Questions about the Dorians and the start of the Iron Age in Greece

Guevarist Mayan said:

I had a rather heated debate regarding whether societies with iron replaced societies with bronze by conquest. One example put forth to me was that of the Dorian conquest of Mycenaean Greece. Supposedly the Dorians used iron weapons to overwhelm the Mycenaeans using the inferior bronze. How true is this? A related question would be with the larger group of the Sea Peoples. Did they use iron to overwhelm the bronze armies of the Near East?

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I think that theory of invasion was debunked several decades ago. There is a paper from the 1970's intitled "Who were the Dorians?" by Chadwick that says something like: "from the archeological point of view, the Dorian invasion was a non event" and "the so-called Dorians are invisible".

Guevarist Mayan said:

I had a rather heated debate regarding whether societies with iron replaced societies with bronze by conquest. One example put forth to me was that of the Dorian conquest of Mycenaean Greece. Supposedly the Dorians used iron weapons to overwhelm the Mycenaeans using the inferior bronze. How true is this? A related question would be with the larger group of the Sea Peoples. Did they use iron to overwhelm the bronze armies of the Near East?

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Quite some time ago that was the tarditional version of ealry Greek history. Now it is more or less discredited. the devidence just does not suppport it. But there isn;t a lot oof eveidnce, and there is a lot of open questions now. This stiuff was histiry created very much in 19th century and scince the 1970s onwards it been reeveulated and exmined and it don;t rest on very much at all.

There A whole lot of we do not relllay know much for certian/. We haveteh colaalsspe that a certainty but why no one's come up with anything close to conclsuively supported by edvidence and generally accepted. Plenty of theories restiing on a few bits of eveidence. . the Wider bronze age collapse, sea peoplea is problmatic, plenty of theories not that much evidence,.

the Iron /Bronze alternance is a bit less simple than a simple replacement

if there was functioning trade networks , for a civilized ( city based ) society , bronze was often preferable
if there was poor trading network , for a barbarian ( village ) society iron was available

Bronze is easier to cast , cheaper to forge and is corrosion resistant
Iron cost a lot more in labor and fuel , need some heavy forging of the bloom and rust is an ever present problem

however for some use Iron is preferable , like plough blades ,
I'm not aware of anyone using bronze for it , while Iron blades was common
armorer had a preference for working with bronze until quite late but mail shirts were made with Iron

There was no Dorian invasion. People have been looking for evidence for more than a century and have found nothing.

There was no collapse. It was an artificial mechanism that was used to try and reconcile the dodgy chronology we've been using. If the Dark Age was removed and the chronology revised downward, we see an orderly and gradual transition into the archaic period.

The original Dorian theory was based on the erroneous assumption that iron was superior to bronze. We now know that bronze has similar mechanical properties as medium carbon steel. In many cases, bronze weapons and armour were actually superior to iron versions. Iron never began to surpass bronze in terms of performance until the intracacies of quench-hardened steel were understood.

Iron replaced bronze because it was cheaper and more widely available, not because it was better.

Dan Howard said:

There was no Dorian invasion. People have been looking for evidence for more than a century and have found nothing.

There was no collapse. It was an artificial mechanism that was used to try and reconcile the dodgy chronology we've been using. If the Dark Age was removed and the chronology revised downward, we see an orderly and gradual transition into the archaic period.

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The Bronze age palace complex like Mcycne were abandoned. Settlements were smaller, less trade, the demise of Linear B.

sparky said:

however for some use Iron is preferable , like plough blades , I'm not aware of anyone using bronze for it

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I know of at least two bronze ploughs. One is Sumerian and another is Italian (Polada culture).

pugsville said:

The Bronze age palace complex like Mcycne were abandoned. Settlements were smaller, less trade, the demise of Linear B.

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They were gradually abandoned over a period of several centuries. They weren't all abandoned at once. There was no "collapse".

Dan Howard said:

They were gradually abandoned over a period of several centuries. They weren't all abandoned at once. There was no "collapse".

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But why were they abandoned at all, if it was a gradual transition? Wouldn’t it make more sense for the Greeks to have developed them into something else, rather than abandon them?

What about the very clear distinction of the Heracleid , associated with Dorians kings and new comers as opposed to long established Ionians

@ Dan Howard , thanks for the tip about bronze plough ,
still I hold it was the exceptions which confirm the rule , Mesopotamia fields would be stones free , not sure about the Polada ones

iron being very expensive there always was a lot of recycling ,
Isaiah 2.3/4
" they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks "

I agree that there's no evidence of a Dorian invasion transforming the Greek world, the Bronze Age collapse probably happened because of more complex and interesting reasons

However, there's still room to explain lot of things. The Mycenaean texts were written in one single Greek dialect: Achaean. And nothing else. Achaean survived just in Arcadia where they are said to have resisted, and also where the texts say the Achaeans fled, in Cyprus.

Then we have: Dorians, Ionians and Aeolians popping up after the Dark Age of Greece, occupying most of Hellas. What happened with this massive ethnic drift? This is a very important question still to be solved.

Frank81 said:

I agree that there's no evidence of a Dorian invasion transforming the Greek world, the Bronze Age collapse probably happened because of more complex and interesting reasons

However, there's still room to explain lot of things. The Mycenaean texts were written in one single Greek dialect: Achaean. And nothing else. Achaean survived just in Arcadia where they are said to have resisted, and also where the texts say the Achaeans fled, in Cyprus.

Then we have: Dorians, Ionians and Aeolians popping up after the Dark Age of Greece, occupying most of Hellas. What happened with this massive ethnic drift? This is a very important question still to be solved.

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Yes!

NordicDemosthenes said:

But why were they abandoned at all, if it was a gradual transition? Wouldn’t it make more sense for the Greeks to have developed them into something else, rather than abandon them?

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The city was sparsely populated down to the 5th century BC, no clear reason is visible to archaeologists, whether due to plague, attacks of pirates, earthquakes, drought or famine are often the usual culprits.
I'm sure renovation is nothing new to our day, if it wasn't done at Mycenae there had to be good reason.

First of all, there is not a single hint or suggestion of ANY army of iron-armed warriors defeating an army of bronze-armed warriors ANYWHERE on the planet, ever. It did not happen. Iron was not some super-weapon suddenly discovered and cranked out in massive new factories to equip a whole society's military with invincible uber-weapons. The first iron weapons show up in ROYAL tombs and graves, and it was a metal for the aristocracy for generations. AND we also know that most early iron weapons were no better than their bronze counterparts, and even if they were, so what? Bronze weapons are perfectly lethal, and no battle was decided by clanging sword edges together to measure the nicks in the blades. Iron became more common as it was found to be more available, and as populations and production grew. As it became more widely available, it clearly became cheaper, with things like iron knives now turning up in common homes.

So NO, the Dorians did NOT sweep over Greece because they had light-sabers and the Mycenaeans only had damp socks to fight with.

The "Sea People" are basically a 19th century invention, based on a mistranslation of Egyptian texts and blown wildly out of proportion. There are several threads on it.

Gotta run!

Matthew

pugsville said:

Quite some time ago that was the tarditional version of ealry Greek history. Now it is more or less discredited. the devidence just does not suppport it. But there isn;t a lot oof eveidnce, and there is a lot of open questions now. This stiuff was histiry created very much in 19th century and scince the 1970s onwards it been reeveulated and exmined and it don;t rest on very much at all.

There A whole lot of we do not relllay know much for certian/. We haveteh colaalsspe that a certainty but why no one's come up with anything close to conclsuively supported by edvidence and generally accepted. Plenty of theories restiing on a few bits of eveidence. . the Wider bronze age collapse, sea peoplea is problmatic, plenty of theories not that much evidence,.

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While I always appreciate your contributions @pugsville, they can be a bit hard to read at times, this one especially. Can we band together to buy you a new keyboard?

sparky said:

iron being very expensive there always was a lot of recycling ,
Isaiah 2.3/4
" they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks "

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I'm assuming that was a joke of some kind, yes? Because it's hilarious.

For those not catching it, that's a Biblical passage talking about warlike people becoming peaceful. It has NOTHING TO DO with recycling or the costs of metals.

Matthew

Wickerman said:

The city was sparsely populated down to the 5th century BC, no clear reason is visible to archaeologists, whether due to plague, attacks of pirates, earthquakes, drought or famine are often the usual culprits.
I'm sure renovation is nothing new to our day, if it wasn't done at Mycenae there had to be good reason.

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AKAIK Mycenae was at least partly occupied for most of the BCE centuries. Some Roman visitor(s) remarked in the first or second century AD that it was uninhabited. There have been so many theories about this that discussion can be repetitive, but it is still interesting.

As for "Dorians" overpowering a sophisticated civilization such as the Mycenaean, it is unlikely. What seems more likely is that they moved into areas that had been depopulated, or underpopulated, due to other reasons. I have tried to find record of volcanic activity that may have contributed to crop failure year after year, but I can't find anything probable. Food is the major thing that can cause desperate migration, so maybe the "collapse" was caused at least partly by that. Famine leads to reduced resistance to disease, etc., so as a consequence, plague or other epidemic events could have caused reduction in population to the point where agriculture would be so damaged, and the ability to defend would be so affected, that remaining was not an option or was at least very risky. It remains a mystery.

The arrivals from the north (Dorian/Ionian, or whoever) may have migrated in desperation for similar reasons. However, it does not seem likely that they were that numerous (similar to many of the barbarian migrations of 4th and 5th centuries AD). A large population requires food sources that can sustain it. The Balkans and the Pindus Mountains, where these new arrivals probably originated, are rugged terrain and difficult - 3000 years ago - to feed large numbers. In order to overpower the Mycenaean culture, an adversary would need greatly superior numbers for a swift conquest. I don't think that was the case.

Greece and the Aegean are geologically unstable, so some catastrophic series of seismic occurrences may have been a big reason. That just seems much too coincidental - all at once and everywhere.

I agree that abandonment and/or not reconstructing would have to have good reason. If Mycenae, or any of the Bronze Age sites, were advantageous places why would populations leave unless they could no longer feed themselves?

sparky said:

the Iron /Bronze alternance is a bit less simple than a simple replacement

if there was functioning trade networks , for a civilized ( city based ) society , bronze was often preferable
if there was poor trading network , for a barbarian ( village ) society iron was available

Bronze is easier to cast , cheaper to forge and is corrosion resistant
Iron cost a lot more in labor and fuel , need some heavy forging of the bloom and rust is an ever present problem

however for some use Iron is preferable , like plough blades ,
I'm not aware of anyone using bronze for it , while Iron blades was common
armorer had a preference for working with bronze until quite late but mail shirts were made with Iron

Click to expand...

Not quite correct. Iron is far more common in the earth and is much cheaper than copper or tin. You.can obtain iron ores from a lot more locations, even from bogs you can obtain workable amounts of iron. Only a few places have tin or copper. Iron replaced bronze because it was cheaper not because it was necessarily better. More fuel needed and more labor did not offset the higher cost of copper and tin ores. Good work hardened bronze can actually be harder than just plain iron, but a whole lot more expensive. Once you have mastered using steel, then steel can be harder than even the best bronze.

With good maintenance, rust isn't a big as problem, and if you use knives and swords, maintenance is a requirement, even for bronze. Iron is difficult to cast, because iron has a much higher melting temperature. Higher carbon content lowers the melting temperature but makes the iron too brittle for many applications, such as.making swords and armor. It is only in the 19th century you could get temperatures high enough with the carbon content low enough to cast iron (steel) that the carbon content was low enough so it wasn't so brittle that casting iron (alloys) became applicable for many applications.

Cyprus preserved much of Mycenaean's culture and they were settled by greeks around the time of the bronze age collapse.

According to legends this settlement started after the trojan war. The hero Teucer become a mercenary and allied with a King Bellus II of Syria,they invaded the island and he founded Salamis.

There was no attested syrian/phoenicean/canannite king with that name...but there was another overlord who ruled all Syria at that time: the Hittite King.

There are written and archaeological finds proving that Suppiluiluma II invaded Cyprus around that time.

Maybe the hittites used some mycenaeans/achaeans mercenaries in their campaigns,and as a reward they settled there.

Different from Crete (that adopted doric greek) Cyprus had arcado-cypriotic language,that was the closest to Mycenaean.


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What was the Bronze Age Collapse then....I take it this also included the collapse of the Hittites....I'm pretty sure the Mittani scooted on over to India because of Assyria.