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.
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:
Today we are studying Egyptian religion.
This is the presentation. You can find more information about Egyptian religion at page 150 of your book. On page 153 there is a drawing with the structure of an Egyptian temple.
Now complete this form to demonstrate that you have read and understood this lesson.
Do exercise 1 of page 150. Complete the table with three gods that appear in the book and another god or goddess that is not in the book. Find also where there was a temple in Egypt for each one of the four gods.
As you have studied in the previous unit, the difference between prehistory and history proper is writing. Mesopotamians invented the first writing system. The other river civilisations (Egypt, India, China) also invented their own writing systems: of all these, Chinese script is the only writing system that is still in use.
In the presentation you can see how Mesopotamians and Egyptians invented writing, the basic characteristics of their writing systems and what they used them for. In your book, there is some information about cuneiform writing at page 134 (section 5.1) and hieroglyphic script at page 152 (section 6.1)
It is important that you understand that not all the civilisations in the word discovered writing at the same time. The peoples that had writing systems are considered historical civilisations, those peoples that could not write are prehistorical, even if they lived at the same time.
This video shows you the origins of writing systems in the world.
In this animated map you can see how writing systems expanded throughout Europe from 2000 BC until AD 2019 (you don't need to watch the whole video, just click at different moments to see how the map changes).
Answer this form to see if you have understood the lesson. There are only 3 questions today.
In this unit we are going to study the first historical civilisations. This first lesson is an introduction of the contents that we are going to study in the unit.
The questions that we are going to ask ourselves are: – Why did the first historical civilisations appear in the valleys of great rivers? – What distinctive features do those historical civilisations share?
We are going to focus on the two of those civilisations that had most influence on the modern European civilisation: Mesopotamia and Egypt. Both of them emerged at the ends of the Fertile Crescent area, which you know well from the previous lesson. In the next lessons we shall focus on the history of Egypt, which is simpler than the history of the Mesopotamian kingdoms and empires.
This is the presentation on the contents of this lesson. In some slides there is a reference to the pages of your book where you can read extra information.
Some important vocabulary for this lesson:
To dig: to make a hole in the ground: to dig a canal.
Irrigation: watering plants with an artificial method, usually for agriculture. You can bring water into the plants from a river by a canal, or using a pump, or dig a well to get the water.
Flood: a period of high water level in a river, when the water goes out of the normal river bed.
Slime: the wet mud that you can find in a river. After a flood, the flooded areas are covered with slime.
To sow: to plant seeds.
Ruler (person): the person who leads the government of a country. The pharaoh was the ruler of Ancient Egypt.
Public works
To settle a dispute
Stratum (plural strata): a layer, a level in a vertical succession. Archaeologists dig in their excavations looking for the strata in the subsoil which contain remains from the past
Many Mesopotamian cities were destroyed and people forgot about them: in their place you could only see something that looked like a natural hill or mountain, which local people called tell. These hills were formed by the accumulation of archaeological strata from different periods. Excavation reveal the ruins that date from the successive historical moments.
In the image: excavation at Tell-Hazna (Syria)
This is also time to remember the geography of the Fertile crescent area, which you have studied this year. You will need it for the test.
Once you have read the contents of the lesson, fill in the form below to prove you have read and understood this.
You should receive an e-mail asking you for some exercises.
