The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization

3/21:

We watched part of what we watched Friday. Here is what we watcher (same thing as Friday):

• Pericles  wanted all the money to make Athens the best city ever
• wanted a new temple for the goddess, Athena called the Parthenon 
• building complete in 15 years 
• one of the most glorious symbol of Athens empire
• 40 foot statue of Athena when you walked in 
• gold, jewels all over it
• a billion dollar work in modern day money 
• frieze- most famous, a craving around the Parthenon 
• 2 inches thick around; where regular people- the farmers, people of the war
• Aspasia is someone Pericles  was with even though he was married 
• Pericles treated Aspasia as an equal 
• world first theater- where entertainment came from 
• it was very loud- they would boo and drive the actors off the stage if they didn't like the play
• They cried if they liked it 
• Greeks invented drama- tragedies  and comedy
• Had a play twice a year

Here is what we watched (this is new):

• Pericles wanted glory, but he would bring death and the loss of their empire
• Pericles wants to go to war with their oldest enemy, Sparta
• Sparta maxed Athens in power 
• Sparta were the only Greek country to max them in power
• Pericles knew it wasn't going to be an easy war
• He convinced them to leave their homes and go to Piraeus, their port
• They will use the sea and isolate them from their supplies till they give up 

The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization

3/18
We are finishing the movie The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization. Here are the notes I took:

• Darius is the great Persian king
• Themistocles is an example of democracy 
• Themistocles learned his skills at the agora 
• Thought Persians were still a danger and they were going to harder to beat 
• Triremp state of the art ancient ship 
• an 170 oars men in 3 level
• narrow, fast ship; they were very expensive
• wouldn't be able to get it if they didn't find sliver 
• Themistocles said that they should save the money to buy ships
• 486 B.C. Darius died
• Xeres, his son,  took his spot
• Xeres began to gather his army 
• Rumors began to leak at to Athens
• over 2,000 men and they were ready to march
• Terror gripped Athens
• They turned to their 
• The oracle of Delphi- at center of Greece which was considered center of the world; the naval stone of the the world 
• It is build around a mountain with a spring
• asked: what they could do to save themselves? 
• answer: run 
• Themistocles sent them back to the oracle
• asked same thing 
• answer: the wooden wall will not fail 
• Themistocles ordered the evacuation of Athens 
• ordered the men to met at Salamis 
• Xeres entered the city; the people had already abandoned it
• They burned the city
• Persians gathered a force 4 times bigger than Athens 
• Themistocles wants to fight at the Straits of Salamis 
• It's a narrow pathway in between Athens and Salamis
• Athenians spent the night rowing 
• Went into battle on the sea
• Xeres watched the battle on the shore
• The Persians lost 200 ships 
• The Greeks won once again 
• They had defeated the greatest empire of the day 
• After the battle it was a new dawn for Athens
• delian league- Athens' empire 
• Athens was the big trading place
• democracy helped them a lot 
• Every year they banished one person
• they would write a name on a vase and place it in a pot
• the person's name who came up most was to be banished 
• Themistocles felt he was being under attack
• Themistocles was banished 
• he wandered from state to state and died in Persia
• Greeks were looking for a leader 
• Pericles knew what Athens wanted because he was born into a family like everyone else
• Pericles  wanted all the money to make Athens the best city ever
• wanted a new temple for the goddess, Athena called the Parthenon 
• building complete in 15 years 
• one of the most glorious symbol of Athens empire
• 40 foot statue of Athena when you walked in 
• gold, jewels all over it
• a billion dollar work in modern day money 
• frieze- most famous, a craving around the Parthenon 
• 2 inches thick around; where regular people- the farmers, people of the war
• Aspasia is someone Pericles  was with even though he was married 
• Pericles treated Aspasia as an equal 
• world first theater- where entertainment came from 
• it was very loud- they would boo and drive the actors off the stage if they didn't like the play
• They cried if they liked it 
• Greeks invented drama- tragedies  and comedy 
• Had a play twice a year

Ancient Greece

Here are the notes we took today in class on Ancient Greece: 


Location:

• Next to Italy and what is now Turkey
• Egypt is below it
• Sparta barely connected

Geography:

• Mountainous peninsula
• Mountains cover 3/4
• Approximately 1,400 islands in the Aegean and Ionian Seas
• Location shaped its culture
• Skilled sailors
• Poor natural resources
• Difficult to unite the ancient Greeks because of the terrain; developed small, independent communities
• Approximately 20% suitable for farming
• Fertile valleys cover 1/4 of peninsula
• Because of geography the Greek diet consists of grains, grapes (wine), olives (olive oil, soap)
• All plants are healthy; in demand when trading
• Lack of resources most likely led to Greek colonization
• temperatures range from 48° on the winter to 80° in the summer 

Mycenaeans:

• Began around 2000 B.C.
• Mycenae is located on a rocky ridge and protected by a 20 ft. thick wall
• Mycenaean kings dominated Greece from 1600-1200 B.C.
• Controlled trade in the region
• 1400 B.C. Mycenaeans invaded Crete and absorbed Minoan culture and language 

Culture in Decline:

• Around 1200 B.C. sea people began to invade Mycenae and burnt palace after palace
• The Dorians moved into the war-torn region
• Far less advanced
• Economy collapsed
• Writing disappeared for 400 years

Homer and Myths:

• Only stories were kept and passed on by word of mouth
• Homer lived at the end of the "Greek Dark Ages"
• Recorded stories of the Trojan War in The Iliad and The Odyssey (written 750-700 B.C.)
• Trojan war was probably one of the last conquests of the Mycenaeans 

Greek Concepts:

• Arete
• virtue and excellence
• Epics
• narrative poems celebrating heroic deeds
• Myths were created to explain creation 
• Zeus: leader of the gods 
• Hera: Zeus' wife 
• Athena: goddess of wisdom

The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization

From 3/11 revised on 3/17.
These are the notes continued from yesterday:

• Isagrious took over after Hippias
• The people of Athens rose up in Revolution
• Know one had ever done this before 
• It was 508 B.C.
• Had no idea what to do now so they turned to Cleisthenes
• Cleisthenes had to think of a knew form of government
• they craved a place to meet out of rock called the agora
• When they had questions they would pick a rock to answer: white rock- yes; black rock- no 
• They placed the rock in a vase
• Anybody who was a man and wasn't a slave had a say in the government
• They are going to fight against 
• 490 B.C., Pheidippides ran from Athens to Sparta for help  
• His quest wasn't for glory 
• Athens was about to be conquered by Persians 
• Being conquered by the Persians would destroy their way of living 
• Athenians were out numbered by a lot 
• Hoplites had some experience with fighting 
• They fought with everything they had
• Pheidippides ran 140 miles in 2 days 
• Help was refused though 
• The Athens won 
• The battle was called the battle of Marathon 
• They returned to their city to celebrate 
• They returned to their city to celebrate, but the war with Persia had just began 

The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization

From 3/11 revised on 3/16
Today in class we are watching a movie about the Greeks. Here is what I learned

•      They changed the world
•      508 B.C: people turned on their rulers
•           Athens: people turned on their rulers, they are demanding freedom
•      Cleisthenes: an a Athenian noble; an aristocrat 
•      Cleisthenes was born to be a ruler
•           He saw that they should have freedom
•      He set them on the path to empire
•      He was born in 570 B.C. and lived in Athens 
•      Athens was not big it was very small
•      Seemed impossible that Greece would rule an empire
•      Town was built around an Acropolis 
•      Life was tough 
•      They lived under the rule of aristocrats
•           They had no part or share in anything
•      Greece didn't look like a place to grow a civilizations
•      Divided into nations called city-states
•      Athens wasn't the most powerful
•      One city-state had military power
•      Sparta was raised to be soldiers at birth
•      They were raised in field, separated by their family, started at age 6-7
•      Cloaks died red to symbolize blood
•      Sparta conquered everything around them
•      One thing that inspired Greeks is their stories
•      2 most famous storied are still preserved: Iliad and The Odyssey 
•      Poems called epics      Images of heros are all over Greek art
•      Cleisthenes was raised to become a real life hero and to be like the heros in the stories 
•      To seize control over a country- Tyrant
•      Pisistratus rode into town with a woman next to him who said she was a Greek goddess
•      Turned to Athenians for help to be ruler     
•      Pisistratus was Cleisthenes brother-in-law
•      Pisistratus reduced taxes and introduced loans to allow people to build up their farms 
•      Because of this move their were more vines and olives
•      They produced the best olives in the Greek world     Eastern Medertirain was greatest market place in the ancient world
•      Everyone was willing to trade for Athenian oil; wealth and prosperity was on the rise
•      Greatest art: the vase 
•      Inside of the pot was more important than the pot itself
•      Today it is beautiful, but back then it was barely thought of
•      Pisistratus died 527 B.C. and buried in the Athenian graveyard
•      His son, Hippias, took over
•      Hippias ruled as his father at first, but then he changed
•      Hippias' brother was murdered 
•      He executed the murdered and tortured one of their wives
•      He ordered numerous executions in revenge for his brother
•      Cleisthenes wanted to over throw Hippias
•      Hippias was captured and banished from Athens forever

Greece

Today in class we are talking about Greece. This what we talked about and more:

Cyrus the Great:
Jump started the Persian empire
He found the first world empire

The Battle of Marathon:
Greeks outnumbered, against a better army, away from their homeland
 Greeks won
 They had a better strategy

Bridge of Hellespont:

Xerxes built a bridge which was destroyed by a storm so he had had the sea whipped to punish the Gods.

His bridge was ships tied together with wood over top that was a mile long instead of rowing in boats.

Smart so he could still keep the horses.

Leonidas:

Went through Sparta trying which was hard work.

Hero-king of Sparta

Peloponnese:

Almost an island by a little bit connected to Greece.

This is where Spartans lived.

Herodotus:

A reporter

A Greek historian

First person to organized this

Some of the stories Herodotus wrote were not completely true he told the people "He only wrote what he heard".

Greeks liked stories

He was known as the "Father of History"

He was born in Halicarnassus, Caria. Which is modern day Bodrum, Turkey.

He lived during 484 b.c. through 425 b.c.

 He was the first historian to collect materials systematically, and test for the accuracy and arrange them in well made and detailed.

 He was mostly known for his record of the "inquiry". It was an investigation of the Greco-Persian wars and it included the wealth of geographics and ethnographics (scientific meaning of human nature) information .

He made it a good story but he didn’t tell the truth.

(On a Google Docs power point)

Today's Egypt

Today we are learning about Egypt today. Here is what I learned:

Economy:

• Some ways they are doing well and others they are not
• How there economy works:

• Tourism (who wouldn't want to see the pyramids?)

• Tourism is a big part

• Oil, natural gas, manufacturing
• Sets up a lot of jobs and money
• Government is making the money not the people because the government owns them
• Agriculture- 3% arable land 68% desert
• Cotton, corn, rice, wheat, fava beans
• The old pattern of dealing with the Nile {akhet (inundation), peret (land emerges from the flood), and shomu (water is short} has been changed since the 1970 building of the Aswan High dam
• Control water and where the silt goes to by dams
• the dam controls the flooding of the Nile, and increases the amount of reclaimed land
• Area behind the dam turned into a manmade like and told the people they had to leave their homes because that's where the dam was going to be (in 1970)
• Because of the dam is not as clean and the soil is stuck at the bottom
• Dam is a big part of their economy

Demographics

• 79 million people- biggest population of the Middle Eastern nations, third biggest African country (#1: Nigeria, #2 Ethiopia)
• Cairo: 6.7 million (metro: 19.4 mil)
• NYC: 8.3 million (metro: 19.0 mil)
• People cluster around the Nile
• Official language: Arabic
• English, French, and German are also taught to some
• Religion: around 90% Muslim
• most of the rest are Christian (Coptic)
• There are major conflicts
• Egypt is 12th in religious violence
• 5th worst for religious freedom
• Usually Muslims beat the Christians
• They don't know if the religious violence will get worse or better, since their president resigned
• China's worse than Egypt, but Egypt has a lot of room to improve 

History:

• Many African countries were taken over by British
• 1922- end of protectorate with the United Kingdom

• 1953- Egypt declared a Republic
• Stopped the British from controlling

• 1954-1970-  ruled by Gamal Nasser
• Nationalizes the Suez Canal
• Forms allegiance with Soviet Union
• Cold war was going on and he controlled the Suez Canal and the Soviet Union
• The Canal was very big and important

• 1970-1981- ruled by Anwar Sadat
• Switches allegiance to the Untied States
• Attacked Israel over Sinai Peninsula, but later made peace
• Sadat assassinated in 1981 because he was trying to make peace

• 1981-2011- ruled by Hosni Mubarak
• Kept alliance with United Stated (helped in the Iraq war)
• US liked Mubarak, he was our friend
• We gave them over $2 billion in aid
• Accused of corruption, political persecution, human rights violations
• Driven from office following mass demonstrations last month
• No one knows if we are going to have a friend over in Egypt
• He did a  good job
• but we wonder why didn't he fight back with what he had 

What's Next:

• No one knows
• Army was on the people's side
• police were not
• Egypt currently ruled by military junta
• Government is taking over till elections

• democratic elections scheduled for September 2011

• Some want Mubarak arrested and tried for embezzling from the government
• Some want him hung in public
• Revolution is in the air

• Our friend Sarah & other Egyptians say he may have stolen $50 - 70 BILLION

• other sources say more like $5 billion - still a huge amount
• Revolution is in the air (to varying degrees) throughout the Middle East and northern Africa:
• Tunisia, Yemen, Algeria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria…
•  ... and Libya

• Libya has been ruled by Muammar Gaddafi since 1969
• he is violently opposing Libya's uprising
• He has been around for 42 years
• Ordering jets and air strikes  against other country
• Kind of guy who could gas thousands of people
• He could start a big time war in the middle east 
• He still controls the capital
• All his people love him but all the countries hate him
• Libya may descend into full civil war
• the east is controlled by rebels, but he still holds the capital (Tripoli) - so far

Ancient Egypt

These are the notes continued from yesterday:
Daily Life:

• Scribes kept records, told stories, wrote poetry described anatomy and medical treatments
• They wrote in hieroglyphs and in hieratic
• Soldiers used wooden weapons (bow and arrows, spears) with bronze tips and might ride chariots
• Egypt moved along quickly
• Upper class, known as the "white kilt class"- priests, physicians, engineers
• The bleached their clothes
• Knew they were upper class just walking down the street
• Religious and political leader- pharaohs
• Tell what religious ceremonies to preform what sacrifices to do to keep gods happy 

Pharaohs:

• The political and religious leader of the Egyptian people, holding the titles: 'Lord of the Two Lands' and 'High Priest of Every Temple'

• As 'Lord of the Two Lands' the pharaoh was the ruler of the Upper and Lower Egypt.
• He owned all land, made laws, collected taxes, and defended Egypt against foreigners
• Beard was probably fake and showed you were a pharaoh

• Hatshepsut was a woman who served as pharaoh
• Cleopatra VII also served as pharaoh, but much later (51-30 BC) more on her when we study Greece 

Ancient Egypt

Today in class we are learning about Ancient Egypt. These are the notes I took:
Geography:

• Egyptian life is centered around the Nile River

• Centered physical and spiritual around the Nile River
• It's the river that kept them alive, part of their daily life
• Flows into the Mederitian sea and is next to the Red sea
• Water comes from mountains
• Water for drinking, for irrigating for bathing
• Every July it floods
• It's a good thing if you know it's coming
• Knew flood was coming because they had a calendar
• Among the first people in the world to have a calendar
• Knew what a day was
• Knew the months
• Knew the years

• Every October it leaves behind rich soil
• The delta is a broad, marshy, triangular area of fertile silt
• Managing the river required technological breakthroughs in irrigation

Pyramids:

• Built them a specific angles

• A pyramid is the only shape they could  have done
• Seems impossible that they could have built pyramids
• Most famous pyramid
• The Great Sphinx of Giza:
• Built 2555-2532BC
• Oldest monumental statue in the world
• A recumbent lion with a human's head

• They did a lot of animal bodies and human heads

• Thought that to communicate with gods they had to be part human and part animal

• Most pyramids are still there

Daily Life:

• Pharao
• Government offcials- nobels, priests: government centered around gods
• Soldiers: protected you, highly thought of
• Scribes: more highly thought of, a real skill, wrote down history
• Merchants: gave you milk and grain, thought of more
• Artisans: weavers, made baskets
• Farmers: weren't well thought of but a lot of them to feed people
• Slaves and servants: greatest number of people they had

  

• Slaves/servants- helped wealthy with housework and raising kids
• Framers raised wheat, barley, lentils, onions-  benefitted from irrigation of the Nile
• Artist- craved out statues and reliefs showing military battles and scenes of the afterlife
• Frist people how had an idea of what happens to you after you die
• Money/barter system was used- merchants might accept bags of grain for payment- later, coinage came about
• Merchants made coins and thought out how much things cost
• Scribes kept records, told stories, wrote poetry described anatomy and medical treatments