Transcript Chapter 5: Ancient Greece

Chapter 5: Ancient
Greece
Unit 1: Cultures of the
Mountains and the Sea
World History Core
Theme
 Cultural

Interaction:
The roots of Greek culture are based on
interaction of Mycenaean, Minoan, and Dorian
cultures
Minoans
Mycenaean
Used ships to trade  Came from Indogoods
European migrates
Had a writing
 Borrowed from
system (Phoenicians) Minoan culture

Dorian
Spoke a kind of
Greek
 Not as advanced
 No writing system

Why is it important now?
 The
seeds of much of western cultural
heritage were planted during this time
period.
TERMS
 Mycenaean
 Trojan
 Dorian
 Homer
 Epic
 Myth
War
Setting the Stage
 Greece

was a collection of separate areas
Didn’t unite because of geographical
conditions
 3000
BC Minoans developed on Crete
 Mainland Greece: people from Black Sea
and Anatolia migrated and settled that
area
Geography Shapes Greek Life
 Mountainous
peninsula in Mediterranean
Sea
 2000 islands in Aegean and Ionian Sea
 Land on eastern edge of Aegean were part
of Greece
Geography Shapes Greek Life
The Sea
 Provided important trade routes

IMPORTANT: Greeks lacked natural
resources such as timber, metal,
crops/agriculture
Geography Shapes Greek Life
The Land
 Mountains cover ¾ of Greece


Run from SW to SE along Balkan Peninsula
Divided land (HUGE IMPACT ON POLITICAL LIFE)
• Never united under one government=but people were
extremely loyal to their cities


Land difficult to travel
¼ of Greece is fertile valleys (broken up)

Lack fresh water for irrigation
Geography Shapes Greek Life
The Climate
 Varied climate

48* in winter/80* in summer
 Outdoor

way of life
Leisure time spent outside
• Athletics, markets, festivals, worship, etc.
Mycenaean Civilization Develops
 Migrated
from SW Asia
 Settled in Mycenae



Southern Greece
Steep, rocky, ridge
20ft. protective wall
 Strong
Warrior-King
Mycenaean Civilization Develops
Contact with Minoans
 Trade or war?
 Saw value of seaborne trade
 Sailed through Mediterranean Sea
stopping at Anatolia, Syria, Crete, Egypt,
and Italy
 Adopted writing system and decorated
vases
 Also: religion, art, politics, and literature
Mycenaean Civilization Develops
The Trojan War
 1200 BC Mycenaean’s fought a 12 year war with
Troy (an independent trading city in Anatolia)
 Back story:


Trojan Prince Paris runs off with Spartan King
Menelaus wife Helen
Menelaus gets help from brother Mycenaean King
Agamemnon to fight the Trojans
• Calls on Achilles, the great warrior, to aid in this venture

The Greeks finally enter the city by leaving a giant
wooden horse as a gift to the city and burns it to the
ground
Mycenaean Civilization Develops
The Trojan War continued…
 Fact of Fiction?


1870s excavations by German archaeologist Heinrich
Schliemann found evidence of real city and events
Homer.


Blind man
Greatest story teller between 750-700BC
• Through Homer’s stories people learned about early Greek
history


The Iliad: Trojan War
The Odyssey: Journey home of Odysseus after Trojan
War
The Greek Culture Declines
 1200
BC Mycenaean civilization collapses
 New group developed called Dorians


No as developed
Greece lost language and art
 Greeks

Create Myths:
Stories about Gods and Goddesses
• Used to understand the mysteries of nature and
human passion