Thomas R. Martin, An Overview of Classical Greek History from Mycenae to Alexander

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4. Remaking Greek Civilization

In Greece, the Dark Age of depopulation and poverty persisted longer than in the Near East. Although Greek economic improvement is evident as early as about 900 B.C., it was not until the period around 750 B.C. that political states, now of a new kind, developed again and the Dark Age can be seen as ended. The obscure history of Greece in years between these general dates laid the foundation for the pronounced social, political, and intellectual changes associated with the creation of the Greek city-state. Throughout this period, continued contact with the Near East greatly influenced Greece, not only in commerce and trade but also in the exchange of ideas. Entrepreneurs from the Near East apparently often made their way to Greece, bringing with them both the knowledge of new technologies, such as iron working, and of ideas that Greeks took over and made their own in mythology and religion.

4.1. The Start of Economic Revival

The evidence from burials shows that Greeks in more and more locations had become conspicuously wealthy by about 900 B.C. A hierarchical arrangement of society was evidently spreading throughout Greece, and the few men and women at the pinnacle of society had the riches to have expensive material goods placed in their tombs with them. In the earlier part of the Dark Age, the best grave offerings a dead person could expect were a few clay pots. The exceptional contents of rich graves point to significant economic changes already under way by the ninth century B.C.

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OCLC: 33900145
ISBN: 0300069561

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