CLAS 110 Study Guide - Spring 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes - Zeus, Hermes, Gall Force
CLAS 110
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Fall 2018
Lecture 2
● Questions
○ What is myth? How is it distinguished from other types of stories?
Myth Legend Folklore
characters divine huan/semi-
human
Ordinary
people/animals
belief fact fact fiction
time Remote past Recent past Present or past
place Other or earlier world World or familiar
to readers
Any world
attitude secular
■ Myth -- Form, Context, Function
● Medium of communication can vary
● Stories in which the meaning/content is held in metaphors and
symbols
● Content: religious, social, political values and meanings that
connect the individual to society and the cosmos
● Function
○ Explain the natural world, divine realm, society
○ To make bearable the tragedy of living
■ Ex.: afterlife
■ To understand and integrate one’s experience in a
border framework
Logoi-- ‘rational’ arguments about the earth, cosmos, gods,
society, mankind-- relying on logic and straightforward prose
■ The origins of writing and the transmission of stories
● From ca. 8000 BCE tokens used as markers of quantities of
goods
● By 3400 BCE hollow clay balls (bullae)(the hollow clay balls used
to store tokens with depiction of transaction) and tokens
(currency)
● Proto-cuneiforn
○ By end of Late Uruk period (3100 BCE)
○ Pictographs (not letters)
● Cuneiform (mid 3rd millennium
○ Stylus blunter, used to press wedge shaped lines into the
clay
○ Instead of an ideographic script, like proto-cuneiform,
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
cuneiform uses syllabic script
○ Cuneiform is a script, not a language.
○ What is Classical myth, specifically?
○ From what sources does Greek Classical myth derive? How can it circulate?
○ What are some specific prototypes for Classical Myth?
● The Epic of Gilgamesh
○ Recovered from numerous tablets from numerous periods and places
○ Story of a hero
○ His bestfriend Enkido died
○ It is the story of his search for immortallity
○ Much of the story is missing because archeaologists find bits and pieces of
tablets containing the story
● Enuma Elish (1500 BCE)
○ Battle between the first Gods and Apsu(fresh water)/Tiamat(salt water)
○ Marduk(first gods) -- king figure, fight against chaos, for justice
○ From Tiamat’s body -- sky above, earth below (300 gods at each pole)
○ Humans arise from the blood of the enemy god
■ They were created to serve the gods
● Hammurabi
○ The creator of laws
○ Stele of Hammurabi
■ Depicts shamash (the god of justice) handing king Hammurabi the laws
depicted below on it
■ Justifies him passing these laws
● The Genesis of Classical Myth
○ Greece or Rome
● Late Bronze Age
○ BCE 1600-1150
○ Mycenaean age
■ Powerful kings in fortified citadels
■ Massive walls
■ Chariots
● Content of Linear B Tablets
○ Mixed system: combination of ideograms, nemerals and symballic signs
● Dark Age
● 1200-1100 BC: Mycenean sites destroyed and burned
○ Generalized unrest
● Archaic Period (750-480)
○ Greek expansion and colonization of the Mediterranean
○ Greek Alphabet (from the Phoenician
○ Homer (not one but many people)
■ Illiad
■ Oddessy
● Homeric Poems
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Stories in which the meaning/content is held in metaphors and symbols. Content: religious, social, political values and meanings that connect the individual to society and the cosmos. Explain the natural world, divine realm, society. To make bearable the tragedy of living. To understand and integrate one"s experience in a border framework. Logoi-- rational" arguments about the earth, cosmos, gods, society, mankind-- relying on logic and straightforward prose. The origins of writing and the transmission of stories. 8000 bce tokens used as markers of quantities of goods. By 3400 bce hollow clay balls (bullae)(the hollow clay balls used to store tokens with depiction of transaction) and tokens (currency) By end of late uruk period (3100 bce) Stylus blunter, used to press wedge shaped lines into the clay. Instead of an ideographic script, like proto-cuneiform, cuneiform uses syllabic script. Cuneiform is a script, not a language. Recovered from numerous tablets from numerous periods and places.
