Europe's 'Dark Ages'


   We won't load a lot of historical references on you, we'll
   just agree they exist - hence the phrase "Dark Ages"

   Carl Sagan makes a revealing point - maybe inintentionally -
   in his great (penultimate) book "Cosmos"

   He points out that on July 4, in 1054 CE a great supernova burst
   upon our skies. It was so energetic that for two or three months
   people on Earth could read at night by its light.

   It was reported by the Chinese, by the Anasazi (ancestors of the
   Hopi of New Mexico) and across the Muslim world. So we know that 
   scientists and scholars of three-quarters of the world were in 
   good shape for observational ability.

   But this highly visible and significant event is not reported
   by _any_ European source. Why ?

   see Carl Sagan
   http://www.perceptions.couk.com/subindex.html#sagan

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   Much earlier - around 1150 BCE - the ancient (pre-Greek) 
   Mycenean civilization collapsed in a welter of burned palaces.
   Mystery still surrounds the event though some speculate that 
   a volcanic eruption destroyed their economy and confidence.

   Hoever there are some who think there was an even more dramatic
   reason - see http://www.perceptions.couk.com/westward.html#treering      

   Hundreds of years elapsed before some Greek thinkers, the 
   Ionians, then Solon et al, re-emerged from total ignorance
   and loss of cultural memory. In Solon's case he was surprised
   when Egyptian archivists told him the reason for the Greek
   "barbarism".

   See http://www.perceptions.couk.com/westward.html#told 
             
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   Maybe for different reasons - here's a quote on Persia (Iran)
   from "Troyer's Preliminary Discourse to the Debistan" vol I
   1843 CE

   "From the death of Alexander (323 BCE) to the reign of Ardeshir
    Babegan (Artaxerxes), the founder of the Sassannian dynasty
    (200 CE), a period of more than five centuries, is almost a
    blank in the Persian history"


   Hold on that one - got no other sources or any compelling 
   physical causes to offer just yet - interesting all the same
   R.JD     

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