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| During the transition from the Mycenaean period to the Dark Age, not only was the Mycenaean tradition
not eclipsed, but it survived in several sectors of life. |
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 To
start with, many settlements of historical times were founded upon or next to
Mycenaean sites. In these cases, a gap in time is observed in archaeological finds,
with the exception of the Kerameikos cemetery where an uninterrupted
series of Submycenaean graves has been excavated. In Attica and Crete, there was a
continuity in the development of vase painting during the Dark Age, with the formation
of two different pottery styles which were the continuation of the Mycenaean
and Minoan styles respectively. In many Mycenaean and Minoan shrines, worship was not
disturbed, a fact ascertained from the votive offerings which betray an uninterrupted continuity.
In certain areas, shrines where local mythical heroes were worshipped, such as Academus
in Athens and Odysseus on Ithaca, were founded for the first time.
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 The
composition of the Homeric poems led to a general awakening of the interest in
the Mycenaean past. Manifestations of this trend are the hero cults confirmed by offerings
in tombs and the rich 'heroic' burials in Salamis on Cyprus. The epics themselves contributed,
to a large extent, to turning the memory of the Mycenaean Age -so far preserved through oral tradition-
into a common legacy of the Greeks. In addition, they have preserved
words and types of the language, as well as state and religious
institutions of the Mycenaean Age that survived with a different content in
historical times like, for instance, that of kingship. Lastly,
in the same period, an increase in pictorial representations in vase painting -of Attica
in particular- has been observed and many researchers claim that these render mythological scenes
of the Trojan cycle. |
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