The Same Thing

today we did the same thing that we did on Monday, because Mr. Schick wanted to see how Andrew did on the teaching the class when he wasn't here, and he actually did a pretty good job, i'm not going to lie. Arri decided to be a smartie and tell us about Greece. Arri, actually you did a decent job too.

Notes and The Odyssey

Today we went over some notes about Greece:
Geography of Greece:
mountainous peninsula
mountains - 3/4
approximately 1,400 islands in Aegean and Ionian Seas.
location shaped its culture
skilled sailors
poor natural resources
had many city-states that hated each other (example: Sparta and Athens)
in one of the Persian Wars, the Spartans teamed up against Athens
approximately 20% suitable for farming
fertile valleys cover 1/4 of peninsula
because of the geography, the Greek diet consists of grains, grapes, and olives.
lack of resources most likely led to Greek colonization.
temperatures range 48 degrees in the winter to 80 degrees in the summer.
MYCENAEANS

began around 2000 BC
Mycenae is located on a rocky ridge and protected by a 20 ft. thick wall.
Mycenaean kings dominated Greece from 16000-1200 BC
-controlled trade in the region
Mediterranean - middle of the earth
1400 BC Mycenaeans invaded Crete and absorbed Minoan culture and language.
CULTUREIN DECLINE
around 1200- BC sea people began to invade Mycenae and burnt palace after palace.
the Dorians moved into the war-torn region
-far less advanced
-economy collapsed
-writing disappeared for 400 years (dark ages)
HOMER AND MYTHS

stories were passed on by word of mouth
Homer lived at the end of the "Greek Dark Ages"
recorded stories of the Trojan War in the Iliad and the Odyssey (written 750-700 BC)
Trojan war was probably one of the last conquests of the Mycenaeans
Odyssey was 12,110 lines of dactylic hexameter.

LO3- Greek city-states

• CITIZENS AND COMMUNITIES: THE GREEK CITY-STATES
• the tribes of the dark ages began to develop city-states.
• communities like this had been developed before (the Sumerians and Phoenicians).
• no powerful kingdom or empire to limit their independence.
• social  and political development of the Greek city-state took this type of community in unprecedented new directions.
• Greeks called the city-states polis.
• Greek city-states were small places
• generally consisting of no more than a town and a few square miles of surrounding countryside.
• Athens and Sparta - considered giants among the city-states of Greece.
• both about the size of some US counties.
• population of both town and country ordinarily numbered only a few thousand 
• Athens reached about 250,000.
• the town of Athens was built around a hill, at the top of which stood an acropolis.
• ACROPOLIS - a combination of fortress and temple precinct.
• both fortresses and temples were vitally important to the Greek city-states.
• they were fiercely competitive communities that continually fought one another.
• their single most important civic activity was the worship of the god or goddess on whom each community was thought to depend.
• Athens, worshiped the goddess of Athena, and from the Athenian acropolis her temple, the Parthenon, or "Place of the Maiden", overlooked the whole city.
• Greek city-states were much like the Sumerians or Phoenicians, but they differed in one important respect: for the Greeks, the city-state was a community in which all of its members had a share and in which all are entitled to participate to a greater or lesser extent.
• the Greek language is the first to have been known to specific word for a member of such a community:"citizen."
• CITY-STATES AND CITIZENS
• The notion of citizen participation seems to have originated partly in geography.
• The Greek city-states first developed at exactly the time that the Assyrians were reaching for power westward from Mesopotamia.
• but Greece was protected by many miles of land and sea.
• with no universal empire to keep them in order, the city-states were free to struggle among themselves.
• they occupied a land that was far less wealthy than Mesopotamia or Phoenicia.
• in their conflicts with one another, they could not afford professional soldiers or large Calvary forces.
• instead, they had an infantry army made up of their own male citizens.
• they fought in formidable shock units of several hundred men each.
• PHALANXES - "rollers"
• poorer citizens fought as light-armed infantry.
• they were harassing they enemy ahead of the phalanx's charge 
• or, covering its vulnerable flanks.
•  this way of fighting was not new.
• much of the hoplites' equipment seems to have been modeled on that of Assyrian heavy infantry.
• among the Greeks, it was ordinary male citizens fighting in this way on whom the city-states depended for survival.
• the scene of the city-state as a community of all its citizens was reinforced by tradition and myth.
• each city-state was believed to have been founded by a family or clan form a divine or semi-divine founder.
• MONARCHY, OLIGARCHY, TYRANNY, DEMOCRACY
• monarchy - a state in which supreme power is held by a single, usually hereditary ruler (a monarch) 
• oligarchy - a state in which supreme power is held by a small group.
• tyranny - rule by a self-proclaimed dictator. (a tyrant)
• democracy - in ancient Greece, a form of government in which all adult male citizens were entitled to take part in decision making.
• earliest - monarchy.
• most powerful oligarchy - Sparta
• tyrannies were not successful so they turned into democracies.
• women were big on meeting and organizing things.
• Spartans were dependents of Greeks who conquered the southern mainland
• they wanted to push west for rich soil.
• age of 7 - boys were taken from their families to be taught how to fight
• age 20 - age of marriage.
• age 30 - free form the barracks
• women were praised if they gave great military ideas.
• Athens was one of the most wealthy and powerful city-states in Greece.
• voting was by a show of hands.
• women - not a big part of the democracy - neither were slaves.

talking about ancient greese

new ideas
incredible art forms
        had a lot of talent
democratic government with citizen participation
        the Greeks invented democracy.
innovations in warfare
        they liked to kick butt
        get in big groups and charge with about 100 people with spears and stuff...
4000 BC - farming and village life - farming crops, living in villages near rivers
3500 BC - some of these people are organized to form megaliths, massive rough-cut stones used to construct monuments, tombs, such as Stonehenge.
families are getting bigger and population is getting bigger.
lives centered around strength and courage, comradeship and loyalty, contests and battle.
arete - excellence.
they always do the best they can - unlike some of the world now.
they fought like maniacs.
tribe - social and political unit consisting of communities held together by common interests, traditions, and real or mythical ties of kinship.
they were great at metal-working.
really good at trade.
    not only trading things, but ideas and sometimes belief.
incorporated other people's ideas all the time.
didn't have great big huge cities.
still kind of hunters and gatherers but so much better at it.
Europe is different because of the nomads - wandering everywhere and settling in those different places and that's why there are so many different languages, food preparations, religion, everything.

Making a pyramid

Today we mad a a pyramid on the computer, and it was really hard to figure out. There were hints along the way to help you out, and i wrote them down to help me. Annie was my partner, and we finished i think it was second and we got an 18/20. I can't remember how we made the pyramid but again, it took a while.

The Greeks

• 2000 BC - they began to migrate into Europe's southeastern region.
• Greek city-states were the first to practice citizen participation in government.
• The city-states traded and colonized along the northern coast lands of the Mediterranean Sea.
• They were innovators in warfare, developing methods of fighting by land and sea.
• With the people of Europe, came an increase in population and wealth.
• By 3500 BC there were people in western Europe who were numerous and well organized enough to construct ceremonial monuments consisting of circles and rows of huge upright boulders.
• Along with the boulders, there were massive earthen tombs and fortifications.
• Megalithic structure - from the Greek words for "large boulder".
• these Megalithic structures have survived to this very day.
• These people were the first to use an agricultural tool, the plow.
• archaeologists know this because they have discovered traces of furrows in the soil on which they were originally built.
• Stonehenge - a huge, open-air monument built by a prosperous farming and trading people in the west of England, probably as a religious center.
• The Stonehenge was repeatedly rebuilt over a period of several hundred years, until it reached its final form about 2000 BC.
• This monument consists of about 160 massive boulders, weighing up to 50 tons each.
• all of these stones had to be dragged many miles to the site.
• Instead of their earlier tongues, the people of the region began to speak languages of Indo-European origin that were the distant ancestors of Greek and Latin, as well as of most European languages today.
• When a leading warrior died, his horses and chariot, his bronze swords and daggers, and his gold and silver drinking cups would all go to the grave with him.
• presumably so that he could go on riding, fighting, and drinking as a comrade of the gods in the afterlife.
• Next to the warrior would lie his wife, with her jewelry and her fine textiles and utensils, so that she, too, could go on fulfilling her role in the afterlife.
• that of a presiding over a household made wealthy by farming and war.
• she may even have been thought of as sharing in her husband's delights.
• Women shared the warrior values of their menfolk. they went to war along with the men-- not only to bring them food and bind their wounds but also to force them back into the fight if they panicked, and sometimes to join in the fighting themselves.
• The main business of life was farming.
• The different small groups of people would sometimes fight for metals, slaves, and other items that brought prestige to their possessors or could be exported to Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, or Egypt in return for some of the luxuries of civilization.
• Barbarian - comes from the Greek word barbaros, which originally meant "Non-Greek."
• Today, people often use the words "barbarian" and "barbaric" to describe those they believe to be less intelligent, refined, or humane than themselves.

Essay

         Ancient Egypt is the oldest known "government type" lifestyle. All the way at the bottom, was the slaves and servants. After them, comes the  Farmers, then artisans, then merchants then soldiers, government officials, and finally the pharaoh.  This layout of the government in Ancient Egypt is kind of like the one we have now in the US.  In the US, we have almost the same layout, except we don't have the slaves.  Like the US, Egypt got rid of the slave idea, but everything else is the same; the Pharaoh leading everything, as always, like a god.  The government officials were the ones laying down the law, making sure no law was broken.  The merchants were the ones getting the good stuff, and the soldiers were out fighting for land, rights, etc. The farmers made all the food that the people ate, and the merchants traded for other things. the slaves and servants were at the very bottom and were working for the rich and powerful people. They were the nobody's of Egypt.
       The Nile River was very important to the Egyptians. It had the fish, the water to bathe, drink, and transport things in.  If you needed to take a bath, you went to the Nile. If you needed water to drink or cook with, you go to the Nile. if you needed to go get some fish, you go to the Nile.  the fish one is kind of obvious, because the Nile was the only river within many many miles. If you need to transport goods to trade or bring back home, you use the Nile.  Everyone who uses the Nile as a resource, lived within a few miles of it. There was no vegetation after that few miles.  After a while, the Egyptians realized that there is a cycle of the Nile. every July it floods, so they might want to get their crops out of the way then. And they might want to plant new crops in October, because then the Nile provides rich and fertile soil and silt. The Nile is one of the few rivers that flow from South to North.
         So, the government in Ancient Egypt was first the pharaoh, then the government officials, the merchants and soldiers, artisans and farmers, then the slaves and servants. The only way that there could be people to even make this government happen is the Nile River is a provider for everyone there. The Nile provided the fish, bathing, drinking water, and transportation.

Cyber Day

1. the Egyptians made many different things to help with their lives, and three of them are sailboats, pyramids, and the mummification system. The sailboat was very useful, because using the Nile as transportation, it only flows in One Direction. (haha) anyway, it does, and it was hard for the people to pull their boats all the way back to where they started. the wind could now carry that boat back to their starting point instead of the people, and that was a load off their shoulders. The pyramids were massive stone tombs for the pharaohs to be buried in. These pyramids could range up to 500 feet! the mummification system was also used for the pharaohs, who were very well preserved.


2. Three important features in the pyramid were the maze inside, the granite on the pyramid that is not there anymore, and all the different chambers.  The maze inside made it harder for thieves to get in and steal the riches and possessions of the pharaoh. The granite stones that were on the pyramid were so close together and identical, so only the ones who knew where that one stone is could get in. The different chambers were for different things. The pharaoh had one, the queen had one, and there were many with the possessions and riches in it.

watching a video and going over the stuff we did the week before

The whole class was talking, as usual, and we got yelled at. we really deserved it, we shouldn't be talking the whole class. honestly, I talk; but not all the time. I like to learn. Anyway, we watched the video about the mummification again, because we actually had the audio this time. we also watched a video on the pyramids and the inside. On the inside is a maze where all the chambers are, so thieves couldn't brake in and steal the gold and possessions. I think that this unit is very interesting because i like this kind of stuff. how smart the Ancient Egyptians were to be able to build this kind of stuff.

Great Class Doing Nothing

Today we had a strange class... Arri and Laura were fighting because Arri was being stupid and doing that thing with his pencil that he always does and annoys the crap out of everybody. Anyway, Laura finally cracked, and started "soft-yelling" at Arri to stop, and Mr. Schick cracked too, and took the desk drawer and dropped it on the floor, things flying everywhere.Luckily, we are on the 1st floor, so nobody was under us to hear that. Mr. Schick was actually mad, and telling Laura to stop talking, and Arri to stop doing whatever he was doing with his pencil. it took about twenty minutes to pick everything up, basically nobody helping. I feel bad that i barely helped. after that was picked up, Mr. Schick said "That was not the first time I broke a desk... This desk." apparently, he tried to stand on her desk and the leg broke. Today was an interesting class. A REALLY funny class. I almost died Mr. Schick! You almost killed a student! ISN'T MAKING A STUDENT CRY ENOUGH!? I'm kidding. have a nice day Mr. Schick. :)

More Notes on Egyptian Life

I have my notebook this time, and i'm sorry if i repeat anything. 

• Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt - the "Two Lands"
• Nile River flows from south to north.
• Egypt is centered around the Nile River.
• about 95% of the people live within a few miles of the Nile.
• The Nile was the major provider of life for the Egyptians and was much revived in lore and writing.
• C. 3100 B.C. the two lands were united under a single king or "Pharaoh".
• pharaoh - worshiped as a god, ruler of government and ruler of religion.
• pharaoh could "talk" to the element gods.
• Egyptians relied on a harmony and balance of the universe, which they called "maat".
• women could inherit money and land and divorce their husbands, though only a tiny few ever wielded real power (political power)
• middle class women actually didn't have it that bad. they could run businesses, own land, etc.
• gods were often portrayed wit animal heads or bodies.
• Egyptians believed in an after-life and mummified bodies to preserve them for this post-death journey.
• not all people were mummified... it was the rich and powerful .
• pyramids were massive tombs for the pharaohs.
• 2 ways of writing - Hieroglyphs and Hieratic.
• Hieroglyphs - represented religious worlds, or parts of worlds, and most commonly adorned temples.
• Hieratics - Hieratic script was a shorthand developed by scribes and priests.
• Egyptian astronomers created a calendar with 365 days to make better sense of the seasonal cycles.
• due to their excellent knowledge of the human anatomy, Egyptian doctors wrote extensively on health issues and created potions and cures for a number of common ailments.  
• pyramids were massive stone tombs. 
• NO slaves made the pyramids.
• there was a maze inside the pyramids so thieves couldn't get to the pharaoh's riches and possessions. 
• geography, daily life, pharaohs, gods and goddesses, and pyramids - the 5 elements of Ancient Egypt.
• Nile - worlds longest river - 4,000 miles!
• water for drinking, irrigating, bathing, and transportation.
• every July the Nile floods, and every October it leaves behind rich soil.
• Delta - broad, marshy, triangular, fertile silt.
• PYRAMIDS
• THE GREAT SPHINX OF GIZA-
• built 2555 - 2532 BC.
• a recumbent lion with a human's head
• oldest monumental statue in the world - 4,500 + years old!
• *DAILY LIFE*
• pharaoh 
• government officials - nobles, priests
• soldiers
• merchants
• actisians
• farmers
• slaves and servants.
• (starting from the bottom of the food chain)
• SLAVES -
• helped the wealthy with household and child raising duties.
• FARMERS -
• raised wheat, barely, lentils, onions - bentiful from irrigation of the Nile
• ARTISANS - 
• carve statues reliefs showing military battles 
• MERCHANTS -
• money/barter system was used - merchants might accept bags of grain for payment - later, coinage came about.
• SCRIBES -
• kept records, told stories, poetry, described anatomy and medical treatments. - wrote in Hieroglyphs and Hieratic.
• SOLDIERS - 
• wooden weapons but had bronze tips. - might ride chariots.
• UPPER CLASS AKA THE "WHITE KILT CLASS" - 
• priests, physicians, engineers
• PHARAOH - 
• religious and political leader
• title - "Lord of the Two Lands" and "High Priest of Every Temple".
• "Lord of Two Lands" - ruler of Upper and Lower Egypt.

• Hatshepsut was a woman who served as pharaoh.
• Cleopatra VII also served as pharaoh, but much later (51-30 BC) more on her when we study Greece.
• GODDESSES AND GODS - 
• over 2,000 gods and goddesses!
• sun god - Ra
• they "controlled" the lives of humans.

that's how far we got in class today. we didn't take all of these notes in class, but i forgot my notebook at school on Friday so i wrote down the notes from Friday.

More Notes

Today we took more notes. I forgot my notebook in my locker, but we basically just went over what we did last week because of all the snow days. Then, we were talking about the old class and how much we miss Grace's remarks. Then class ended.

notes on LO-3

• Egyptian civilization was more stable than Mesopotamia.
• the Nile River is 4,000 miles long! (WOW! (:  )
• the Nile River starts in Central Africa to the Mediterranean Sea.
• Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt. ("Two Lands")
• Upper Egypt- 500 miles long and 12 miles wide
• Lower Egypt- fan-shaped pattern of waterways formed by the Nile River
• Pharaoh- word to mean "palace"
• "palace" meant the king back then 
• in Egypt, the Pharaoh was a human with god-like features. they were "god-kings".
• Pharaohs were treated like gods on earth, because that's what the Egyptians thought the pharaohs were.
• the only women that were treated like gods were the Pharaoh's mother and Principal wife (sometimes the sister of half sister).
• the pharaohs were always half human, half animal in paintings and sculptures.

doing nothing

Today we talked about going home half way through class, because it started snowing like 20 minuted ago, and the snow is already sticking. I cant wait to get home and take a nap, after i finish this blog. We at least could have gotten a 2 hour delay, because of the snow WARNING.

Western Civ. reading

• civilization is a new concept compared to humans being on earth
• it took thousands of centuries for the environment to turn into a civilization.
• this time in age, there was no writing, so it's called the prehistoric age. 
• there was different times that different parts of the world started writing things down, so there is no world-wide end to the prehistoric age.
• the first human is thought to be in East Africa.
• humans started to get more complex, making them weaker in the immune system, digestion system, etc. but, their brains got bigger.
• Paleolithic age- earliest and longest prehistoric era
• during the old stone age, humans were hunters, fishers, and gatherers of plants.
• humans sheltered in caves and temporary huts. after there was no more food, they would move on.
• the cave drawings were not animals that the people hunted, but rather "worshiped".
• science, art and religion were there in the prehistoric era.
• the "agricultural revolution" was a huge step from hunting, gathering, and fishing to farming, taming plants and animals, and staying in one place their whole lives.
• the first revolution began in southwestern Asia.
• people could not do things on their own, so they needed their families.
• villages and families were connected with a religion.
• when farming started, there was a separation between the genders. (men overpowering" women)
• when there was wealth in the families, they wanted to give it to their offspring, so the women had to watch their behavior a little more than men did, but the men still had to watch their behavior.
• "the rise of the true civilizations" was when the people started to get more into the civilization thing.
• the first civilizations were in Mesopotamia.