Transcript Greek Beginnings

What events define your culture?
Geography of Greece
 Greece has a number of
islands, some out to sea
others near the mainland.
 Greece is also a Peninsula,
with no part far from the sea.
 Mountains dominate the
land.
 There are small patches of
farmland, but only one fifth
of the land is good for
growing crops.
Geography of Greece
 Greeks became traders and
sailors, founding colonies in
Anatolia (modern Turkey).
 EFFECT: Always cut off by
water or mountains, each city
and community thought of
itself as its own country.
 They each developed their
own customs and beliefs,
believing their way was best.
 Ready to go to war to protect
themselves and their ideas,
they fought each other yet
shared a common heritage,
language, and gods.
Minoans
 The first Greek
civilizations were most
likely on an island near
and including Crete in
the Mediterranean.
 Called Minoans
 Famous murals show
bull vaulting at festival
celebrating bulls.
Minoans
 Crete was home to
legendary King Midas and
the Minotaur.
 A palace has been found
there with a round throne
room called a Megaron.
 Murals and a labyrinth
were uncovered with a
mysterious burial of a man
with a bull’s head.
Trojan War
 Most of Early Greek
history was recorded in
myths or poems.
 Homer wrote two epic
(long) poems, The Iliad
and The Odyssey.
 In The Iliad, a young
prince from Troy named
Paris, visited Menelaus
and kidnapped his wife,
Helen, because she was
so beautiful, and took her
to Troy in Anatolia.
Trojan War
 Menelaus and his brother
Agamemnon and other
Greek leaders like
Odysseus, gathered one
thousand ships and
launched a huge army into
Anatolia.
 According to myth, several
battles took place over a
ten-year period.
 Epic heroes, like Achilles,
battled and died. Achilles
was felled by an arrow.
Trojan War
 During the Trojan war,
but recounted in The
Odyssey, the Greeks
finally tricked Trojans
by building a giant
wooden horse and
hiding men inside and
leaving just outside the
gates.
Trojan War
 At night after the
Trojans were drunk and
asleep, they climbed out
of horse and let Greek
army in, slaughtering
the Trojans, sacking the
city, and ending the war.
 Agamemnon, Menelaus,
and Odysseus returned
to Greece to different
fates.
The Odyssey
 Odysseus and his men tried
to return but were led on a
ten-year journey.
 During this time his ship
was drawn toward sirens
singing, yet Odysseus was
lashed to the mast, his men
were turned into pigs by a
witch named Circa, battled
the Cyclops and finally
returned home only to find
that his wife was to meet
new suitors to be her
husband.
The Odyssey
 Odysseus’ son,
Telemachus, recognized
his father and called for a
contest that only Odysseus
could win.
 Odysseus shot arrows
through axe heads and
then killed the suitors.
 He convinced his wife,
Penelope, that he had
returned by revealing a
secret of a live tree
growing in their bedroom.
Troy’s legacy
 German Archaeologist
named Heinrich
Schleiman began
looking for clues in
Anatolia(Turkey) left in
the epic poems.
 He found actual place of
waterfall and then began
looking for the city of
Troy.
Troy’s legacy
 Many believed that Troy
was merely a mythical
place.
 In the 1870’s, Schleiman
began to excavate a city,
finding the vault of a
king.
 Troy actually existed
and was the size and has
water supply just as the
poem describes.
Troy’s legacy
The question of
which “Troy” and
which “Trojan” war
remain today . . .
Dark Ages
 After Troy, the Greek
civilization collapsed and
poverty was everywhere.
 People no longer went outside
Greece to trade, and most
writing disappeared, so oral
tradition was the only record.
 1100B.C.- 750B.C. was called the
Dark Ages of ancient Greece.
Dark Ages
 The Greeks began to
plant fields with olive
groves around for
protection and built cities
on high, defendable
places called an acropolis,
meaning high city.
 New, independent
city-states began to
emerge.