1. Ancient Greece Chapter 5 Sec. 1

2. Aegean Civilizations
Sir Arthur Evans from Great Britain dug up the island of Crete and found the remains of early Greeks known as the Minoans

3. MINOANS 2500 B.C. – 1400 B.C. Lived on island of Crete
Capital and major city was Knossos
Most all Minoans and King Minos lived there
Women & men played sports, danced and were very artistic (murals)
Polytheistic
Chief Deity: Mother Earth who caused the birth of all living things

4. MINOANS B.C. – 1400 B.C.
Earned their living and fed their people through sea trade
At the peak of their power they owned the Mediterranean Sea
Decline theory’s:
City was demolished by a gigantic tidal wave!
Mycenaean's succeeded in an invasion

5. Mycenaean's 2450 B.C. – 1100 B.C. Lived on Peloponnesus
Set up kingdoms on hilltops and built large fortresses where many people lived and worked the land
Mycenae – capital – main place for government, trade and tax collection
Adopted Minoan beliefs and customs since they traded closely with them

6. Mycenaean's 2450 B.C. – 1100 B.C.
May have conquered the Minoans but it is still theory
Mycenaean's were conquered by the Dorian's from the north who came down with iron weapons and wiped out the city and the people

7. Dorian's 1100 B.C. – 800 B.C. Period known as the “Dark Age”
Dorian's stopped all trade, crafts, art, writing and poverty increased
300 years of silence?!?!
Bards – “singing story tellers” – kept Mycenaean and Minoan history alive and passed it on for generations

8. Iliad and the Odyssey
Homer – a blind poet told the two epic stories about the Trojan War
Trojan War was fought between the Mycenaean's and the trade city of Troy in Asia Minor
In 1870 Heinrich Schliemann found the city of Troy, thus making the stories not totally myths

9. The Iliad
A Troy prince fell in love with a Mycenaean king’s daughter, Helen and took her back to Troy (the face that launched a thousand ships)
The Mycenaean king tried to get his daughter back by attacking the city of Troy, but could not capture the city
Tricked the Trojans by making a giant wooden Trojan horse and put it outside the front gates
The wooden horse was filled with Mycenaean soldiers who came out and attacked once the Trojans brought the wooden horse in

10. The Odyssey
Described the homeward journey of the Mycenaean king, Odysseus, back to Greece
Took ten years to return
Was visited by gods and goddesses
Greeks refer to any long, adventure-filled journey as an odyssey

11. Greek Deities Deity- a god or goddess
Greeks were the first to believe that humans weren't just put on earth to obey the gods
This gave them self confidence
Deities were human looking and acted like humans in everyway BUT, had special powers