Greek Dark Age 1200-800 BC saw loss of Linear B after Bronze Age collapse

Greek Dark Age 1200-800 BC saw loss of Linear B after Bronze Age collapse. Greek Dark Age broadly defined from 1200 to 800 BC Followed the collapse of the Mycenaean palace world around 1200 BC Linear B writing system was lost as palace bureaucracies fell apart

When the Mycenaean palaces collapsed around 1200 BC, Greece entered a "Dark Age" lasting until roughly 800 BC. Linear B writing vanished, trade shrank, populations declined. Then around 800 BC, Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet - and that's when Homer's oral epics were finally written down. A remarkable cultural recovery from collapse.

Key Facts

• Greek Dark Age broadly defined from 1200 to 800 BC
• Followed the collapse of the Mycenaean palace world around 1200 BC
• Linear B writing system was lost as palace bureaucracies fell apart
• Populations declined and long-distance trade shrank during this period
• Around 800 BC, Greeks began adopting the Phoenician alphabet, adapting it to their own language
• This transition marked the end of the Greek Dark Age and beginning of the Archaic period
• Epic traditions from the oral Dark Age were finally written down during the Archaic period

Source: this scene in the Iliad helps the case for "European Proto-Writing" by Timeless with Fred Snyder