Influences of Early Civilizations on Ancient Greek Culture

Who Influenced Greece? Western Civilization Monday, September 24, 2012

Agenda • Learning Target: Students will understand how early civilizations influenced Ancient Greek culture • Joke of the Day • Discuss Mycenaean WebQuest • Minoans, Mycenaeans, and Dorians • Homework

Minoans • As with Egyptians, the Minoans were organized into a complex caste system: Nobles, Merchants, Artisans, Bureaucrats, and Laborers • Life for Minoans was unusually peaceful…very few weapons found at archeological sites

Minoans • A complete plumbing and drainage system • Multi-level structure with complex layout of rooms and passageways • Below ground storage of grains, oils, and wines • No walls protecting Minos palace

Minoans • Pictorial forms gave way to: • Linear A script from 1800 BC to about 1400 BC. Undecipherable even to this day. • Linear B from 1400 to decline in 1100. Was an early form of Greek and not used for political, social, and philosophical aspects of life; only commercial transactions

Minoans • Minoan trade dominated eastern Mediterranean until about 1380 BC • Something happened, maybe a volcanic eruption or other natural disaster • Culture was further weakened by Mycenaean attacks and influences between 1400 and 1100 BC

Minoans • Crete is traditionally the place where Zeus was born • Minoans worshipped Zeus, and in their culture, he eventually died • Later, Greeks were incensed that Minoans believed that Zeus died. • Though Greece eventually dominated the area, Minoan beliefs largely influenced Greek thinking, language, social organization and economic pursuits

Mycenaeans • The civilization named by archeologists after the fortress city, Mycenae, in the lower rugged region of the Greek peninsula, Peloponnesus • Mycenaeans were war-like and may have come from Russia or parts of Mesopotamia. Arrived about 1900 BC and by 1500 ruled entire peninsula

Mycenaeans • Ruins of Mycenaean palaces reveals them to be mole-like structures with massive double walls and narrow escape passages • Most well know Mycenaean monument is the massive Lion Gate constructed from four massive hewn stones (ashlars) • Bronze lion’s heads now gone, maybe stolen. Design likely to remind citizens who ruled and to intimidate visitors. • Cyclopean Walls

Mycenaeans • Religion: • Seems to have been a mixture of Minoan influences and local deities. There were two types of deities… • Some were predecessors of Olympian gods and goddesses worshipped by later Greeks and bore the same names • Others were nature divinities and spirits.

Mycenaeans • It was Mycenaeans who tried to topple Troy. The long siege weakened the civilization and inspired Homer’s later Iliad and Odyssey • It was the Mycenaeans who gave the Greeks many of their ideals and inspired the age of heroes established by Homer

Dorians • An ethnic group from land north of modern-day Greece (Macedonia) • Distinct dialect • Barbaric – only technological advancement was an iron slashing sword • Swept south through Greece, wiping out Mycenaean as well as other, smaller city-states • Plunged the Aegean region into a “dark-ages”

And then… • After collapse of Mycenaean civilization, a 300 year period called Dark Ages • Life becomes more agrarian • Transitional time—changes happening behind the scenes • Power shifting from kings to families • Bronze gives way to iron • Mycenaeans flee to Asia Minor. Early Greeks establish life around Aegean and Mediterranean Seas

What next? • Archaic Greek Age (800-479 BCE) • After the Dark Ages, the Greeks emerged with a common language, heroic stories, myths, religious practices and trading interests. • They claimed a common mythical parent, Hellen, who fathered three sons, the ancestors of the three major Greek tribes: • Ionians, Aeolians, and Dorians.

Homework • Homer’s Iliad • Read the summary of the epic poem • Read “Book 22: The Death of Hector”

Influences of Early Civilizations on Ancient Greek Culture