Shane Mage wrote:
>
> But to do this they have
> to ignore the fact, known for well over half a century now, that
> Mykenaeans and Athenians spoke and wrote the same language--Greek.
>
_Versions_ of the same language -- and there was no relationship
whatever between the two writing systems!
And you have to be joking that "Homer" gives us information about the Mycenaean age. A boar's tooth helmet, a couple other details, and that's it.
And the same thing happened at about the same time across the whole ofancient civilization, from Africa to China. The bronze age civilizations collapesed, writing was lost, and when "civilization" resumed it was not always even in the same location as the earlier flourishng and their was no continuity in the writing systems.
"Dark Age" is a misleading label for any period, but there was a gap and we don't know much about what happened during the gap.
Carrol