3. Greek Timeline
• 8000 BCE
• Mesolithic Period
(8300-7000)
• Earliest evidence of burials found in Franchthi Cave
in the Argolid, Greece 7250 BCE
• Evidence of food producing economy, simple hut
construction, and seafaring in mainland Greece and
the Aegean 7000 BCE
• Neolithic Period
(7000-3000 BCE)
• First "Megaron House" at Sesclo, in central Greece
5700 BCE
• Evidence of earliest fortifications at Dimini, Greece
3400 BCE

4. • 3000 BCE
• Aegean Bronze Age
or Early Bronze Age
(3000-2000)
• Minoan Prepalatial
or: EMIA, EMIB (3000-2600 BCE)
• Early Cycladic Culture
(3200-2000)
• Early Helladic Period
(3000-2000)
• 2600 BCE
• Minoan Prepalatial Period
or: EMIIA, EMIIB, MMIII
(2600-2000 BCE)
• Destruction of Minoan settlements 2000 BCE
• Minoan Protopalatial Period
or: MMIA, MMIB, MMI IA, MMI IB, MMI IIA, MMI IIB, LMIA Early
(1900-1700 BCE)
• Early Middle Cycladic (2000-1600 BCE)
• Middle Helladic Period
or Middle Bronze Age
(2000-1550
• Destruction of Minoan palaces
Settlement of Akrotiri, Thera
Grave Circle B at Mycenae 1700 BCE
• Minoan Neopalatial Period
or: LMIA Advanced, LMIA Final, LMIB Early, LMIB Late, LMII
(1700-1400)
• Eruption of Thera volcano (sometime between 1627 and 1600) 1627 BCE

5. • Late Bronze Period
or The Heroic Age
(1600-1100) Tholos Tomb at Mycenae 1550 BCE
• Late Helladic Period
(1500-1100)
• Linear B writing (1450-1180) 1450 BCE
• Mycenaean Palaces
Evidence of expanded Mycenaean trade at Levand 1400
BCE
• Minoan Postpalatial Period
(1400-1100)
• Palace of Knossos destruction 1370 BCE
• "Sea Peoples" begin raids in the Eastern Mediterranean
1300 BCE
• Mycenaean Culture
(1300-1000)
• Trojan War (1250 or 1210)
1250 BCE
• Destruction of many Mycenaean palaces

6. •
• First Olympic Games 776 BCE
•
• Greek colonies established in Southern Italy &
Sicily
Invention of Greek alphabet
Homeric poems recorded in writing (750-700)
750 BCE
• Late Geometric
(circa 760-700)
• 740 BCE Orientalizing Period
(circa 740-650)
• First Messenian War
Sparta invades Messenia
(730-710)
Naxos founded (734)
Syracuse founded (733) 730 BCE

7. Minoan Civilization (2000-1400 BCE)
• Site of a palace and labyrinthine
maze on the Island of Crete,
south of mainland Greece.
• Named after King Minos whose
minotaur—half man and half
bull—was kept in the labyrinth
and fed Athenian youths
• The minotaur is killed by the
Athenian hero Theseus, freeing
Athens from his rule.

8. Minoan Site: Palace of Knossos
• Archaeological evidence
indicates the site was involved in
seagoing trade with the
Phoenicians, based in Carthage
of North Africa
• Knossos had a three-story
palace built around a courtyard
(left; see pp. 119-121
• Absence of fortress walls
indicate the kingdom thought
the sea as security enough

9. Frescos: Bull Vaulting
• Frescos refer to paintings in which pigment is applied to plastered walls before the
plaster is dry
• This fresco depicts the sport of bull-vaulting, still practiced in Portugal; this is found in
the Palace of Knossos, Crete
• Woman in front holds the bull by horns; one in back waits to catch the vaulter; as in
Egypt, women have lighter skin than men
• Possibly an initiation rite.

10. Frescos: Ship Fresco from Thera
• Minos was a seafaring culture
• Thera, island near Crete,
included a seaport
• The Ship Fresco depicts the
seaport of Akrotiri, Thera
• This was clearly an important
harbor in the sea lanes of the
Mediterranean

11. Statuettes of Minos: Snake Goddess
• This statuette depicts a bare-breasted
women holding a snake in either hand
• Snakes were the symbol of fertility,
preceding their interpretations as
depictions of evil.
• The woman could be a priestess or a
goddess
• Style: flounced skirt, cat perching on
her headdress
• Technique: faïence, glazing
earthenware by using a glass paste

12. Linear B Script
• Linear B Script is the first phonetic script in Europe
• Based on syllables; each symbol represents a syllable rather than a
speech sound
• Vowel is the peak of a syllable

13. Mycenaean Civilization (1600-1200
BCE)
• More of a militaristic peoples with
warships vying for control of the
Eastern Mediterranean
• The Citadel of Mycenae includes
heavily fortified walls expected of
a militaristic society
• Storage rooms ensure the
population could hold out for
weeks
• Peasants and townspeople were
accommodated during periods of
siege.

14. The Heroic Age (1200-750 CE)
• Mycenae was conquered in 1200 CE by the Dorians
whose iron weaponry proved superior
• The Homeric epics were passed down by oral
tradition for 300 years before being transcribed and
300 more before being reaching their present form
• Little is known about Homer himself, except that if
he existed, he was blind
• Represents the culmination of a long tradition of oral
history
• The two epics represent a national symbol of
present-day Greece

15. Iliad: Paris’s Choice
• Eris, the Goddess of Discord, throws an apple with
the inscription “To The Fairest” in a crowd at a
wedding.
• Athena, the Goddess of Wisdom, Hera, the wife of
Zeus, and Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love, Sex,
Beauty, and Fertility, vie for the apple
• They agree to allow Paris, a moral (and Trojan) to
make the judgment.
• Athena promises victory against the Greeks; Hera
promises dominion over the known world;
• Aphrodite promises him the love of a beautiful
women

16. Choices Have Consequences: The
Trojan War
• Paris gives the golden apple to
Aphrodite
• The spurned goddesses, Hera
and Athena, conspire with other
deities for revenge.
• Paris kidnaps Helen.
• (Daughter of Zeus and Leda)
• Menaleus, King of Sparta and
her husband, forms an alliance
with other Achaeans (Greeks) to
get his wife back
• A ten-year war ensues

17. The Iliad: The Battle of Troy
• Through an alliance of gods and
mortals, war breaks out between the
“Achaeans” and the Trojans of Troy, a
commercial center in Asia Minor (now
Turkey)
• The Iliad is set in the last days of the
Trojan war
• The war end when the Trojan Horse,
containing Achaean solders, taken to be
a gift, is haled onto the fortress, and the
Achaeans slaughter the Trojans in a
ruse.

18. Iliad: Achilles as Central Character
• The central figure of the Iliad is Achilles, a
powerful warrior who at first refuses to
join the Achaeans
• He consents only after a close friend of
his, Patroclus, is killed in battle by Hector,
the chieftain of the Trojans
• Though half-god, half man, he has a flaw:
his heel which his mother Thetis held
while dipping into the river Styx, which
rendered him invulnerable:
• Except for the heel, which any weapon
could penetrate.
• Note the penetration of the arrow in his
heel.

19. Iliad: The Main Themes
• The theme of Achilles that recurs in Greek
thought:
• Selfhood vs. community responsibility
• We see it later in Socrates’s refusal to escape
after being condemned to death
• Heroic act to prove virtue or excellence (arête
has both connotations)
• Both God and Man displays a range of human
emotions: anger, love, grief (over loss of
friend)

20. Odyssey: Frustrated Homecoming
• Odysseus encounters obstacles—adventures—while trying to
sail home to Ithaca after the war
• On one occasion, he ix within sight of Ithaca when a strong
wind blow the ship out to open sea.
• He has to navigate the ship between Scylla, a monster
perched on a rock, and Charybdis, the monster lurking in a
large whirlpool
• Allows himself to listen to the Sirens, while tied to the mast
and the men rowing with earplugs, so they can hear neither
him, nor then; otherwise the ship would have been lost to the
rocks
• In the end, he does arrive home, and he slaughters the suitors
trying to woo his wife Penelope because of his long absence.

21. The Principal Gods in the
Greek/Roman Pantheon
• Left: Representative Gods from the
Parthenon
• Zeus (Rom. Jupiter or Jove): The head of
the pantheon of gods
• Hera (Juno): Queen of the Gods
• Ares (Mars): God of war
• Aphrodite (Venus): Goddess of (erotic)
love, beauty,
• Athena (Minerva): Goddess of
wisdom—and war
• Eros (Amor/Cupid): God of (erotic) love,
often portrayed as an infant
• Hades (Pluto): God of the Underworld

22. Other Gods of the Greek/Roman
Pantheon
• Demeter (Ceres): Goddess of Agriculture/Grain
• Persephone (Proserpina): Goddess of the
Underworld
• Apollo, Helios (Phoebus): God of the Sun
• Hephaestus (Vulcan): God of metallurgy, fire
• Herakles (Hercules): God of strength, courage
• Artemis (Diana): Goddess of the hunt, the moon
• Hermes (Mercury): Messenger of the gods
• Nike (both): Goddess of Victory
• Poseidon (Neptune): God of the sea
• Hestia (Vesta): Goddess of the hearth, domestic

23. Gods According to Greek Theology
• Origin myth: Zeus, angered by human
evil, destroyed humankind by flood
• Deucalion (Greek Noah), constructs boat
for himself and his wife
• “Bones” of Gaia thrown overboard and
new humans, first of whom is Hellen
(ancestors of Hellenes or Greeks), spring
from the rocks

24. The Humanlike Qualities of the Gods
• The immortals show all the human
emotions: they are amorous, capricious,
quarrelsome
• They take sides in human wars (as they
do in the Iliad. (upper left: priest and his
sons are killed for revealing who were
inside the Trojan Horse)
• They live among humans, atop Mount
Olympus
• Gods seduce mortal women (Leda and
the Swan, who is Zeus, lower left
• They set forth no clear principles of
moral conduct
• Oracles (like the one at Delphi) are
sources of prophecy and mystical
wisdom

25. Greek City States: Principal Sites

26. Two Historians: Herodotus and Thucydides
• Herodotus: First known historian who combined
keen observation with critical judgment
• Did make errors, such as his opinion that non-
Egyptian slaves built the pyramid
• Thucydides:
• Wrote a detailed account of the Peloponnesian wars
between Athens and an alliance dominated by
Sparta, which proved disastrous for Athens
• He himself was a general in the conflict, so that he is
a primary source, one who made the actual
observations

27. Delphi: Site of the Oracle
• Founding Myth: A sanctuary
for the Titan earth goddess
Gaia
• Sun God (Apollo) slays the
Python, the dragon who
guarded the gate
• Founded the Temple of
Apollo, henceforth the oracle
of prophesy
• This is where King Laius
receives the prophecy that his
son will kill him and marry his
wife

28. Layout of Delphi, including the Temple
of Apollo
• Upper left:
amphitheater
• Center: Temple of
Apollo (columned
building)
• Other sanctuaries are
set aside for Dionysius,
other gods and kings

29. The Sphinx and Her Riddle
• At the gates of Thebes, he encounters the
Sphinx, who has been terrorizing Thebes for
years
• The Sphinx has waylaid people, ask a riddle,
and murdered them all for their failure to
give the right answer
• The riddle: what walks on four in the morning
• On two at noon, and
• On three at night?
• Your turn: got a good answer?
• A man in the phases of infancy, adulthood,
and old age

30. Oedipus Become King and Marries his
Mother
• The grateful Thebans award him with the kinship
• And with the hand of Jocasta to be his wife
• In so doing, he fulfils the prophecy that he will marry
his mother.
• The Gods, angered by his incest, send a plague to the
city
• After siring and bearing four children, Oedipus is told
by the blind prophet Tiresias that he is the cause of
the plague.
• In his pride, he refuses to believe the prophet,
thinking his rival Creon, Jocasta’s brother, has set him
up to this.

31. Curse of Oedipus Rex
• The chorus fills the audience in on the details
of the events
• A messenger conveys the news of the
shepherd Polybus’s death and adds that he
was only Oedipus’s adopted father.
• Jocasta discovers the truth in the
conversation, runs off the stage and hangs
herself
• The truth come slowly to Oedipus; he takes
the brooch from his dead wife and blinds
himself

32. Departure of Oedipus Rex; Fate of
Antigone
• He leaves Thebes with his daughter Antigone
• Another play portrays Antigone herself, his
daughter/sister
• After Oedipus’s death, she returns to Thebes
• When Creon, now king, decrees she cannot give her
brother Polynices the rites of burial at his death, she
does so anyway
• For her defiance, she is sealed in a cave to slowly
suffocate.
• She commits suicide rather than suffer this fate

33. Incest: A Universal Taboo
• Definition: A rule that forbids copulation
between two persons of defined relationships
• Primary kin: parent-child, siblings
• Father-daughter
• Mother-son
• Brother sister
• Exception: Egyptian, Inca, Hawaiian
• Allowed only in royal line: “purity”

34. Thank
You!