and cities of the Mycenaeans were destroyed or abandoned. Around this time, the Hittite civilization suffered serious disruption and cities from Troy to Gaza were destroyed. Following the collapse, fewer and smaller settlements suggest famine and depopulation. In Greece the Linear B writing of the Greek language used by Mycenaean bureaucrats ceased. The decoration on Greek pottery after ca 1100 BC lacks the figurative decoration of Mycenaean ware and is restricted to simpler, generally geometric styles (1000-700 BC). It was previously thought that all contact was lost between mainland Hellenes and foreign powers during this period, yielding little cultural progress or growth; however, artifacts from excavations at Lefkandi on the Lelantine Plain in Euboea show that significant cultural and trade links with the east, particularly the Levant coast, developed from c 900 BC onwards, and evidence has emerged of the new presence of Hellenes in sub-Mycenaean Cyprus and on the Syrian coast at Al Mina.

Fall of the Mycenaeans[link]

From around 1200 BC, the palace centres and outlying settlements of the Mycenaeans' highly organized culture began to be abandoned or destroyed, and by 1050 BC, the recognisable features of Mycenaean culture had disappeared. Many explanations attribute the fall of the Mycenaean civilization and the Bronze Age collapse to climatic or environmental catastrophe combined with an invasion by Dorians or by the Sea Peoples or the widespread availability of edged weapons of iron, but no single explanation fits the available archaeological evidence.

Mediterranean warfare and the Sea Peoples [link]

Around this time large-scale revolts took place in several parts of the Eastern Mediterranean, and attempts to overthrow existing kingdoms were made as a result of economic and political instability by surrounding people who were already plagued with famine and hardship. Part of the Hittite kingdom was invaded and conquered by the so-called Sea Peoples whose origins - perhaps from different parts of the Mediterranean, such as the Black Sea, the Aegean and Anatolian regions - remain obscure. The thirteenth and twelfth-century inscriptions and carvings at Karnak and Luxor are the only sources for "Sea Peoples", a term invented by the Egyptians themselves and recorded in the boastful accounts of Egyptian military successes:

A similar assemblage of peoples may have attempted to invade Egypt twice, once during the reign of Merneptah about 1224 BC, and then again during the reign of Ramesses III about 1186 BC.

Dark Age Culture[link]

With the collapse of the palatial centres, no more monumental stone buildings were built and the practice of wall painting may have ceased; writing in the Linear B script ceased, vital trade links were lost, and towns and villages were abandoned. The population of Greece was reduced, and 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. To what extent the earliest Greek literary sources, Homeric epics (8th-7th century) and Hesiod's ''Works and Days'' (7th century) describe life in the 9th-8th centuries remains a matter of considerable debate. The fragmented, localized and autonomous cultures of reduced complexity are noted for such diversity of their material cultures in pottery styles (conservative in Athens, eclectic at Knossos), burial practices and settlement structures, that generalizations about ''a'' "Dark Age society" are misleading. Tholos tombs are found in early Iron Age Thessaly and in Crete but not in general elsewhere, and cremation is the dominant rite in Attica, but nearby in the Argolid it was inhumation. Some former sites of Mycenaean palaces, such as Argos or Knossos, continued to be occupied; other sites' experiencing an expansive "boom time" of a generation or two before they were abandoned, James Whitley has associated with the "Big-man social organization", based on personal charisma and inherently unstable: he interprets Lefkandi in this light.

Some regions in Greece, such as Attica, Euboea and central Crete, recovered economically from these events faster than others, but life for the poorest Greeks would have remained relatively unchanged as it had done for centuries. There was still farming, weaving, metalworking and potting in this time, albeit at a lower level of output and for local use in local styles. Some technical innovations were introduced around 1050 BC with the start of the Proto-geometric style (1050-900 BC), such as the superior pottery technology, which resulted in 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 clay. However, the overall trend was toward simpler, less intricate pieces and fewer resources being devoted to the creation of beautiful art.

During this time the smelting of iron was learnt from Cyprus and the Levant, exploited and improved upon, 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, it is still uncertain when the forged iron weapons and armour achieved superior strength to those that had been previously cast and hammered from bronze. From 1050 BC 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 the mainland of Greece to the Anatolian coast to such sites as Miletus, Ephesus, and Colophon, perhaps as early as 1000 BC, though the contemporaneous evidence is scanty. In Cyprus some archaeological sites begin to show identifiably Greek ceramics, a colony of Euboean Greeks was established at Al Mina on the Syrian coast, and a reviving Aegean Greek network of exchange can be detected from 10th-century Attic Proto-geometic pottery found in Crete and at Samos, off the coast of Asia Minor.

Post-Mycenaean Cyprus[link]

Cyprus was inhabited by a mix of "pelasgian" 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 of small flasks and jugs which 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. Cypriote metalwork was exchanged in Crete.

Society[link]

It is likely that Greece during this period was divided into independent regions organized by kinship groups and the ''oikoi'' or households, the origins of the later ''poleis''. Excavations of Dark Age communities such as Nichoria in the Peloponnese have shown how a Bronze Age town was abandoned in 1150 BC but then reemerged as a small village cluster by 1075 BC. 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 10th century building, including a megaron, on the top of the ridge have led to speculation that this was the chieftain’s house. 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 communal storage of food and of religious significance. 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. Most Greeks did not live in isolated farmsteads but in small settlements. It is likely that, as at the dawn of the historical period two or three hundred years later, the main economic resources for each family was the ancestral plot of land of the ''oikos'', the ''kleros'' or allotment; without this a man could not marry.

Lefkandi Burial[link]

Lefkandi on the island of Euboea was a prosperous settlement in the Late Bronze Age, possibly to be identified with old Eretria. 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. Sometimes called 'the ''heroon'', this long narrow building (150 feet by 30 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. 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 breast plates, an heirloom necklace (an elaborate Cypriot or Near Eastern necklace made some 200–300 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.

Within the next few years and down to c 820 BC, rich members of the community were cremated and buried close to the eastern end of the building, in much the same way as 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[link]

The archaeological record of many sites demonstrates that the economic recovery of Greece was well advanced by the beginning of the 8th century BC. Both cemeteries such as the Kerameikos in Athens or Lefkandi and sanctuaries such as Olympia, recently-founded Delphi or the Heraion of Samos, first of the colossal free-standing temples, are richly provided with offerings including items from the Near East, from Egypt and from Italy made of exotic materials such as amber or ivory, while exports of Greek pottery demonstrate contact with the Levant coast at such sites as Al Mina and with the region of the Villanovan culture to the north of Rome. The decoration of pottery becomes more and more elaborate and includes figured scenes which parallel the stories of Homeric Epic. Iron tools and weapons become better in quality, while renewed Mediterranean trade must have 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. Other coastal regions of Greece besides Euboea were once again full participants in the commercial and cultural exchanges of the eastern and central Mediterranean, while communities developed which were governed by an elite group of aristocrats rather than by the single ''basileus'' or chieftain of earlier periods.

New Writing System[link]

By the mid- to late eighth century a new alphabet system was adopted from the Phoenicians by a Greek with first-hand experience of it. The Greeks adapted the Phoenician writing system, notably introducing characters for vowel sounds and thereby creating the first truly alphabetic (as opposed to abjad) 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. 730 BC; 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.

See also[link]

Dark Ages in history

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

Chew, Sing C., ''World Ecological Degradation: Accumulation, Urbanization and Deforestation 3000 BC - AD 2000'', 2001, [ISBN 0-7591-0031-4] Chapter 3, The second-millennium Bronze Age: Crete and Mycenaean Greece 1700 BC - 1200 BC.

.

Faucounau, Jean, ''Les Peuples de la Mer et leur histoire'', Paris : L'Harmattan, 2003.

Hurwitt, Jeffrey M., ''The Art and Culture of Early Greece 1100-480 BC'', Cornell University Press, 1985, Chapters 1-3.

Langdon, Susan, ''Art and Identity in Dark Age Greece, 1100-700 BC'', 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.

Jan Sammer, ''New Light on the Dark Age of Greece'' (Immanuel Velikovsky Archive).

Whitley, James, ''Style and Society in Dark Age Greece: The Changing Face of a Pre-literate Society, 1100-700 BC'', Cambridge University Press, 2003, Series : New Studies in Archaeology.

Category:Historical eras Dark Ages

bg:Гръцки тъмни векове ca:Edat fosca grega cs:Temné období de:Dunkle Jahrhunderte (Antike) el:Γεωμετρική εποχή es:Edad Oscura fr:Siècles obscurs gl:Idade Escura ko:그리스 암흑기 hi:यूनानी अंधकार काल hr:Mračno doba (stara Grčka) is:Myrku aldirnar í sögu Grikklands it:Medioevo ellenico he:תקופת המעבר ביוון lb:Däischter Zäitalteren lt:Graikijos tamsieji amžiai hu:Görög sötét kor nl:Duistere eeuwen ja:暗黒時代 (古代ギリシア) no:De mørke århundrer i Hellas pl:Wieki ciemne (starożytność) pt:Idade das Trevas (Grécia) ru:Греческие Тёмные века sk:Temné obdobie sr:Мрачни век (Античка Грчка) sh:Mračno doba Grčke fi:Kreikan pimeät vuosisadat tr:Yunan karanlık çağları uk:Темні століття у Греції vi:Hy Lạp tăm tối zh:希腊黑暗时代

Dark Ages may refer to:

In history and sociology[link]

Dark Ages (historiography), the concept of a period of intellectual darkness that supposedly occurred in Europe following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire.

* The European Middle Ages (5th to 15th centuries AD), particularly:

** Depiction of the Middle Ages in popular culture.

** The Western European Early Middle Ages.

** The Migration period of c. 300 to 700 AD.

** The ''saeculum obscurum'' or "dark age" in the history of the papacy, running from 904-964.

''Note: medieval historians today usually avoid the phrase "Dark Ages" for the above periods, see Dark Ages (historiography) for further discussion.''

The Greek Dark Ages (c. 1100 BC–750 BC), a period in the history of Ancient Greece and Anatolia from which no records, and only scant archaeological evidence, survive. Tied into the wider Bronze Age collapse.

The Dark Ages of Cambodia (c. 1450-1863).

A hypothetical Digital Dark Age.

In astrophysics[link]

Dark Ages, in Big Bang cosmology, a nickname for the time between Recombination (of electrons with hydrogen and helium nuclei) and Reionization

In music[link]

''Dark Ages'' (album) by Soulfly

''The Dark Ages'', an EP by Andrea Parker

"Dark Ages", a song by Jethro Tull on their 1979 album ''Stormwatch''

"Dark Ages", a song by the Yngwie J. Malmsteen on his 1986 album ''Trilogy''

"Dark Ages", a song by NoMeansNo on their 1988 album ''Small Parts Isolated and Destroyed''

Dark Age (band), a German melodic death metal band

Dark Ages (band), a Ukrainian dark ambient band

"New Dark Ages", a song by punk-rock legends Bad Religion

In entertainment[link]

Dark Age of Comic Books (1986-late 1990s), a period in the American comics industry

''Dark Ages'' (1991 computer game), a platform game by Apogee Software

''Dark Ages'' (computer game), an MMORPG by KRU Interactive

''Dark Ages'' (TV series), a 1999 ITV comedy series set in England in AS 999, parodying 1999's millennial fears

''The Dark Ages'' (2007), a 2-hour History Channel documentary directed by Christopher Cassel

"The Dark Age", an episode of ''Buffy the Vampire Slayer''

bg:Тъмни векове (пояснение) de:Dark Ages es:Oscuro (desambiguación) fr:Dark Ages hr:Mračno doba ru:Тёмные века sh:Mračno doba fi:Pimeä aika uk:Темні століття zh:黑暗时代

name	Rotting Christ
background	group_or_band| birth_name
origin	Athens, Greece
genre	Melodic black metalGothic metal
years active	1987–present
label	Osmose Productions (1991−1993)Unisound(1994-1996)Century Media Records(1996−2006)Season of Mist(2006−Present)
associated acts	AlastisMoonspellNecromantiaNightfallSamaelSeptic FleshThou Art Lord Varathron
associated acts	MoonspellNecromantiaNightfallSamaelSeptic FleshThou Art LordVarathron
website	rotting-christ.com
current members	Sakis TolisGiorgos BokosAndreas LagiosThemis Tolis
past members	Costas VasilakopoulosGeorgios ToliasMagus Wampyr DaolothJim "Mutilator" PatsourisPanayiotis
notable instruments	}}

Rotting Christ is a Greek black metal band formed in 1987. They are noted for being one of the first black metal bands within this region, as well as a premier act within the European underground metal scene.

History [link]

Line-up [link]

The permanent line-up consists of brothers Sakis Tolis (vocals and guitar) and Themis Tolis (drums). Andreas Lagios has been the bassist since 1997, taking the stead of Jim Patsouris. Nightfall's Giorgos Bokos joined as a guitarist in 2005, replacing Costas Vasilakopoulos.

Three keyboardists had previously been a part of the band; George Tolias, George Zaharopoulos and a session known only as Panayiotis (on ''A Dead Poem'').

The band from the beggining, up to Triarchy of the Lost Lovers album was using the pseudonyms Necromayhem for Sakis, Necrosauron for Themis and Mutilator for Jim (Dimitris).

Biography [link]

During their rehearsal era in the late 1980s, the band began as grindcore and released various demos and splits with other bands from the Athens area. The group would later alter their sound with influence from proto-black metal bands like Celtic Frost and Venom, and in the process became one of the genre's instigators. Their 5 song demo, ''Satanas Tedeum'', would show a grindcore/black metal crossover, followed by their career-breaking EP, ''Passage to Arcturo'', in 1991.

One of band's first major appearances was on the 1993 "''Fuck Christ Tour''" consisting of Immortal and Blasphemy. During this concert, some audience members had engaged in cutting and self mutilation that resulted in hospitalization. Before signing to Unisound, Mayhem's Øystein Aarseth had expressed interest in distributing the band through his "Deathlike Silence Productions" label, but due to Aarseth's murder the same year, nothing materialized. The band would sign to Century Media in 1996 and remain on their roster for 10 years before joining Season of Mist.

Rotting Christ have played in many countries outside their native Greece, including both Americas, Greater Europe, Russia, the United Kingdom, Malta and the Middle East. Several heavy metal festivals around the world have hosted the band, including the 2003 ''Wacken Open Air'' in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. Past tourmates have included My Dying Bride, Tristania, Tiamat, Vintersorg, Finntroll, Agathodaimon, Old Man's Child, Malevolent Creation, Anorexia Nervosa, Vader, Krisiun, Deicide, Behemoth, Melechesh and Nile, among many others.

Publicity [link]

Over the years, the group has faced controversy due to their name and gained international media attention in November 1999 during the 2000 United States Presidential Primaries for Republican Nomination, when candidate/Christian conservative Gary Bauer accused the band of being "anti-Catholic", among other things. In response to Bauer's criticism, Sakis wrote:

They also have had to cancel some shows, most recently in May 2005, when Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine refused to play at a Greek concert if Rotting Christ were on the bill.

In response to their forced cancellation, Sakis noted:

Anthrax co-founder Dan Lilker defended Rotting Christ and criticized Dave Mustaine's actions, as did Nevermore's Warrel Dane, whose bands appeared on Mustaine's Gigantour in 2005. Dane added:

When playing in Malta, a country which in its constitution declares itself as Roman Catholic, trouble from the Church and other Catholic groups ensued when an unknown person stuck a Rotting Christ flyer to a church door. The band was allowed to play eventually even though they had to change venue.

Despite the name, the band's traditional lyrical themes involving evil and occultism has evolved into a more "mystic" path, and they have modified their musical direction on each album, utilizing elements such as clean melodic baritone vocals, doom, gothic metal and industrial music traits, and male/female Benedictine chants. Recent albums, beginning with ''Khronos'', have shown the band taking a more modern, faster and more aggressive approach to their blackened-gothic style. Their 2007 album, ''Theogonia'', especially, has been described as more "atmospheric" and "epic" by their label.

The group's choice of producers, engineers and mixers has also been varied; Swedish extreme metal figures Dan Swanö (Unisound), Peter Tägtgren (Abyss Studios) and Fredrik Nordström (Studio Fredman), German producers Andy Classen (Asphyx, Belphegor) Siggi Bemm (Therion, Theatre of Tragedy) and Waldemar Sorychta (Lacuna Coil, The Gathering) as well as Xytras (Samael percussionist/keyboardist) have all contributed to production on the band's albums.

, Rotting Christ have been around 20 years, one of the longest running bands within the black metal genre. In celebration of the band's longevity, the 2 DVD + 2 CD compilation, "Non Serviam: A 20 Year Apocryphal Story," shot in Athens on December 8, 2007, was released worldwide February 23, 2009.

''Aealo'', the band's latest album, was released on February 15, 2010 for Europe and February 23, 2010 for the USA.

Band members[link]

Current members[link]

Sakis Tolis - guitar/vocals (1987–present)

Giorgos Bokos - guitar (2005–present)

Andreas Lagios - bass (1997–present)

Themis Tolis - drums (1987–present)

Past members[link]

Costas Vasilakopoulos - guitar (1996–2004)

Georgios Tolias - keyboard (1997–2003)

George "Magus Wampyr Daoloth" Zaharopoulos - keyboard/backing vocals (1992–1994)

Jim "Mutilator" Patsouris - bass (1989–1996)

Panayiotis - session keyboard (1997)

Discography[link]

Full length[link]

Thy Mighty ContractNovember 11, 1993Osmose Productions(re-released on Century Media, January 20, 1998) Non ServiamOctober 10, 1994Unisound(re-released on The End Records, January 24, 2006) Triarchy of the Lost LoversAugust 20, 1996Century Media A Dead PoemOctober 7, 1997Century Media Sleep of the AngelsMarch 9, 1999Century Media KhronosAugust 29, 2000Century Media GenesisOctober 29, 2002Century Media Sanctus DiavolosSeptember 20, 2004Century Media TheogoniaFebruary 6, 2007Season of Mist AealoFebruary 15, 2010Season of Mist

Demos, singles, and DVDs [link]

'' Decline's Return '' (1988) (demo)

''Leprosy of Death'' (1988) (unofficial demo)

''The Other Side of Life'' (1989) (EP split with Sound Pollution)

''Satanas Tedeum'' (1989) (demo)

''Passage to Arcturo'' (1991) (EP)

''Split with Monumentum'' (1991) (split)

''Dawn of the Iconoclast'' (1991) (EP)

''Ades Wind'' (1992) (demo)

''Apokathelosis'' (1993) (EP)

''The Mystical Meeting'' (1997) (single/live/cover compilation)

''Der Perfekte Traum'' (1999) (single/Live)

''In Domine Sathana'' (2003) (live DVD)

''Non Serviam: A 20 Year Apocryphal Story'' (2009) (live DVD/CD)

''A Soundtrack to Mikael Häll's Doctoral Dissertation'' (2012, Malört förlag) (7" single, split with Negative Plane)

Best of compilation

''Thanatiphoro Anthologio'' (2007) (compilation)

References[link]

External links[link]

Official website

Category:Greek black metal musical groups Category:Musical groups established in 1987 Category:Greek heavy metal musical groups Category:Greek gothic metal musical groups Category:Musical quartets

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