NOTES:
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*
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*
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