The Old World has confronted archaeologists with many puzzles, the most troubling of all being that of the Dark Ages—so called to describe a period marked by economic and cultural decline, lasting 400 years, from 1200 to 800 BC. Or was it really so? The dates we have for the Near East and the Mediterranean world derive from the chronology of ancient Egypt, which is held in high esteem.
But what if even this chronology has been miscalculated?
This radical theory is proposed by James, Nikos Kokkinos, and their collaborators, the result of meticulous and multifaceted research over many years. Decoding evidence from papyri and pottery, the authors—all expert researchers in their respective fields—examine every testimony and every layer of the vast archaeological record unearthed across an immense region, from Spain to Iran and from Denmark to Sudan, ultimately reaching Egypt, the root of this labyrinthine puzzle. And there they uncover a “ghost history” spanning 250 years.
Once these years are removed, new perspectives open up not only on the true history of the Dark Ages, but also on the Trojan War, the founding of Rome, the origins of the Greek alphabet, and the Golden Age of Solomon. The Ages of Darkness is a landmark work that, with scholarly rigor, overturns our established image of the ancient world.
