Ancient Greece Midterm Review (AR104)

Location: Cyclades islands

Culture: Cycladic

Period: Early Bronze Age

Material: Marble

Overall identification: statuette of man playing double flute/aulos

Location: Cyclades islands

Culture: Cycladic

Period: Early Bronze Age

Material: Marble

Overall identification: female figure/statuette

Location: Island of Crete

Culture: Minoan

Period: Bronze Age

Restored by Sir Arthur Evans; There was controversy over his over-idealization of the Minoan culture, portraying them as nature lovers who worshipped a mother goddess when that is just speculation.

Overall identification: Palace at Knossos

Location: Palace at Knossos, the island of Crete)

Culture: Minoan
Period: Late Bronze Age

Purpose: ceremonial drinking vessel

Material: composite

Overall identification: rhyton of a bull

Location: Palace at Knossos, island of Crete

Culture: Minoan

Period: Late Bronze Age

Purpose: used in worship/ritual

Material: Faience

Overall identification: Minoan goddess with snakes

Location: palace at Akrotiri, island of Thera/Santorini

Culture: Minoan

Period: Late Bronze Age

Type of Work: fresco

Fate of Thera/Santorini: volcanic eruption

Overall identification: “Spring” fresco

No connection with the fictional Atlantis!

Location: Mycenae
Period: Late Bronze Age
Archeologist: Heinrich Schliemann

Overall Identification: Mycenae Lions Gate

Location: Mycenae

Period: Late Bronze Age

Specific Name: Grave Circle A

Type of Grave: Shaft grave

Location: Mycenae

Period: Late Bronze Age

Specific Name: “Treasury of Atreus” - incorrect name

Type of Grave: Tholos Tomb, Beehive Tomb

Period: Bronze Age

Society: Mycenaean
Identification: Heinrich Schliemann gave it the WRONG NAME of “Mask of Agamemnon”. It’s not him.

Where was this ring found?: Bead found in Grave Circle A, Grave III, Mycenae
What period is it from?: Second half of the 16th century BCE

What is Grave Circle A?:

Why did Heinrich Schliemann believe the finds from Mycenae were connected with Homeric heroes: They found destruction that may have been from the Trojan War and discovered the culture of Early Bronze Age Troy (but is disputed, doesn’t match).

Period: Late Bronze Age

Found At: Vaphio, near Sparta/Laconia on the Greek mainland

Possible Cultures: Minoan, Mycenaean

Overall Identification: Vaphio (or Vapheio) Cups

Cultural Period: Early Iron Age

Artistic period: Geometric period

Type of entity represented: centaur

Material: clay

Artistic period: Geometric period

Repository: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

• Likely connection to the Iliad

• Hirschfeld is the scholar who worked on the piece, not the potter

Artistic period: Late Geometric or Early Orientalizing
Material: Bronze
Identification: ritual object/god

Where found: Greek mainland

Repository: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Style/Period: Archaic

• Hoplites played into battle

• Testable for hoplites

• Testable for chiton, equestrian events’ the
  stephanic/Pythian games

• Found at Delphi

Material: Bronze
When Made: c. 520-500 BCE

Where Made: most likely made in Sparta or environs
Significance of object: example of Greek girl/young woman participating in sports

Repository: British Museum

Location: Delphi

Name of games: Pythian

Testable on the facilities shown on or off picture including:

• where the photographer was positioned: view from top of theatre/edge of racetrack

• race track

• concept of stephanic games in context of a religious and community festival

Location: Olympia
Type and purpose of building: Stadium entrance, building for athletics and training
Term “stephanic games”:

Location: Palace at Knossos, island of Crete

Culture: Minoan

Type of Work: Fresco

INCORPORATED INTO A TEXT QUESTION

Period: Geometric
Species of animals on handle; horses

Repository: British Museum

INCORPORATED INTO A TEXT QUESTION

Names: “Heracles” and “Nemean Lion,”

• Kato pale wrestling,

• black figure vase painting

INCORPORATED INTO A TEXT QUESTION

Event: Pankration

People: Pancratists

Repository: British Museum

• basic rules of pankration

• why the referee is about to strike one of
  the competitors

INCORPORATED INTO A TEXT QUESTION

Technical term for this type of object:

sg.ostracon/ostrakon,

pl.ostraca/ostraka)

Purpose of use; used for an ostracism
Name of person on object: Themistocles (Athenian archon and straegos)

INCORPORATED INTO A TEXT QUESTION

masses of heavily armoured and tightly packed infantry. Stood in lines, and had to work together to maintain the strategy.

two woollen rectangles of fabric pinned/sewn at the shoulder - worn by men and women

Equestrian events (horseback riding, chariot racing) were indicators of social class. Those who could find horses were usually very wealthy.

Also known as stephanic (crown) games because the only prize is a crown of perishable material

The games were held according to a 5-year cycle (periodos), the final of which was at the Olympiad. Equivalent to a 4-year cycle in modern times.

• Year 1: the Olympic Games

• Year 2: the Isthmian

• Year 2: Nemean Games

• Year 3: the Pythian Games

• Year 4: the Isthmian and Nemean Games

Periodonikes: an athlete who won prizes at all four of the stephanic games. Didn't have to win all games in a single year.

• Participants were free males who spoke Greek.

• If you didn't win, you should be ashamed and wouldn't want to be seen by loved ones (Ancient Greek shame culture)

• Married women likely weren't allowed to enter the Olympic stadium during the games

where Greek sporting events were held.

We get the modern word “stadium” from Ancient Greece.

Stephanic games also were played to worship particular gods and prove themselves to the deities.

The Panathenaic Festival took place annually.

Panathenaic competition:

• Only held during the third year of the cycle

• Held in Athens

• Was not one the big games, but had lucrative prizes of olive oil

The Greater Panathenaic Festival:

• Athens bought prestige for their own festival, using lucrative prizes to be better known. Allowed the city to come together.

Use for running competitions in Ancient Greece

kato pale - ground wrestling

orthia pale - upright wrestling

• featured as 1 of 5 events at the Greek pentatholon

Pankration/Pancratium (a dangerous mix between wrestling and boxing). It was brutal and there were no weight classes, so smaller man could face larger men.

Almost everything was allowed (choke-holds, slams, punching, strangling, kicking, etc.), except for gouging out eyes and biting.

Only ended if one opponent was knocked unconscious, admitted defeat, or even died (which happened).

Figural and ornamental motifs were applied with a slip that turned black during firing, while the background was left the color of the clay

a punishment for cheating during athletic events

Temporary banishment from your city-state, decided by a vote in the Assembly

FIND:

• Athens (Athens and environs: Attica)

• Macedonia

• Boeotia

• Thebes

• Delphi

• Corinth

• Mycenae

• Tiryns

• Sparta

• Pylos

• Olympia

• Miletus

• Crete

• Delos

• Byzantium

• Troy

• Aegean Sea

• Ionian Sea

The “Peplos Kore” is a statue of a girl (Kore) from Athens, and now located in the Acropolis Museum. It is dated from ca. 530 BCE.

• She is wearing a light chiton underneath underneath her peplos.

 a heavier rectangle of fabric that goes over the chiton to keep the wearer warm in the cold. Worn by all genders.

• Beards were very popular in ancient Greece until the time of Alexander the Great (ca. 330), in part because of safety issues in beard and mustache trimming. The safety razor is a modern invention.

Greeks, especially men, often wore this broad-brimmed hat when walking or working outdoors.

Greece has a Mediterranean climate with hot, dry summers. Snow is infrequent in Athens, but happens in the mountains. They are currently experiencing wildfires. Less rain than we get in southwestern Ontario.

free men who were not Athenian citizens. Metics who lived in Athens were referred to by their city and not their demes, and even if they lived there for years, were not considered Athenian citizens.

Patronymic: (a form of the father’s name in the genitive grammatical form [Athens] or adjectival form [Homer and elsewhere in Greece]).

Ex: "son of (a certain man)" or "daughter of (a certain man)."

ALSO: was custom to name the firstborn son after his paternal grandfather, with names of other children pulled from elsewhere in the family (but less likely to be from the father).

The archeologist who excavated the site of Hisalik and Mycenae. His discoveries showed some truth to the “Age of Heroes” in the Homeric epics.

He was the archeologist who discovered the palace of Knossos on the island of Crete. There was controversy over his over-idealization of the Minoan culture, portraying them as nature lovers who worshipped a mother goddess when that is just speculation.

In 1939, he discovered the Bronze Age palace of Nestor at Pylos. This was one of the oldest kingdoms in Europe and was at the center of the Mycenean Kingdom.

• Approximately 3,000-1,000 BCE.

• The earliest archeological finds from Franchthi cave  in Thessaly, occupied c.2,000

• The Bronze Age is called that because of the development in technology that allowed them to smelt bronze. This bronze could be used for military and agricultural.

Lasted from 1100-800 BCE.

Also known as the “Greek Dark Age”, occurs after the Bronze Age. People began to use iron in place of copper and bronze, forging new technological advancements.

The culture of Lerna is best known early Bronze Age site, the House of Tiles.

Who destroyed the house of tiles? It was probably conquered by Greek speakers around 2000 BCE.

The Minoans were taken over by other mainland Greeks around 1490 BCE. The mainlanders were Mycenaeans, the group that also likely sacked Lerna.

Around 1375 BCE, Knossos was burned and looted. We suspect the Mycenaeans to be the culprits. Although it kept being a major center and expanded into the early Iron Age from 1100 BCE, Crete was reduced in importance when compared to mainland Greece.

Were a strong fighting civilization on mainland Greece. Likely overthrew the Minoan civilization on Crete. Their collapse was possibly due to fires, earthquakes, or perhaps a Dorian invasion? Major drought?

Knossos: The palace was built gradually between 1700 and 1400 BCE. Suffered damage and was continually rebuilt on several occasions.

It was destroyed around 1200 BCE. What we see now was restored in the 1920s by Sir Arthur Evans, a British archeologist. Knossos had plumbing, mostly for the wealthy.

Crete: Island where the Minoans lived. Housed the palace of Knossos. Had no human sacrifice.

There was a significant settlement at Akrotiri on the island of Thera, Santorini.

There's economy features art and pottery, suggesting they had a distinct culture that's different than the Minoans.

Huge volcanic eruption destroyed the settlement.

the script of the Minoan language, written on clay tablets. We haven't deciphered it yet, but a theory says it could be a specific language that few people can decipher.

the script of the Myceneans, is actually the Greek language, so we can read it. Written on stone tablets.

Is readable due to the work of Micheal Ventris, linguist John Chadwick, and Alice Kober in 1952.

Minoan hieroglyphics: unrelated to Egyptian hieroglyphics

From the island of Crete, possibly from the middle or late Minoan Bronze Age. Unknown purpose (maybe religious?), written in an unknown language that is yet to be deciphered.

The children of Cronus and Rhea are Zeus, Hestia, Hades, Hera, Poseidon, and Demeter.

The children of Kronos and Rhea form the main part of the major Olympian Gods (the "big twelve")

The gods lived on Mount Olympus, except for Hades, who lived in the underworld. Most Greek gods had Roman equivalents.

Clay tablets and readings portray the Gods. Religion was an essential part of everyday life.

Trade networks and agriculture.

Built large houses for leaders.

• Shaft tombs - the earliest type of tomb which are rectangular graves cut into the bedrock (found at Grave Site A)

• Chamber tombs - are designed to look like houses, with an entrance passage (dromos), an entrance (stomion), and a chamber.

• Tholos tombs - similar to chamber tombs, but they were larger and their walls were built using corbelling. This technique gave tholos tombs a beehive shape.

 Mycenae, Tiryns, Pylos, Orchomenos, Sparta

Their collapse was possibly due to fires, earthquakes, or perhaps a Dorian invasion? Major drought? End of Mycenaean (and Mycenae) also brought the end of the Bronze Age.