Linear A and BThe Bronze Age Aegean

The End of the Palaces

Around 1200 BC the mainland palaces were destroyed, Pylos by fire, and writing disappeared from Greece for about four centuries.

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The Mycenaean palaces of The Mycenaeans kept their accounts for about two centuries. Then, around 1200 BC, they fell one after another. Pylos burned. Mycenae, Tiryns and Thebes suffered destructions. Within a generation or two the palace system was gone, and with it the need for scribes. Linear B went out of use, and Greece had no writing at all for about four hundred years.

From the Linear B palaces to the Greek alphabet. Notice the gap after the palaces fall.

Key idea

Around 1200 BC the mainland palaces were destroyed, Pylos by fire, and writing disappeared from Greece for about four centuries. Scholars debate the causes; most think several worked together.

What happened?

The destructions did not all come in one year; they came in waves over decades around 1200 BC. The wider eastern Mediterranean was in trouble at the same time: the Hittite empire in Anatolia collapsed, and cities on the coast of the Levant were destroyed. Many explanations have been offered, and none fits every site.

The main explanations debated by scholars.
Proposed causeThe ideaA difficulty
EarthquakesA series of strong quakes damaged several sitesQuakes rarely end a whole system; recent studies found no quake damage at some sites
Raids and invasionsAttackers from outside, perhaps the "Sea Peoples" of Egyptian textsHard to see in the ground; who they were is unclear
Warfare between statesThe palaces fought one anotherPossible, but the evidence is indirect
Drought and famineA drier climate cut harvestsClimate data are patchy
Breakdown of tradeTin, copper and grain stopped arrivingCould be a result as much as a cause

Many scholars now speak of a systems collapse: palace states that depended on long trade routes and tight central control were fragile, so a few shocks at once could bring the whole network down. That idea is popular, but it is still a debate, not a settled answer.

Why it works

Why did writing vanish with the palaces? Because Linear B was only ever a tool of palace bookkeeping. A small number of trained scribes wrote it (see Scribes and Their Hands). When there were no palaces to keep accounts for, no one needed scribes, and no one taught the script. Ordinary people had never used it for letters or stories, so it did not survive.
The fire was a disaster for the people of Pylos and a gift to us. The tablets were unbaked clay, and the burning palace baked about a thousand of them hard. You will see why in Clay, Fire and Survival.

Common mistake

Looking for one single cause, such as "the Dorians invaded" or "an earthquake did it". The evidence points in several directions, and most scholars think more than one factor played a part. Check yourself: an answer that names one cause as certain is overclaiming.

Worked example: What came next?

After the palaces fell around 1200 BC, when did the Greeks write again, and with what?
  1. Linear B disappears with the palaces.
  2. Greek writing returns around 800 BC with letters borrowed from the Phoenician script.
  3. That is a gap of about four centuries.

Answer: Around 800 BC, with the Greek alphabet.

Worked example: Weighing a statement

"The Mycenaean palaces were destroyed by the Sea Peoples in 1200 BC." Is this established?
  1. The Sea Peoples are one proposed cause among several.
  2. The destructions came in waves over decades, not in one year.
  3. So the statement turns one debated idea into a fact.

Answer: No; it is one debated explanation, stated too firmly.

What came after the palaces, and how Greek was written again, is the story of Then Came the Alphabet.

Practice

Pass with 3 right answers, the last 2 in a row. Each right answer earns 2 XP.

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