CLA 1101 Lecture 2: Lecture 2

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Classical Studies
• Course: CLA 1101
• Professor: David Sacks

Document Summary

Glossary archaeology: the systematic study of the past through discovery and interpretation of material remains. Mesopotamia: now = iraq, encompassing the paired river valleys of the tigris and euphrates. A seedbed of early civilization, mesopotamia hosted the bronze age cultures of sumer and akkad or babylon. These people were not greek, but the name mesopotamia ( the land between the rivers ) happens to come to us from the greek language: the ugly underside of indo-european studies. The lecture began with comment on the 1930s 1940s nazi appropriation of aspects of indo-european studies, which were used to support nazi crackpot theories of racial supremacy: the nordic europeans supposedly were the true indo-european descendants. This fact explains why the innocent swastika symbol can sometimes be seen on greek geometric vase-painting, such as at textbook page 60: our sources of knowledge about the ancient greeks.