Ancient Greece

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Ancient Greece
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Crete
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Crete

• Island of the Minoans
• Strongly stratified system
• Tribute and taxes from pesants
• Luxury imports of Elites
• Not militaristic!!

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Crete cont.

• No fortifications around the towns
• No statues depicting warriors
• Women had high status
• Mother Goddess (good and evil)
• Sea Trading people

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How did they fall?

• Volcano?
• Title wave?
• Mainland Greeks taking over?
• More than likely the latter, (Painting)

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Greek area warfare

• Around 1600 BCE
• New a powerful warrior civ. arose in Greece
• Rich, powerful and warlike elite
• Gold ornaments
• Bronze swords
• Spearheads
• Knives
• Axes/Armor etc.

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Mycenae

• Due to tombs we have evidence of more than 500
  villages
• Mycenae, Tiryns, Athens, Thebes, Gla, and Pylos
• Encompassed the whole Greek mainland, parts of
  Asia Minor
• No evidence that the city Mycenae ruled all of
  Greece

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Mycenae
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Mycenaean Civilization

• Quickly adaptive
• Strong fortifications
• Local Kings organized and collected taxes and
  tributes
• Local towns, rural districts
• Produced Bronze, woolen cloth, and agriculture

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Mycenaean Civilization

• Language
• Adapted Language from Minoans
• Linear A --gt Linear B
• Greek dialect
• Used to keep records

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Decline

• Did not last long
• 1200 BCE many cities were sacked
• 400 years
• Civilization disappeared
• Centralized govt, literacy, urban life.

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Reasons for Decline

• Pyramid of lordship
• Small military elite
• Overpopulation
• Fragile agrarian base
• Overspecialization in crops
• Internal warfare

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New people inhabit Greece

• Dorians
• Dark Ages
• Primitive culture and society
• Greeks migrated to Asia Minor
• Mediterranean area was Greek speaking

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• Greece is not a geographical area, but a cultural
  identity!!

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Dark Ages

• Architecture,
• urban traditions,
• writing
• All disappeared
• C. 1100- 700 BCE
• Two Epic Poems written down are some of only
  evidence from Dark Ages

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Homer

• Illiad and Odyssey
• C. 750 BCE
• Oral story, eventually written down
• Oral bards (performers)

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Homer cont.

• Plays were representative of Dark Age society
• Hero Odysseus --gt military Chieftain
• Local King had authority, but nobility were
  trying to take place
• Instability!

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They See the Light

• Inherited memories of organized urban
  civilization
• Gave the inhabitants of Mediterranean world
  common myths, values, and identity