Unit 10, lesson 6: Greek religion and philosophy

This final lesson corresponds to section 6, page 170 of your book.
We end this unit with religion and the most important cultural legacy of Greece beside art: philosophy.

This is the presentation (sorry, there are no oral comments)



And to end with this unit you can do this final test to check how much you have learned.

Unit 10, lesson 5: Greek art

In this lesson we are going to study Greek art. This lesson is very important because Greek art is the source of almost all artistic styles in Europe until the 20th century AD: you can see Greek forms in plenty of works of art.

You can find these contents in pages 172-175 of your book.

This is the presentation of the contents.



This version contains comments in English



And this one is in Spanish (I suggest that you watch this one for learning the translation of architectural vocabulary).



There are plenty of Youtube videos if you want to learn more about art. The Smarthistory channel contains lots of stuff, I've chosen the following ones as the most representative of this lesson's content, but there are lots of others.

This video is about the characteristics of classical orders and how Greek orders influenced Roman and also modern architecture: you can see these orders everywhere! (you can choose Spanish subtitles if you want)



In this video you can see a commentary of the Doryphorus, look especially at the difference between archaic and classical Greek sculpture.

Unit 10, lesson 4: Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic period

In this lesson we are going to study the importance of the last period of Ancient Greek history: the Hellenistic period. We must pay special attention to the figure of Alexander the Great (Alejandro Magno in Spanish).

The essential information is at page 163, section 2.2 of your book, here there are more details if you want to learn more.

This is the presentation.



And here is my commentary on the presentation.





TASKS FOR NEXT THURSDAY:

Exercise 1 (This is similar to exercise 2 of page 163)

a) What were the geographical limits of Alexander the Great's empire?  Describe them making reference to geographical accidents (mountain ranges, seas or rivers), you can see them on this map.

Example: In Europe, Alexander's empire dominated the largest part of the Balkan Peninsula: the northern  frontier was at the Danube River.

b) Look at the map on page 163 of your book. What are the names of the modern countries where the cities with Alexander's name (Alexandria, Alexandropolis) are located?

Example: there was one city called Alexandria in each one of these modern countries: Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.


Exercise 2 : 
Answer these questions using the information below.
1. Why do some people say that Alexander was a villain (a bad person)?
2. Why do other people say he was a hero?
3. What is your opinion: do you think he was a villain or a hero? Why?


A) Villain

Was Alexander the Great really great? Or was he an evil conqueror? Those who see him as cruel give this as evidence against Alexander. They say he:

• destroyed Persepolis

• attacked Tyre, killing 10,000 people and enslaving 30,000

• treated his slaves harshly

• ordered the murder of several close advisers.

Many legends about Alexander have been told. This one says he was a devil:

“The following is my favourite story which is found all the way from Turkey to Kazakhstan: Iskander  [Alexander] was actually a devil and he had horns. But his hair was long and wavy and the horns were never seen. Only his barbers knew. But he feared they could not keep the secret. So, he killed them when they discovered. His last barber pretended not to notice and kept the secret. Eventually though he could bear it no longer and, as he could tell no one, he ran to a well and called down the well: ‘Iskander has horns!’ But in the bottom of the well were whispering reeds [used in flutes] and they echoed the story until it went round the whole world.”

—Michael Wood, “In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great” (see the note at the end).

Vocabulary:

a devil - un diablo

horns - cuernos

to bear (verb) - soportar, aguantar

a well (noun) - un pozo

a whispering reed - un junco que susurra (más que un junco es una caña, con ellas se hacían flautas)

________

B) Hero 

Other historians consider Alexander the Great to be a hero. They claim he brought progress, order, and culture to each new land he conquered. In support of him, they say Alexander

• tried to promote learning

• visited all of his wounded men after each battle

• spared (saved) the lives of the queen and princess of Persia

• built new cities where others had been destroyed.

Arrian, a Greek historian who lived in the 2nd century A.D., wrote about Alexander this way:

“I think there was at that time no race of men, no city, nor even a single individual who did not know about Alexander’s name and fame. For this reason it seems to me that a hero totally unlike any other human being could not have been born without the help of gods.”

—Arrian, The Anabasis of Alexander

On two points all historians agree:

Alexander was a brilliant general and he was a brave fighter. He once said this to his men:

“There is no part of my body that is free from wounds. (...) I have been wounded with the sword in close fight, I have been shot with arrows, and I have been struck with projectiles from engines of war; and though often I have been hit with stones and bolts of wood for protecting your lives, your glory, and your wealth, I am still leading you as conquerors over all the land and sea, all rivers, mountains, and plains. I have celebrated your weddings with my own, and the children of many of you will be akin to my children.”

—Arrian, The Anabasis of Alexander

Vocabulary:

to agree - estar de acuerdo

wounds - heridas

arrows - flechas

bolts - flechas (en este caso)

weddings - bodas

to be akin to somebody - ser parientes

Note: the legend about Alexander's horns has a real basis: in some Hellenistic coins, Alexander's head was represented with horns: a symbol of the Egyptian god Amun. (After Alexander's death he was considered like a god, the same as Egyptian pharaohs or, later, Roman emperors).

Source of this exercise: https://nsms6thgradesocialstudies.weebly.com/uploads/3/7/2/4/37241339/alexander_the_great.pdf

Unit 10, lesson 3: Life and politics in Sparta and Athens

(The task for this week is at the end of this entry).

In this lesson I have condensed sections 3, 4 and 5 of unit 10 of your book. The most important part is section 3, page 164: Spartan oligarchy and Athenian democracy.
In the presentation there is more information that may help you understand:

• How the poleis developed oligarchic governments in the Archaic period.
• How some of them (such as Athens) switched from oligarchy to democracy.
• How Sparta was different from other poleis and continued to be an oligarchy.
• How the different characteristics of the inhabitants (jobs, wealth, social groups) had an influence in politics and daily life.

Since there are many different topics I haven't recorded an oral explanation. I prefer that you watch this video.



This one is a little bit more complicated, it may help you understand the differences between Ancient Greek and modern democracy.



If you're interested in learning more about life in Sparta and Athens, you can watch this video:


__________
TASK FOR THIS WEEK (Friday)
Do exercises 1, 2, 3 and 5 of page 179 of your book.

Unit 10, lesson 2: The classical period

(At the end of the entry there are instructions for the exercise).

In this lesson we are going to study the classical period of the history of Greece (section 2.1 of pages 162-163 of your book).

This is the presentation:



And this video contains comments in Spanish about the presentation.



In the next lesson we are going to continue studying the political organisation of Sparta and Athens in this period (page 164).
__________
TAREA para este jueves: ejercicio 1 de la pág. 162. 

Explicación del ejercicio:
Completando  la tabla vamos a resumir lo más importante de las Guerras Médicas y de la Guerra del Peloponeso:

• "Protagonists in conflict": aquí con "protagonistas" nos referimos a las ciudades o países, más que a los individuos. ¿Qué ciudades o reinos se enfrentaron en cada bando de la guerra?
• "Causes of the conflict" ¿Cuáles fueron las causas del conflicto?, es decir, ¿por qué motivos empezó la guerra?
• "Consequences of the conflict": ¿Cuáles fueron las consecuencias del conflicto?, o dicho de otra manera: ¿qué bando ganó la guerra, qué ventajas obtuvo, cómo quedó la situación en Grecia, qué pasó con los perdedores...?

Unit 10. Greece. Lesson 1: Early Greek history and the Archaic Period

This is the first lesson of a of a new unit: Greece.
The Greek civilisation is at the origin of modern European civilisation and culture. It is very important that we study the Greek origins of a lot of elements that are still part of our life:

• Greek mythology, which has influenced art and literature until modern times.
• Greeks invented the word "history" and history, as a narrative of the past that was independent from myths and religious stories.
• Philosophy is another Greek invention. 
• The Olympic Games.
• Democracy.
• Greek art was the model of all later artistic styles, at least until the 20th century.

This lesson corresponds to pages 160-161 of your book, but I have also included some information that is not in your book, about the Minoan and Mycenaean civilisations of the 2nd millennium BC.
This is the presentation. The part about the second millennium (slides 3 to 7) is indicated as extra content.



I have recorded my comments in two parts, just in case you want to skip the first part about the Minoan and Mycenaean periods.

Unit 8/9. Lesson 5: Art in Mesopotamia and Egypt

This is the final lesson of this unit. We are going to study basically the art of Ancient Egypt but it's necessary to mention a little bit of Mesopotamian art.
This is the presentation. In your book you can also read sections 5.2 and 5.3 of page 134 about Mesopotamian art and sections 6.2 and 6.3 of page 152 about Egyptian art.



I've also uploaded the presentation in video format, with my comments, if you prefer:

Here I give you a bilingual wordlist with terms of art history that we have come across:

Beam: viga
Gate: puerta (entrada monumental)
Hypogeum: hipogeo
Hypostyle hall: sala hipóstila
Lintel: dintel
Post-and-lintel architecture: arquitectura adintelada o arquitrabada
Relief: relieve (escultórico). There are two main types of relief.

• High relief is a relief were the figures stand out of the wall, although they are not separated from it (altorrelieve)

  

  Triad of Mykerinos: high relief

• Low relief or bas-relief is a relief were the figures stand out very little on the surface of the wall (bajorrelieve)

  

  Low relief: the wounded lioness from Ashurbanipal's palace (Nineveh, Assyria)

• Egyptians also practised sunk relief, which is sculpted at a lower level than the surrounding wall  (relieve hundido) 

  

  Horus (sunk relief)

Stepped pyramid: pirámide escalonada

Next Monday we are going to do some test or exercises to finish this lesson and then we will start studying Greece.

If you are interested in learning more about Mesopotamian and Egyptian sculpture, here I post some videos for the weekend.

In the first lesson we saw the victory stele of Naram-Sin of Akkad (3rd millennium BC).



This video is about the relief decoration of Ashurbanipal's palace (7th century BC)



This video is a little bit longer. It talks about Hatshepsut, her monuments and Egyptian history in general



Akhenaten's religious reform also affected the rules of Egyptian art:



And finally this video is about the Judgement of Osiris, Egyptian painting and writing: