An Introduction to The Greek World. Primary Sources: works produced within a culture: art and...
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Transcript of An Introduction to The Greek World. Primary Sources: works produced within a culture: art and...
An Introducti
on toThe Greek
World
Primary Sources: works produced within a culture:
•art and architecture
•literature and written records of other sorts (business lists etc.)
Secondary Sources: Commentary by modern authors on the ancient cultures:
•textbooks and other modern writings
Internet Resources:
•can be primary sources (if they reproduce texts or images from the original culture)
•or secondary sources (if they are modern commentary)
Sources
Greece in the Mediterranean
The Greek Environment
http://www.ancient-greece.org/map.html
The Greek Landscape
First settlers: c. 50,000 BCE
Agriculture develops: c. 7000 BCE
Bronze appears: c. 3000 BCE
Prehistoric Greece
Abbreviations:
BCE= Before the common era
CE= common era
c. = circa (about)
The Bronze Age (c. 3000 BCE – c. 1200 BCE)
Three civilizations develop in three different parts of the Greek world:
Mycenaean culture develops in the mainland of Greece
The Minoans lived on the Island of Crete
The culture of the Cyclades (Cycladic Islands)
Prehistoric Greece
The Cycladic culture is known for its figurines (also called “idols”) which were found in tombs and could be objects of personal devotion (like icons in modern Greece).Cycladic culture was closely allied with the Minoan civilization.
“Idol”: Vroma
Flying fish: R. Basic
Cycladic Culture
Minoan culture was characterized by:
•palaces, built on an open plan, with a great many rooms, but without fortifications•an apparent focus on the ocean, including seafaring and tradeThera Freso, R.
Basic
Minoan Culture
Sacred images often focused on the mysterious labrys (double ax), and on bulls, including the enigmatic representations of bull-leaping
There are many
images of women,
often portrayed
in positions of authority
Minoan civilization
may have been more
egalitarian with worship
oriented toward female
deities
Fresco, R. Basic
Priestess, Thera fresco, R. Basic
Minoan Culture
Minoan figurine
•faience (quality workmqnship,
highly specialized technique)
•what are the figure’s attributes
(iconography)?
•what did she represent within
her society?
Minoan Culture
Detail of a sacrifice from Minoan Crete, 1450- 1400 BCE.
Minoan Culture
In contrast, Mycenaean palaces are fortified with huge walls and built to withstand siege.
Mycenaean art tends to emphasize hunting and
warfare, while other indicators (i.e. grave
goods) argue for a warrior-dominated society.
Mycenae’s Lion Gate, R. Basic
“Mask of Agamemnon,” Artchive
Mycenaean Culture
Fresco fragment depicting Mycenaean woman; 13th century BCE
Mycenaean Culture
In about 1400 BCE, the volcanic island of Thera exploded in a disaster whose atmospheric effects were felt around the world.
Probably, ashfall ruined agriculture for years.
Possibly, a tidal wave destroyed the Cretan navy and led to the fall of Minoan culture.
Thera fresco, R Basic
Upheavals ...
Minoan civilization suffers a major setback. Soon, the local writing system, Linear A, disappears. Linear B, a form of Greek, used by the Mycenaeans, appears in Crete.
Minoan civilization is dead, but Mycenae flourishes.
Linear B tablets reveal a complex economic and religious world.
Many of the names of classical Greek gods appear on these early bronze age tablets.
Warrior Vase, R. Basic
Mycenaean Dominance
By about 1200 BCE, nearly all of the Bronze Age power centers had been destroyed or fallen into disuse.
Greece entered a “dark age” in which monumental building and art were not practiced.
But the culture continued to develop and expand.
The “Dark Age”
Some cities lost prominence, others became more important.
Greeks colonized the coast of Asia Minor and Southern Italy.
By 750 BCE, national sanctuaries at Delphi and Olympia were formed.
Agriculture intensified and population grew.
The first poets whose works are preserved in writing, Homer and Hesiod, were composing their epic works.
Archaic Greece
Classical Greece: The Polis
Individual city-states (polis, pl. poleis) developed
Each had its own governmental system, laws, and religious festivals
All shared language, literature, and the same divine pantheon
Most shared similar ideas about gender roles, division of labor, sexuality, education, and family identity.
Polis and Community
Shared Government
Shared laws
Shared religious festivals
Shared myths
Agriculture
Family Groups
Men’s Social Roles
Social Roles varied from society to society; some widespread phenomena:
Farming work or overseeing farming work on one’s own land
Service in the military
Participation in government to the extent allowed by the state’s constitution
Participation in rituals of one’s state
Education of one’s children
Women’s Social Roles
To marry and bear citizen children
To care for the household resources
To spin and weave
To participate in the state’s religious rituals
Daily Life
Drawing water at a fountain – onerous duty but also social time
Spinning and Weaving
Daily Life
Woman at a laver (wash basin) having filled it with a water jar
Daily Life
Daily Life
Woman sacrificing
Daily Life
Caring for children
Sexuality
Sexuality was not a matter of the partner’s gender (male vs. female) but concerned active vs. passive roles.
Active roles were appropriate for grown men, whether the partner was male or female
Passive roles were appropriate for women and to some extent, teenaged men, but not for adult males
How far did the reality match the ideal? Public vs. private? Hard to say …
The Greek gods were a family, led by Zeus, whose authority commanded his two brothers, three sisters and eight children. In myth, the family squabbled and fought, a macrocosm of real families; the goddesses, while under paternal authority, often pursued their own agendas.
Zeus, a sky god, and was seen as a moral and ethical force. On the other hand, myth abounded with stories of his seduction of mortal women.
The Greek Gods
Hera, Zeus’s sister, was his wife and queen. Zeus and Hera’s marriage was portrayed as rocky and contentious in myth, but in cult and art it represented the ultimate divine marriage as a model for humans. Hera was a beautiful, desirable bride, Zeus a manly, welcoming husband.
Zeus and Hera
Zeus’s brother Poseidon was god of the sea, while his brother Hades ruled the
underworld with his wife, Persephone
Poseidon and Hades
Demeter is the grain god, and Persephone, her daughter by Zeus,
is the queen of the underworld.
Their mother-daughter relationship
represents the life-affirming process of
yearly cycles and crop fertility, where death is transformed into
life.
Demeter and Persephone
Athena, born from her father Zeus’s head, was goddess of warfare, but also of intelligence and women’s crafts, especially weaving.
Athena
Artemis, the huntress, remained forever a virgin, roaming the wilderness, a liminal and often threatening figure
Yet her other aspect was to promote the fertility of animals, aid in childbirth, and oversee the transition of virgins into brides
Artemis
Apollo, Artemis’ twin brother, was the beautiful, unapproachable god of music, poetry and prophecy
Hermes, another youthful god, was both divine messenger and trickster
Apollo and Hermes
Aphrodite was the goddess of love, symbolizing intoxicating sexuality and beauty.
In myth she is often portrayed as a willful “girly-girl,” but she is elsewhere portrayed as a powerful, personally-accessible goddess.
Aphrodite
Hephaestus, the lame god of the forge and craftsmanship, was married to Aphrodite – the ugliest god married to the most beautiful.
Ares, god of war, was Aphrodite’s lover.
Hephaestus and Ares
Dionysus was the god of wine. His celebration could involve loss of self and ecstasy, and was
particularly appealing to women.
Dionysus
finis