Greek Dark Ages
| Geographical range | Greek mainland and Aegean Sea |
|---|---|
| Period | Ancient Greece |
| Dates | c. 1180–800 BC |
| Characteristics | Destruction of settlements and collapse of the socioeconomic system |
| Preceded by | Mycenaean Greece, Minoan civilization |
| Followed by | Archaic Greece |
| History of Greece |
|---|
| Greece portal |
The Greek Dark Ages (c. 1180–800 BC) was a period in Ancient Greece characterized by societal collapse of civilization, where the palaces and cities of the Mycenaeans were either destroyed, abandoned, or both.
At around the same time, the Hittite civilization in modern-day Turkey also suffered serious disruption and collapse, with cities from Troy to Gaza being destroyed. Moreover, in Egypt, the New Kingdom fell into disarray, leading to the Third Intermediate Period of Egypt. Following this mass destruction, there were fewer, smaller settlements, which suggests widespread famine and depopulation. On the Greek mainland, the Linear B script, used by Mycenaean bureaucrats to write the Greek language, ceased to be used. The later Greek alphabet did not develop until hundreds of years later, in the beginning of the Protohistoric Iron Age, c. 800 BC.