Ancient Greece, ch. 1: “Early Greece and the Bronze Age”

 

  1. What made the Greeks take to the sea and mingle with other civilizations?
  2. How predictable was farming in ancient Greece?
  3. What role did land-ownership play for Greek citizens throughout Greek history?
  4. Define mythoi and identify the primary legend of the Greek past.  Is it a mythos? 
  5. What time elapsed between the Iliad and the Odyssey and the events they tell?
  6. Do the poems probably reflect the earlier period or the time of the poet, according to your book?
  7. What is our main source of knowledge of early Greece? 
  8. What makes archaeology a science?
  9. Name some limits of archaeology.
  10. Characterize the social organization and/or economic livelihood of people from:
    1. New Stone Age (6500-3000  BC)
    2. Ancient Near Eastern civilizations of Mesopotamia (ca. 3500 BC)
    3. Greece from 3000-2100 BC –  Early Bronze Age
    4. Greece from 2100-1600 BC – Middle Bronze Age
  11. Give a probable date for the arrival of the first Greek-peakers.  Name them
  12. How did scholars (linguists) historicize these Greek-speakers?  I.e., how did they figure out who they were related to and where they had come from?
  13.  What language then did the pre-Greek inhabitants of Greece speak?  What survives from that language?  From their religion or social structure?
  14. Characterize the religion of the first Greek-speakers.
  15. Define the matriarchy vs. patriarchy hypothesis.
  16. Who excavated Troy and when?  What guide did he use? 
  17. What other famous city did he excavate and why?
  18. Give the dates of the civilization named after that second city.
  19. In your book and then on Ulead in the computer lab find five artifacts of the Minoan civilization and name them.  Find Crete on the map, p. 26.
  20. When did the palace complex arise? 
  21. What is redistributive economy?
  22. Give your impression of life at Knossos, in terms of quality of life.
  23. Define Linear A.  Linear B.  Find these on Ulead or in your book.
  24. What was the class structure at Crete?  How do we know?
  25. Did they have slaves?
  26. Who restored the ruins at Knossos and did he do a good job?
  27. What happened at Thera?  Look at a few frescos on Ulead and one in your book.
  28. Trace the contact between mainland Greece and Crete from 2000-1450 (briefly).   When did the Mycenaeean takeover occur?  What is the evidence?
  29. What overturned Evans’ hypothesis, that (his beloved) Crete dominated the mainland and that Linear B was Minoan?
  30. Who deciphered Linear B and when?
  31. Where else were Linear B tablets found?
  32. Describe the evidence for noble royal families among the Early Mycenaeans (1600-1400). 
  33. Name three material objects found in shaft tombs from that time.
  34. How does Hesiod characterize Greek historical periods in the Myth of the Five Races?  Which period corresponds to his “Age of Heroes” (hand-out.)
  35. What was the function of the megaron in the Mycenaean palace?  Find an illustration in your book.
  36. What refinements did the later Mycenaeans borrow from the Minoans?
  37. Contrast the two civilizations. 
  38. How did the Mycenaeans get so rich?
  39. Who excavated the palace of Nestor?  Where?  Locate it on the map, p. 26.  What discoveries have given us insight into the kingship and the administration of that kingdom?
  40. Describe the class structure at Nestor’s and the tasks of women.  Did the society have slaves?
  41. To what industries do the Linear B tablets attest.
  42. Describe the chief Minoan goddess.  Find a depiction of her.
  43. Discuss bulls in Cretan society (I’ll give you my emergent bull theory).
  44. What names of major Greek divinities appear on the Linear B Tables from Mycenaean Knossos and Pylos?
  45. Can one detect the gods of previous civilizations within Mycenaean Greek religion?
  46. How militaristic were the late Mycenaeans and what is the evidence?
  47. When did chariots first appear in Greece?  For what uses?
  48. How did the Mycenaean civilization end (around 1200)?  How does the terminal date relate to the historical date of the Trojan War?  I.e., what happened first, the fall of Troy or the collapse of the Mycenaean civilization?
  49. Define “Sea People”.
  50. What is the current status of the “Dorian Invasion” theory?
  51. Describe the “system collapse” theory.