Cultural Diffusion From Egypt to Greece

Lock and Key – Mesopotamia 2000 BC Everyday Items Where did it come from? Toothbrush – China 1498 Camcorder – Japan - 1982 Buttons – Greece 770 BC Lock and Key – Mesopotamia 2000 BC

Cultural Diffusion Definition: the process by which an idea, invention, or way of behaving is borrowed from a foreign source and adopted by the borrowing people Can be stolen, imitated, purchased, or copied.

Cultural Diffusion Selective Borrowing Do not take ideas and inventions indiscriminately Cultures are very choosy in what features are adopted Only borrow the most concrete and tangible elements and shape it to fit their larger culture

Selective Borrowing McDonald’s Coca-Cola

The Diffusion Process How quickly do others in a culture acquire, learn about, and/or come to use or consume a new idea, behavior, or invention?

The Diffusion Process Three Factors The extent the borrowing causes people to change their ways of thinking and behaving The existence of a media structure that lets people learn about it. The social status of the early adopters

How does the Homework relate to the concept of Cultural Diffusion?

Cultural Diffusion and the Arts When cultural diffusion becomes cultural appropriation (Negative)

The Cultural Diffusion of Egyptian Art into Greek Culture

Discus-thrower (discobolus) Egypt 1- Initial Analysis- Pharoah (status, social organization, the ideal characteristics of a pharoah as discussed in earlier class), Material (everlasting), Stepping forward (leading), Clenched fists (strength), Female (respected role in society), Greece 1- Clear Cultural Diffusion, larger emphasis on the human form, no social status, Fists not as clenched Classical Greece- Large departure, continues focus on physical form (the induvidual), Mathematically impressive (circle), Athletics Discus-thrower (discobolus) Roman copy of a bronze original of the 5th century BC Menkaure and Queen 2490-2472BCE Giza, Egypt Kroisos (Boy), ca. 530 BCE Pre-Classical Greece

GREEK MYTHS Iintroduction and Chapter 1 HOMEWORK GREEK MYTHS Iintroduction and Chapter 1 Egyptians have images of Zeus with a ram's head. Egyptians call Zeus “Amon.” Herodotus 2.55.1 Herodotus (greek historian), makes it abundantly clear