Activities

1. Ancient Greece activities Geography and History
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Activities
1- Geography: Read the following text and write the words in black on the map.
Ancient Greece consisted of 4 parts:
- A large mainland located at the southern end of the Balkan Peninsula (1).
- The Peloponnesus peninsula (2).
- Numerous islands including Crete (3), Lesbos (4) and the Cycladic (5), Samothrace (6) and Rhodes (7).
- The coast of Asia Minor (8), which is now Turkey.
Eighty percent of Greece consists of mountains or hills, making the country one of the most mountainous in
Europe. Mount Olympus (9), once considered the throne of the Gods, is the highest point of Greece, rising
to 2919 m above sea level.
Ancient Greece was never a unified country because of its physical characteristics. Mountains divided the
peninsula into small valleys. Each valley and each island was an independent state with its own government,
laws…
These independent states were called city-state or polis. For example, Athens (10), Sparta (11), Corinth
and Thebes. However, these small states had a common culture, religion and language that united all the
Greeks.
Many Greeks were poor. Life was hard because farmland, water and timber for building were all scarce.
That's why many Greeks sailed off to find new lands to settle. That is why many Greeks lived in colonies
around the Mediterranean sea coast. There were Greeks in Italy, Sicily or North Africa. Sailing the sea to
trade and find new land, Greeks took their way of life to many places.

2. Ancient Greece activities Geography and History
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2- Time line of Ancient Greece: Copy this time line in your notebook and write as many historical
events as you can.
3- Investigate the family tree of Greek gods and goddesses and create your own concept map with the
most important of them.
4- Read this text and look for more information about the war Homer is taking about. Summarize it
in no more than 15 lines, and explain what two books were written by Homer about this story. Was it
a real war?
RAGE:
Sing, Goddess, Achilles’ rage,
Black and murderous, that cost the Greeks
Incalculable pain, pitched countless souls
Of heroes into Hades’ dark,
And left their bodies to rot as feasts
For dogs and birds, as Zeus’ will was done.
Begin with the clash between Agamemnon--
The Greek warlord--and godlike Achilles.
Which of the immortals set these two
At each other’s throats?
Apollo
Zeus’ son and Leto’s, offended
By the warlord. Agamemnon had dishonored
Chryses, Apollo’s priest, so the god
Struck the Greek camp with plague,
And the soldiers were dying of it.
Greek
800 BC 600 BC 400 BC 200 BC 0 AD
700 BC 500 BC 300 BC 100 BC

3. Ancient Greece activities Geography and History
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5- Complete the map of Alexander the Great´s Empire
Label the following bodies of water drawn in on the map:
Mediterranean Sea Caspian Sea Arabian Sea Red Sea
Persian Gulf Black Sea Aral Sea Tigris River
Euphrates River Danube River Nile River Indus River
Using a blue colored pencil, shade the coastlines.
Shade and label the Arabian Desert and the Zagros Mountains.
Label the following cities and add others if you like:
Babylon Alexandria (eastern and western) Tyre Issus Persepolis
Using an orange pencil, outline the extent of the Empire of Alexander the Great.

4. Ancient Greece activities Geography and History
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6- Comment the following Greek statues.
Describe them and try to explain what they represent.
6- Final task
To sum up, try to write at least 20 lines explaining why Greek culture is considered the origin of Western
civilization, attending to politic, art, science and whatever you want to support your opinion.