Ancient Greece Geography and Religion

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Ancient GreeceGeography and Religion
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Geography

• Where is Greece?
• Peninsula in Mediterranean region of Eastern
  Europe
• Consists of Mainland Greece and 1400 islands in
  Aegean and Ionian Seas

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The Landscape of Greece

• Mountains cover ¾ of Greece.
• Divides land into regions plays strong role in
  development of Greek political life.
• Mountainous terrain helped and hurt the
  development of city-states.
• What is a city-state?
• City-states are small communities formed instead
  of one united Greece.

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How Did They Survive?

• Only 20 of land was arable.
• What does arable mean? Arable land that can be
  or is cultivated.
• Lack irrigation Greece couldnt support large
  population.
• Forced Greeks to trade w/ neighbors and search
  for colonization opportunities.
• Leads to spread of Hellenic culture across
  Mediterranean.

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Lets Get Us Some Land!

• B/C of invasion, Greeks forced across the seas.
  
• Set up colonies throughout region.
• What is a colony?
• Colony any people or territory separated from
  but subject to a ruling power.
• Some Greek colonies included
• Crete, Cyprus, Macedonia, Libya, Italy

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es/Greek-Colonies-500BC-R.jpg
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Climate
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_map.jpg

• Climate
• Affected development of Greek culture
• Climate ranges from 48- 80 degrees.
• Climate supported various outdoor activities that
  formed Ancient Greek society
• Public forums, Greek dramas, Olympics

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Religion and Mythology

• Greeks created myths about gods and goddesses to
  explain creation, where they came from, etc.
• To honor gods and goddesses, many temples were
  built during Golden Age of Greece.
• EX Parthenon built for Athena.

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The Parthenon
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Religion and Mythology

• Priests and priestesses served as oracles.
• What is an oracle?
• -any person or thing serving as an agency of
  divine communication.
• The most famous oracle was oracle at Delphi.

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More Fun Stuff

• The Olympics 1. Began as way of honoring
  Gods/Goddesses.
• 2. Games held every 4 years in honor of Zeus in
  Olympia.
• 3. Events included hippodrome, javelin,
  discuss, wrestling, boxing, pentathlon
• Theatre
• 1. Greek theatre developed from religious
  festivals to honor Dionysus.
• 2. Grew from one man plays to very complex
  tragedies.