Ancient Greek Civilization,: An Overview

Ancient Greece, the term refers to the islands of Greece, ranging from the Dark Ages during 11th century BC, to the over throw of the Greek empire by the Roman Republic in 1st Century BC. The achievements of the Greek civilisation through these times, even by today’s standards are exceptional. Historians believe that Ancient Greece’s influences in poetry, art, religion, politics and in some cases, warfare, helped to shape the Western World as we know it today.

The world of Ancient Greece has made for some fascinating historical discoveries. Over the years historians have uncovered masses and masses of evidence about Ancient Greek culture. From art and sculptures, to architecture and weaponry, poetry and inventions, the ancient Greeks showed to the world that religion, politics and education can help mould the birth of a civilisation.

Throughout the 1000 years or so, since the collapse of the Greek speaking Mycenaean civilisation (which is considered by many the starting point of Greek civilisation) at around 1150 BC, the Ancient Greeks went through and had overcome many struggles, a mass of wars and a wealth of different periods and ages.

The first of these ages, the Dark Age, is a relatively unknown time in terms of historical discoveries. During this time, trade links to other civilisations had been lost, writings had stopped and the building of temples and large extravagant stone monuments had also ceased. Many of the Kings and armies and organisation of Ancient Greece had all but vanished. One power overall had continued through the Dark ages relatively unscathed; Athens, a massive power at this time stayed strong. Farming was always practised, pottery, metalworking (especially iron smelting, which had become necessary due to the lack of precious coppers and tin) and other materialistic luxuries had continued, though it’s believed to be at a much lower output.

Greece at the time had become massively depopulated. The main towns had become strung out, each with maybe only 40-50 families occupying each. The towns will have also had smaller settlements just beyond the outskirts. Many of these settlements where not loyal to anyone town or faction, and will have only been made up of a very small population, in some cases less than 20.

During 8th century BC, Greece had started to ascend from their time in the Dark Ages, into what has become known as the Archaic Period. In 776BC the first recorded Olympic games where held(not much is known about the Greek Dark Ages and not many archaeological discoveries have been made, it’s because of this a lot of historians don’t include the Dark Ages when referring to Ancient Greece; and instead refer to the first Olympic games as the start of Greek civilisation). The Olympic games where founded by the Greek city of Athens, and much the same as it is today, the games where held every four years. The Greeks named this measurement of time the ‘Olympiad’.