Culture of the Mountains and the Sea

1. For each term or name, write a sentence explaining its significance.
• Mycenaean • Trojan War • Dorian • Homer • epic • myth

-Mycenaean were the people who settled on the Greek mainland around 2000 B.C.
-The Trojan War was in the 1200s B.C., the Mycenaeans fought a ten-year war against Troy, an independent trading city located in Anatolia. According to legend, a Greek army besieged and destroyed Troy because a Trojan prince had kidnapped Helen, the beautiful wife of a Greek king.
-The Dorians were much less advanced than the Mycenaeans. The Dorians spoke a dialect of Greek and may have been distant relatives of the Bronze Age Greeks.
-Homer was the greatest storyteller and was a blind man.
-Epics were narrative poems celebrating heroic deeds, sometime between 750 and 700 B.C.
-Greeks developed myths, traditional stories, about their gods.
USING YOUR READING GUIDE NOTES
2. Which of the cultures on your
chart do you think contributed
the most to Greek culture?
Explain.
I think the Minoans contributed the most to Greek culture-
1. sea trade taught them sailing
2. they adapted the Minoan writing system
3. adapted their art which is seen in vases
4. religion, politics, culture
MAIN IDEAS
3. What impact did nearness to the sea have on the development of Greece?
Since the Greeks lived so close to the sea they became excellent sailors. They used this ability for trade because Greece lack natural resources like timber, metals, and farmland. The seaways also linked most parts of Greece together.
4. What aspects of culture did the Mycenaeans adopt from the Minoans?
One of the many things that the Mycenaeans adopted from the Minoans was sea trade. They sent out their traders on boats to trade with different countries. They also adopted their language, writing system, religion, political aspects, and their literature.
5. Why were the epics of importance to the Greeks of the Dorian period?
The Greeks believed that he epics were stories from their past, their history.


DRAWING CONCLUSIONS 

6. How did the physical geography of Greece cause Greek-speaking peoples to develop separate, isolated communities?
Greece is a very mountainous country. It was difficult for people to travel between each community, so this caused people to stay where they were and travel less.