CLASSICS 1M03 Study Guide - Fall 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes - Ancient Greece, Spartan Army, Sparta
12 Oct 2018
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CLASSICS 1M03
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Fall 2018
The Bronze Age: Greece
- Greeks first example of civilization
- Civilization first seen in Asia + Middle East
Civilization: usually understood to be a complex society characterized by the practice of
agriculture and settlement in cities.
Agriculture Changes Everything
- Stable, settled occupation & predictable food supply leads to economic surplus:
- Population increases
- Economic surplus = creation of political economy; specialization (division
between rich and poor)
- Socio-economic inequality becomes constant aspect of human experience
Temple States
- Kings
- NE model: monarch as divine figurehead—oversees extraction (taxation) of surplus and
reallocation to economic specialists, soldiers, builders (communal projects)
- Reconstruction of the Neo-Sumerian Ziggurat of Ur, c. 2100 BC.
- Highly centralized political economy
- Highly bureaucratized economy of collection and redistribution
Climate and Geography
- Greece difficult to classify geographically
- Mediterranean region cool, wet winters, dry, hot summers (semiarid)
- Shortage of natural resources and arable land
- 75% of mainland Greece is mountainous
- Few useful mineral reserves (no tin = far away from sources)
- Copper + tin = bronze (this was hard to make)
- First civilization were not the Greeks?? Island: Crete
“Minos Palace” at Knossos ( c.1700-1200 BC)
- Residential rooms, storehouses, workshops, central courtyard (unwalled)
- Drawings of bulls on wall
“Palace Culture” of Minoans
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
- Minoans are not Greek
- Peer polity interaction– produces Cretan palace states
- Minoan records: hieroglyphic (c.2000 BC), Linear A (c.1700 BC)
- Palace acted as administrative/economic center
- Redistributive economy, Stratified, complex social order
- Similar to Egypt and Near East
Rise and Fall of Minoans
- Thalassocracy
- Gr. Thalassa (“sea”) and
kratos (“power”)
- Colony of Thera (modern
Santorini)
- Extensive evidence for contact with wider Bronze Age World
- Cretan items listed in NE archives
- The king who did not like his shoes
- 1600 BC
- Earthquakes
- Volcanic eruption at Thera
- 1400 BC
- Destruction of palaces on Crete
Heinrich Schliemann
- 1871 Discovery of Troy at modern Hissarlik (Turkey)
Mycenae
- 1876 Schliemann discovered shaft graves at Mycenae
Mycenaean Civilization
- Mycenae: site of discovery, but many independent communities
- c.1600-1500 BC: graves of a warrior elite
- Evidence of a complex, stratified society: rulers and ruled
- From c.1500 BC: tholos (beehive) tombs evidence of further stratification
- Evidence of further starification
- Tomb of Atreus (1250 BC)
Mycenaean Palace States
- Very impressive, heavy fortifications
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Civilization first seen in asia + middle east. Civilization: usually understood to be a complex society characterized by the practice of agriculture and settlement in cities. Stable, settled occupation & predictable food supply leads to economic surplus: Economic surplus = creation of political economy; specialization (division between rich and poor) Socio-economic inequality becomes constant aspect of human experience. Ne model: monarch as divine figurehead oversees extraction (taxation) of surplus and reallocation to economic specialists, soldiers, builders (communal projects) Reconstruction of the neo-sumerian ziggurat of ur, c. 2100 bc. Highly bureaucratized economy of collection and redistribution. Mediterranean region cool, wet winters, dry, hot summers (semiarid) Shortage of natural resources and arable land. Few useful mineral reserves (no tin = far away from sources) Copper + tin = bronze (this was hard to make) Residential rooms, storehouses, workshops, central courtyard (unwalled) Peer polity interaction produces cretan palace states. Minoan records: hieroglyphic (c. 2000 bc), linear a (c. 1700 bc)
