Bellwork

1
Bellwork

• Write down anything you know about any of the
  following
• Homer
• Trojan War
• Myceneans
• Minotaur
• Greek Gods
• The Odyssey
• The Iliad

2
World History

• Ancient Greece p. 1
• Foundings of Greece

3
Objectives

• Describe the geography of Greece
• Explain how the Minoans and Mycenaean's helped
  form what would become Ancient Greece
• Identify the affects of Dorian rule on Mycenaean
  culture
• Categorize and identify the different groups of
  Greek gods in their mythology

4
Minoans

• In 2000 B.C., the Minoans created an elegant
  civilization on the Greek island of Crete.

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Minoans

• Evidence shows that the Minoans arrived on the
  island before 7000 B.C., and then would have
  begun small farming communities around that time.
• Through these small communities formed small
  towns and cultural centers on the island.
• Around 2700 B.C., the Minoans would have
  experienced a Bronze Age of growth until around
  1400 B.C.

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Indo-Europeans

• At the same time, Indo-Europeans (mentioned in
  India-- Aryans) were migrating towards the
  places along the Black Sea and Anatolia.
• The Indo-Europeans would soon settle in mainland
  Greece and seaborn commercial networks would
  spread across the Mediterranean.

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Geography

• Ancient Greece is a mountainous peninsula jutting
  out into the Mediterranean sea. It includes
  approximately 1,400 islands.

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Effects of Geography

• The sea shaped Greek life very heavily.
• Most Greek settlements were close to the sea,
  being no farther than 85 miles from the sea
  border.
• The sea helped the Greeks trade amongst one
  another.
• The sea, which also connected to other bodies of
  water, also allowed the Greeks to meet other
  cultures.

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The Land

• Despite the abundance of water, Greece has very
  few useful natural resources and would have to
  heavily rely on trade.
• Mountains covered approximately ¾ths of Greece.

Only a small percentage of the land could be used
for farming.
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Mountains

• Mountains divided the land into several different
  regions.
• These mountains would make it very difficult to
  form a unified government.
• Instead Greece would develop small, independent
  communities.
• As well, the poor land also made land-based
  transportation difficult.

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Effects of Geography

• The small amount of usable land, and the
  difficulty farming made it so that the Greek
  population would never be more than a few million
  people.
• Greek people did, however, eat staple foods such
  as fish, grains, grapes, cheese, various meats,
  and olives.

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The Climate

• On average, Greece experiences 48 degrees F in
  the winter and 80 degrees F in the summer.
• Such good weather supported outdoor life of the
  Greeks and allowed them to spend much leisure
  time in outdoor public events.
• These events included discussing public issues,
  news, and handling civic life.

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Mycenaean Civilization

• The Indo-Europeans who migrated to Greece would
  later be known as the Myceneans. The name comes
  from their home city, Mycenae.

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Mycenae
As you can see, Mycenae was on the lower part of
the Greek isles and only a short distance from
the island of Crete
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Mycenaean Civilization

• Many warrior-kings would lead Mycenae, which was
  protected by a large wall, making it virtually
  impossible to attack.
• Around Mycenae existed many other smaller
  communities and towns, such as Tirynus and
  Athens. These kings would dominate Greece from
  1600-1200 B.C.

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Mycenaean Culture

• The Mycenaean's lived a life of splendor, behind
  their walls.
• Mycenaean's had lavish dining halls and it was
  not uncommon for kings to be buried with gold.
• Because Mycenaean culture existed primarily
  during the Bronze Age (2000-1100 B.C.) the use of
  bronze was not uncommon for the warrior kings and
  their soldiers
• However, the common people used stone and wood
  for agriculture.

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Assimilation of Minoan Culture

• The warrior-kings invaded the Minoans in around
  1400 B.C.
• The Mycenaean's, although conquerors, preserved
  the Minoan culture by integrating it into their
  own lives.

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Assimilation of Minoan Culture

• For example, the Mycenaeans began to value
  seaborne trade, adapted the Minoan writing system
  into Greek, and even decorated their vases with
  Minoan designs.
• As well, the Minoan legacy would also continue to
  exist through legends the Greeks would share.

The Minotaur from the island of Crete
19
Question What is the similarity between these
two pictures? If youre not sure, take a guess.
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The Trojan War

• About 1200 B.C., the Mycenaean kings fought a 10
  year battle against Troy, an independent trading
  city in Anatolia (modern day Turkey).
• According to legend, the battle was fought over
  Helen- the wife of a Greek King- who was
  kidnapped by a young Trojan.

Troy
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Trojan War (cont.)

• For the most part, historians believed the Trojan
  War was a fictional story.
• However, in 1870, the remains of nine layers of
  city life- including the Trojan Wall- were found
  in Turkey. Based on its distance from the sea
  and the dating of the walls themselves, it was
  decided that Troy did actually exist.

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Outcome of the Trojan War

• In the end, the Greeks defeated the Trojans using
  the infamous Trojan horse, which the Trojans
  believed to be a gift from the gods.

• The war would most likely have been one of the
  last military campaigns of the Mycenaean's.

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Fall of the Mycenaean's

• Not long after the Trojan War, Mycenaean
  civilization collapsed. Around 1200 B.C., sea
  raiders attacked and burned palace after palace.

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Dorians

• According to belief, the new group of people, the
  Dorians, moved into the war-torn countryside of
  Greece.
• The Dorians spoke a dialect of Greek and were
  very distant relatives of the Bronze-Age Greeks.

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Loss of Culture

• The Dorians were much less advanced than the
  Mycenaean Greeks. The centralized economy
  collapsed and trade came to a standstill.
• During this time, it also seems that Greeks lost
  the ability to write, as no written records exist
  between 1150-750 B.C.
• Without the records, little is known about the
  period of decline.

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Effects on Greek Culture

• Without writing, the Greeks resorted to orally
  storytelling their tradition.
• A famous storyteller, Homer, composed various
  epics (stories about heroic deeds) between
  750-700 B.C.
• The Trojan War would be the backdrop to two of
  his epic poems the Iliad and The Odyssey.

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The Iliad

• The Iliad was a story about two primary heroes
  the Greek hero, Achilles, and the courageous and
  noble Hector of Troy.
• The story played to the Greek ideal of virtue and
  excellence- ideals that the Greeks would hope to
  display on the battlefield, in combat, or in
  athletic contests

Helen of Troy
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The Odyssey

• The Odyssey, which is considered a sequel to The
  Iliad, concerns the adventures of Odysseus after
  the Trojan War.
• It concerns his 10 year journey home and the
  strange and mysterious lands he faces.

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Greek Myths

• The Greeks also developed a rich set of myths-
  traditional stories, about their Gods and the
  world around them.
• In these myths, the Greeks were attempting to
  better learn about the mysteries of nature- such
  as the seasons- and the power of human passions.
• The Greeks had many gods to explain the many
  different events around them.

Helios- Greek God of the Sun
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Greek Gods

• The Greeks applied human emotions to their gods,
  such as happiness, envy, and hate and their Gods
  would even go as far as to compete for power.
• The Gods were believed to have lived on Mt.
  Olympus, and the ruler of those Gods was Zeus.

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Greek Gods

• The Greeks developed extremely complex
  relationships between the Gods, which often
  depended on the story or situation in which they
  were written.
• The gods were broken down into three general
  groups Primordial Gods, the Olympians, and the
  Titans.
• Primordial Gods- The first Gods to exist
• The Titans- the children of the Primordial Gods
• The Olympians- the Gods who overthrew the Titans
  for power

Greek God Family Tree
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Growth of Greece

• Despite the fall of Greece under the Dorians,
  Greece would soon experience a period of rebirth,
  under which new city-states would form and begin
  to define their culture.

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Review the Objectives

• Describe the geography of Greece
• Explain how the Minoans and Mycenaean's helped
  form what would become Ancient Greece
• Identify the affects of Dorian rule on Mycenaean
  culture
• Categorize and identify the different groups of
  Greek gods in their mythology
• Primordial Gods
• Titans
• Olympians

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Questions?

• If you have any questions, please ask now.

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Next Lesson

• In the next lesson, we will be discussing the
  growth of Greek city-states and the changing
  political structures of Greece.

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Review

1. What was the effect of geography on how Greeks
   traded?
2. Why were the ancient Greeks splintered (i.e., had
   no central government)?
3. What were the three different types of Greek
   gods?
4. How was Minoan culture preserved by the
   Mycenaean's?
5. How did the Mediterranean Sea affect Greek life?
   What did they use the sea for?
6. Why do Greeks have so many Gods and spirits? What
   would the purpose have been?
7. The Dorians caused the Greeks to stop writing for
   almost 400 years. In the Ancient China lesson, we
   discussed the importance of a single writing
   system and the effect of paper on Chinese
   civilization. How would the loss of writing
   contribute to setbacks in Greek culture and
   growth?
8. What was the effect of limited land on the
   population of the Greeks?