February 28, 2014 (the day before I meet Demi Lovato)

Greek city state was also known as polis. The city states were small places generally consisting of no more than a town and a few square miles of surrounding countryside. Only a few thousands lived in Greek city state, but Athens reached up to 250,000 people.
The towns were built around a hill which stood on top of it was an Acropolis.
Acropolis- the high fortified citadel and religious center of an ancient Greek Town.
The Greek city states were very competitive and often fought one another.

**Know where the Aegean, Ionian, and the Adriatic Sea are.
**Aegean- east side of Greece
**Ionian- southwest side of Greece
(know where they are located)

**Crete- southeast of Greece
**Athens
**Peloponnese
**Sparta
(know where they are located)

**Mediterranean- means middle of the earth

February 28, 2014

Today in Western Civ, Phil and Matt did a presentation and read from Matt's blog. They talked about the notes in LO3 that they have written down. For example, they talked about Greek cities, military, and government. Matt and Phil had an extremely tough time pronouncing the words, but that made it even funnier. We looked at pictures on Google when trying to explain some military terms, and then we continued on with the class. For the rest of the class, we went over the rest of their blog(s). During the class, I was freaking out, with Paula and Jesseca, every now and then over the fact that tomorrow, I have a big concert that I'm going to and it is seriously going to change my life. BUT this blog is about Western Civ, so I guess what im going to say is that we had a very fun class today (just like every other Western Civ class we have ).

February 27, 2014

Today in class, we had a sub and we went to his room. We spent the whole class in groups doing a powerpoint on certain topics in the Spartan and Athens life. Some of the topics were education, militaty, roles of women, and so many more. I was working with Paula, Maddie, and Jesseca. We had a good time working on it and we really work well together. I think that our powerpoint is going to be on point!

February 26, 2014

Today for Western Civilization, I was not in class.

February 25, 2014

Today in class, we pretty much took notes the whole time. Every once and a while, Mr. Schick would give us a break to give our hands a break because all of our notes are handwritten and he goes kinda fast when continuing the slides. He was explaining some poems that a guy named Homer wrote and then he told us about how when his daughter, he would read her The Odyssey as her bedtime story. It is a poem with over 12k lines. It is a poem that isn't easily read by younger people, so he was surprised that she was getting into it and really liked it. I thought it was cool how at such a young age, she really did enjoy the poem! When he was done telling us that story, we go the last slide of notes, ended the powerpoint, and then one minute later, the bell rang for class to end.

February 21, 2014

-Barbarians are people that has a distinctive way of life, based on farming and warfare

-"Within classical Greek civilization, there appeared ideas, art forms, and types of government whose influence on western civilization has lasted down to the present day."

-The earliest Greek civilization was very much an offshoot of the ways of life of their eastern neighbors

-Citadel and Shrine: the Athenian Acropolis was already ancient when its temples were rebuilt after Persian invaders destroyed them in the 5th century

-Barbarian A-team used to describe the distinctive way of life based on farming, warfare, and tribal organization that became widespread in Europe based around 2500 BC

-Megaliths: massive rough-cut stones used to construct monuments and tombs

-Tribe: a social and political unit consisting  of a group of communities held together by common interests, traditions, and real or mythical ties of kinship

-Over three thousand years up to the time of the Persian Empire, civilization had spread from its Sumerian and Egyptian homelands right across southwestern Asia and northeastern Africa

Mr. Schick's Notes

Why the Greeks rocked:

• New ideas
• Incredible art forms
• Democratic government w/ citizen participation
• Innovators in warfare

Lo1 - The European Barbarians

• 4000 BC - farming and village life spreads from Sumerian and Egyptian lands across SW Asia and NE Africa, and the European continent

• 3500 BC - some are organized enough to construct megaliths, massive rough-cut stones used to construct monuments and tombs, such as Stonehenge (finished in England in 2000 BC), consisting of 160 massive boulders weighing up to 50 tons (100,000 pounds) each, stacked and circled and aligned to the movements of sun and moon

• From 2500 BC on - Indo-European nomads migrated from the steppes in eastern Europe

• Their language would evolve into Greek and Latin
• Their lives centered around strength and courage, comradeship and loyalty, contests and battle
• Thinner populations than Egypt or Mesopotamia - they formed tribes, social and political unit consisting of communities held together by common interests, traditions, and real or mythical ties of kinship
• Tribes were headed by powerful hereditary chieftains, thought of as kings (or, rarely queens)

• This is how Europe came to be populated by speakers of Indo- European languages who were skilled in farming, metalworking, trade, and warfare
• No cities, no written records, no fixed structures of government
• They were barbarians (from Greek barbaros - "non-Greek"
• They adopted the way of life of those they encountered, and as they traveled (from 2000 BC to AD 1000), this is how civilization eventually spread throughout Europe
• The distinctive civilization the Greeks developed is the first that counts as definitely "Western"

 

 

Slideshow Notes

 

Geography of Greece

• Mountainous peninsula
• Mountains cover 3/4
• Approximately 1,400 islands in the Aegean and Ionian Seas
• Location shaped its culture
• Skilled sailors
• Poor natural resources
• Difficult to unite the ancient Greeks because of the terrain; developed small, independent communities

 

Geography (cont.)

 

• Approximately 20% suitable for farming
• Fertile valleys cover 1/4 of peninsula
• Because of geography the Greek diet consists of grains, grapes, olives
• Lack of resources most likely led to Greek colonization
• Temperatures range from 48 in the winter to 80 in the summer

 

February 20, 2013

Today in class, I was in class, but for most of it, I was in the hallway with Jevan taking my test. I don't really think I did very good on the test. When I finished the test, I came back into the classroom. I took my seat and the class went over the test together. The other thing Mr. Schick did was joke around with Carly about the whole 911 thing she has going in her life. It was really funny! Then we finished going over the test and just kinda sat in our seats until the bell rang.

February 19,2014

I was not in class today because I was in guidance.

February 18, 2014

I wasn't in class today because I was at a doctor's appointment.

February 14, 2014

Essay 1

The social hierarchy of the Egyptians was structured similar to a pyramid.  At the top of the pyramid were the gods.  The Egyptians believed that the gods ruled the universe.  They also had the human form of their gods were called pharaohs and they were also at the top of the pyramid.  They believed that the gods could cause things to happen such as the Nile over flow, famine and even death.  This was why they wanted to keep them happy. 

The Egyptians trusted their gods with many responsibilities.  Protection was on of their main responsibilities.  The Pharaohs were in charge of the army in case of a foreign threat.  The Pharaoh was responsible for enacting all laws.  Taxes were paid to the Pharaoh by the farmers in the form of grain.  The grain was kept in the Pharaoh’s warehouses.  The grain was used to feed people on case there was a famine. The Pharaoh’s also had some help keeping track of all these responsibilities, they had a supervisor called a vizier who made sure the taxes were collected. 

Under the Pharaoh’s in the Egyptian social structure were government officials, nobles and priests.  It is important to note that only nobles could hold government posts.  The priests were responsible for pleasing the gods.  The nobles were also wealthy because everyone gave gifts to the gods and the nobles got some of those gifts for their own use.    Next were soldiers followed by scribes, then merchants.    The soldiers fought in the wars but also supervised the peasants, farmers and slaves were were building the pyramids.  The middle class were the skilled workers such as the physicians and the craftspeople.  The craftspeople, who made the jewelry, papyrus, pottery and other items, purchased their supplies from the artisans and the traders.  Who were at the top of the bottom 3 tiers of the pyramid.  They were followed by farmers and at the bottom were slaves and servants.  The slaves were those captured as prisoners of war.  They were forced to work o the building projects but they also did what the Pharaoh’s and the nobles wanted from them.  The farmers tended to the fields and the animals as well as kept the canals and reservoirs in good condition.  Social mobility really did not occur.  Some of the farmers saved their money to send their sons to school so they could become scribes and move up in the pyramid. 

 

Essay 2  

The Nile River was extremely important in the lives of the Egyptians.  The Egyptians depended on it for food, water, transportation, building materials, and their general livelihood.  The Nile River helped create a fertile valley as most of Egypt was a desert.  This fertile ground helped civilization grow as cities began to grow up ok the banks of the Nile River because of how fertile the land was.  Most Egyptians lived near the Nile so they used it for their source of water for both their families as well as a source of water for their crops and animals. 

The primary crops the Egyptians grew were wheat, flax and papyrus.  These crops few well along the banks of the Nile.  Wheat was their main staple food for Egyptians.  Flax was used to make linen cloth for their clothing which was the primary cloth they used.  Finally papyrus was a plant that grew along the Nile as well.  The Egyptians used it for paper, baskets, rope and sandals.  The floods would come each year n September and at first they thought it was a bad thing but it actually brought the crops back even more fertile then before and renewed their farmlands.  The Egyptians also used the mud from the banks of the river to build with by making bricks.  They also found limestone and sandstone from the hills along the Nile.

The Egyptians also used the Nile River as the primary monde of their transportation.  Due to the fact that they lived near the river, it was what they used for transportation.  The majority of the main cities were built along the Nile River.  The river was used as a major highway throughout the Egyptian empire.  Boats were constantly carrying people and goods up and down the Nile River.  The Egyptians even built their calendar around the Nile River.  They had their calendar divided up into 3 seasons and they were related to the flooding and growth seasons of the crops on the Nile.

February 13, 2014

The Egyptians had many technological innovations and inventions.  The plow was one of these inventions.  They were built with hand tools and were inefficient.  The Egyptians also invented the lock.  It was a pi hand tumbler lock and a drawback was that some of them were very large.  Finally the use of written language.  Drawings existed for a long time but using them as a form of written language was first done by the Egyptians.

The Egyptian pyramids are amazing structures.  The earliest pyramids were made of stone blocks.  Later they also used limestone.  Each pyramid had a King’s chamber, which had the mummified body of a Pharaoh that was placed in a sarcophagus.  The pyramids were never an isolated structure, they were part of a complex that included a mortuary temple.   

 

February 4, 2014

Due to the spread of civilization, civilization in Egypt occurred. Egypt’s civilization was more stable and successful than Mesopotamia’s. Foreign invasions did not happen as much as Mesopotamia’s. As well as political and sectional problems did not happen as much, as well. Egypt’s civilization welcomed cultural differences and because to this, their culture grew stronger during the many, many years. Egypt is split up into two groups and stretches along the Nile River. Upper Egypt is fertile land, while Lower Egypt is made up of smaller rivers formed by the Nile. Sooner or later, the two lands were unified and ruled by a pharaoh. A Pharaoh was looked at as a man that should be obeyed because the Gods themselves of everything these people believed gave him power. They believed that the Pharaohs at that period had all authority. So people in Egypt obeyed the Pharaohs thinking they had power.