GREECE

BRIEF HISTORY
OF GREECE
 Brief History
The history of Greece can be traced back to
Stone Age hunters. Later came early farmers
and the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations.
This was followed by a period of wars and
invasions, known as the Middle Ages.
Around 1100 BC, the people of the Dorians
invaded from the north and spread along the
west coast.
In the period 500-336 BC, Greece was
divided into small city-states, each of which
consisted of a city with the surrounding
countryside.
 Brief History
The ancient Greek classical
and Hellenistic eras are
without doubt the most
beautiful times, having left
behind a myriad of ideas,
concepts and the basics of
what we now call "Western
civilization.
 Brief History
Generally, the history of Greece is divided into the following
periods:
Neolithic - a period beginning with the establishment of
agricultural societies in 7000 BC and ending in 3200/3100 BC.
Helladic (or Bronze Age) - covering a period beginning
with the transition to a metal-based economy in 3200/3100
BC to the rise and fall of the Mycenaean Greek
palaces spanning roughly five centuries (16001100 BC).
Ancient Greece - covering a period from the fall of the Mycenaean
civilization in 1100 BC to 146 BC spanning multiple sub-periods including
the Greek Dark Ages (or Iron Age, Homeric Age), Archaic period,
the Classical period and the Hellenistic period.
Brief History
Roman Greece - covering a period from
the Roman conquest of Greece in 146 BC to
324 AD.
Byzantine Greece - covering a period from
the establishment of the capital city
of Byzantium, Constantinople, in 324 AD
until the fall of Constantinople in 1453 AD.
Ottoman Greece - covering a period from
1453 up until the Greek Revolution of 1821.
Modern Greece - covering a period from
1821 to the present.
GEOGRAPHY
 Geography

Greece is located in Southern

Europe, bordering the Ionian
Sea and the Mediterranean Sea,
between Albania and Turkey. It
is a peninsular country,
possessing an archipelago of
about 3,000 islands.
 Geography
The country consists of a large mainland and two
additional smaller peninsulas projecting from it; the
Chalkidice and the Peloponnese.
Greece also features a large number of islands, of various
sizes, both large ones including Crete, Euboea, Rhodes
and Corfu
And groups of smaller ones are the Dodecanese and
the Cyclades.
According to the CIA World Factbook, Greece has 13,676
kilometres (8,498 mi) of coastline, the largest in the
Mediterranean Basin.
Geography

Land area is 130,647 km2 and internal waters (lakes and rivers)
account for 1,310 km2 and a Total area of 131,957 km2 (50,949 sq mi).
(80%) of Greece is mountainous. The Pindus mountain range lies
across the center of the country in a northwest-to-southeast
direction, with a maximum elevation of (2,637 m).
 Geography
Mount Olympus is the highest point in Greece
and the fourth highest in relative topographical
prominence in Europe, rising to (2,919 m) above
sea level.
The Rhodope Mountains form the border
between Greece and Bulgaria; that area is
covered with vast and thick forests.
Greece's lowest point is sea level.
Plains are found in eastern Thessaly, in central
Macedonia and in Thrace.
 The Greek Flag
The Greek Flag it stands for the
Greek orthodoxy which is the
Religion.
The Colors stands for the Seas
and the Sky.
The 9 Stripes stand for the 9
syllables of the Greek Motto
which is Freedom or Death.
CULTURE AND
TRADITIONS
Greek Culture and Traditions
The Culture of Greece has
evolved over thousands of years,
beginning in Mycenaean Greece,
continuing most notably into
Classical Greece, through the
influence of the Roman Empire
and its successor the Byzantine
Empire.
 Greek Culture and Traditions
Other cultures and states such as the
Persian Empire, and Frankish states,
the Ottoman Empire, the Venetian
Republic, Genoese Republic, and
British Empire have also left their
influence on modern Greek culture,
but historians credit the Greek War of
Independence with revitalizing
Greece and giving birth to a single
entity of its multi-faceted culture.
 Greek Culture and
Traditions
In ancient times, Greece was the birthplace of Western culture.
The ancient Greeks pioneered in many fields that rely on
systematic thought, including biology, geometry, history,
philosophy, physics and mathematics.
They introduced such important literary forms as epic and lyric
poetry, history, tragedy, and comedy. In their pursuit of order and
proportion, the Greeks created an ideal of beauty that strongly
influenced Western art.
 Visual Arts

Artistic production in Greece began in the prehistoric pre-Greek

Cycladic and the Minoan civilizations, both of which were influenced
by local traditions and the art of ancient Egypt.
Ancient Greek sculpture was composed almost entirely of Marble or
Bronze; with cast bronze becoming the favored medium for major
works by the early 5th century. Both marble and bronze are fortunately
easy to form and very durable.
The first artistic movement in the Greek Kingdom can be considered
the Greek academic art of the 19th century The Munich School.
 Architecture
The architecture of ancient
Greece was produced by the
ancient Greeks called Hellenes.
whose culture flourished on the
Greek mainland.
Byzantine architecture is the
architecture promoted by the
Byzantine Empire, also known as
the Eastern Roman Empire which
dominated Greece and the Greek
speaking world during the Middle
Ages.
Architecture
After the Greek Independence, the
modern Greek architects tried to
combine traditional Greek and
Byzantine elements and motives with
the western European movements
and styles.
Two special genres can be
considered the Cycladic architecture,
featuring white-colour houses, in the
Cyclades and the Epirotic
architecture in the region of Epirus.
 Greek Food and Drinks

Greek food and beverages are

famous all over the world for both
quality and taste.
Cuisine is characteristic of the
healthy Mediterranean diet, which is
epitomized by dishes of Crete.
Greek Food and Drinks
Horiatiki (Country Salad), the most famous
Greek salad. an American-style Greek salad. This
style of Greek salad is rarely encountered in
Greece.

Greeks have a lot of excellent main dishes such as

Moussaka. is an eggplant- (aubergine) or potato-
based dish, often including ground meat, in the
Levant, Middle East, and Balkans, with many local
and regional variations.
 Greek Food and Drinks
Greece is also famous for its alcoholic drinks:
Ouzo is an anise-flavoured aperitif that is widely
consumed in Greece and Cyprus.

Tsipouro is a pomace brandy from Greece and in

particular Thessaly, Epirus, Macedonia, and the
island of Crete.
 Language

The Greek language is the official language of the Hellenic Republic

and has a total of 15 million speakers worldwide; it is an Indo-
European language.
Internet and "Greeklish"
More recently, the rise of internet-based communication services as
well as cell phones have caused a distinctive form of Greek written
partially, and sometimes fully in Latin characters to emerge; this is
known as Greeklish.
 Language

Katharevousa
Is a purified form of the Greek Language midway between modern and
ancient forms set in train during the early nineteenth century by Greek
intellectual and revolutionary leader Adamantios Korais.
Dialects
The most notable include Cappadocian, Cretan Greek, Cypriot Greek,
Pontic Greek, the Griko language spoken in Southern Italy, and
Tsakonian, still spoken in the modern prefecture of Arcadia and widely
noted as a surviving regional dialect of Doric Greek.
Music and Dances

Greek vocal music extends far back into ancient

times where mixed-gender choruses performed
for entertainment, celebration and spiritual
reasons.
Greek people also cultivated the Greek folk song
called Demotiko which is divided into two
cycles, the akritic and klephtic.
 Music and Dances

The Heptanesean kantdhes became the

forerunners of the Greek modern urban
popular song.
In the 20th century, Greek composers
develop avant garde and modern classical
music.
 Cinema
Cinema first appeared in Greece in 1896,
but the first actual cine-theatre was opened
in 1907 in Athens.

Sports
Greece is the birthplace of the ancient
Olympic Games, first recorded in 776 BC in
Olympia, and hosted the modern Olympic
Games twice, the inaugural 1896 Summer
Olympics and the 2004 Summer Olympics.
 Literature
Greek literature can be divided into three main
categories:
Ancient Literature oldest surviving written works
until works from approximately the fifth century CE.
Byzantine Literature refers to literature of the
Byzantine Empire written in Atticizing, Medieval
and early Modern Greek, and it is the expression of
the intellectual life of the Byzantine Greeks during
the Christian Middle Ages.
Modern Greek Literature refers to literature
written in common Modern Greek, emerging from
late Byzantine times in the 11th century.
Mythology
The numerous gods of the ancient
Greek religion as well as the mythical
heroes and events of the ancient Greek
epics (The Odyssey and The Iliad) and
other pieces of art and literature. Apart
from serving a religious function, the
mythology of the ancient Greek world
also served a cosmological role as it was
meant to try to explain how the world
was formed and operated.
 Mythology
The principal gods of the ancient Greek religion
were the Dodekatheon, or the Twelve Gods, who
lived on the top of Mount Olympus. The most
important of all ancient Greek gods was Zeus, the
king of the gods, who was married to Hera, who was
also Zeus's sister. The other Greek gods that made up
the Twelve Olympians were Ares, Poseidon, Athena,
Demeter, Dionysus, Apollo, Artemis, Aphrodite,
Hephaestus and Hermes. Apart from these twelve
gods, Greeks also had a variety of other mystical
beliefs, such as nymphs and other magical creatures.
MASTERPIECES
 Masterpieces
The Iliad and The Odyssey (1600-1100 BC) by
Homer, The Iliad tells the final chapter in the story
of two major Bronze Age Greek alliances battling
each other. The Odyssey, in contrast, mainly takes
place outside of that common culture and describes
contact with pre-Mycenaean Mediterranean cultures.

Tyrtaeus was a Greek lyric poet from Sparta who

composed verses around the time of the Second
Messenian War, the date of which isn't clearly
established, but sometime in the latter part of the
seventh century BC.
 Masterpieces

Alcaeus of Mytilene (620 6th century BC) was a

lyric poet from the Greek island of Lesbos who is
credited with inventing the Alcaic stanza.

Anacreon (c. 582 c. 485 BC) was a Greek

lyric poet, notable for his drinking songs and
hymns.
 Masterpieces

Simonides of Ceos (c. 556 468 BC) was

a Greek lyric poet, born at Ioulis on Ceos.

Theocritus (c. 270 BC) the creator of ancient

Greek bucolic poetry or pastoral poetry, flourished
in the 3rd century BC.
 Quiz:
1. The history of Greece can be traced back to ___________.

2. A period beginning with the establishment of agricultural societies in 7000 BC and ending in 3200/3100 BC.

3. Covering a period from 1453 up until the Greek Revolution of 1821.

4.-7. Greece also features a large number of islands, of various sizes, both large ones including _______.

8. _____ is characteristic of the healthy Mediterranean diet, which is epitomized by dishes of Crete.

9. Is an anise-flavoured aperitif that is widely consumed in Greece and Cyprus.

10. Is a purified form of the Greek Language midway between modern and ancient forms set in train during the
early nineteenth century.

11.-12. Demotiko which is divided into two cycles.

13. Became the forerunners of the Greek modern urban popular song.

14. It refers to literature written in common Modern Greek, emerging from late Byzantine times in the 11th
century.

15.-20. Give the 6 Masterpieces in Greece.