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The Minoans derived their name from their kingdom of Minos, located on Crete

The kingdom was probably divided into eight “pre-city states” each with an identical central palace. Approximately every 300 years these palaces were destroyed by earthquakes and then rebuilt in the same location

The palace of Knossos (kuh-NOH-soss) located on Crete. This was the largest of the Minoan palaces.

A sketch of what the palace of Knossos probably looked like.

Ruins of Knossos showing a brightly painted wall

The central palaces served as redistribution centers where a bartering system was used to exchange goods. Remaining goods were traded along the Mediterranean coast as far as Egypt and Lebanon

Minoan art often included images of dolphins and flying fish as shown on this vase.

A Minoan Gold Seal

Pottery jars that may have been used in trade

Mycenaeans came to power on the Greek mainland.

The Minoans, who had no fortifications and so were easily taken, are conquered somewhere between 1500-1450 B.C. The Mycenaeans were the most likely conquerors as they take control of Crete

A stone carving of a Mycenaean warrior

The Warriors Vase is an example of Mycenaean pottery and its name is derived from its depiction

In the central palace lived the royal family. Craftsmen and their workshops were in the outer courts, consisting namely of metal workers (bronze, gold, etc.), pottery workers, woods crafters, and ivory craftsmen. In houses outside the fortified walls could be found merchants of wine, ivory, textiles, and other goods

The Mycenaeans were probably a very warlike people, whose palaces were heavily fortified. As such they became dark and dreary places. To compensate for the dark ambience, palaces were painted with garish geometric patterns

In 1250 B.C. the Mycenaean culture came to an abrupt and unexplained end.

Ruins of the Lion Gate, located at Mycenae. Named for the image of two lions facing each other. It was the main entrance to the citadel of Mycenae

The Mask of Agamemnon, discovered at the ruins of Mycenae by Heinrich Schliemann in 1876. Archeological research suggests the mask did not belong to Agamemnon, having been crafted prior to his lifetime.

Squatters, sea peoples from the western Mediterranean, and barbarians from the north took over. No written record was kept during this time making it an illiterate period with no representational arts.

This region goes unmentioned in writings from other cultures.

A sub-geometric vase from the Greek Dark Ages

1250-1100 B.C.

By 800 B.C., recovery had begun in full with the Ionians in the north and the Dorians in the south. International contact in trade had been established both east and west and an alphabet had been borrowed from the Phoenicians.

Phoenician alphabet

A Doric Column, named for the Dorian culture which set up near Sparta

An Ionic Column named for the Ionian culture which set up near Athens

Both Ionian (Athenian) and Dorian(Spartan) cultures were self sufficient farming communities where family was important, giving birth to the polis or independent city state.

The more civilized government structure allowed for more dependable agricultural practices, better trade goods, and the conquering and colonization of other peoples who would then be forced to adopt the practices of the Spartans and Athenians

These colonies had been areas with little organization making them easily conquered

The Greeks sent men to conquer and enslave the natives. Women were taken as wives and the natural resources were sent back to the city states.

Byzantion, modern day Istanbul (top) in Turkey and Marseilles (bottom) in France were originally Ancient Greek colonies

After rebuffing the Persians, Greece started a war with itself. The Athenians had led the Greeks in the Persian wars and did not want to give up the control they had gained. Sparta allied with Corinth and a few other small city-states to lay siege to Athens. This was ineffective as the Spartans had no ships and the Athenians could sail to bring in supplies. The tide of battle did not turn in Spartan favor until a mysterious plague killed off hundreds of Athenians, including Pericles, the leading general of the Athenians.

This is the period most often associated with Ancient Greece. This was the time of the great philosophers we hear of today. The Greeks were left weak from their Civil War and as such were easy prey for the Macedonians from the North. King Phillip conquered the Greeks and, when he was assassinated in 336 B.C., his son Alexander succeeded him to the throne.

The School of Athens by Raphael, depicting many famous Greeks including Aristotle, Plato, Pythagoras, Epicurus, Socrates and Euclid

A bust of Alexander the Great who began his rule at 20. He led the Macedonians and Greeks to defeat the Persians.

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The lives of men and women differed greatly in Ancient Greece even across cultures. Click here to explore these differences.

Well you explore, ponder these questions:

What aspects of life are different? Similar?

Why do you think these differences occurred?

Do we still see similar differences today?

Why do you suppose there were such defined differences between Athenian and Spartan cultures?

"Why, then, Socrates, my habit is to rise from bed betimes, when I may still expect to find at home this, that, or the other friend whom I may wish to see. Then, if anything has to be done in town, I set off to transact the business and make that my walk; or if there is no business to transact in town, my serving boy leads on my horse to the farm; I follow, and so make the country road my walk, which suits my purpose quite as well or better, Socrates, perhaps, than pacing up and down the colonnade [in the city]. Then when I have reached the farm, where mayhap some of my men are planting trees, or breaking fallow, sowing, or getting in the crops, I inspect their various labors with an eye to every detail, and whenever I can improve upon the present system, I introduce reform.

After this, usually I mount my horse and take a canter. I put him through his paces, suiting these, so far as possible, to those inevitable in war, - in other words, I avoid neither steep slope, nor sheer incline, neither trench nor runnel, only giving my uttermost heed the while so as not to lame my horse while exercising him. When that is over, the boy gives the horse a roll, and leads him homeward, taking at the same time from the country to town whatever we may chance to need. Meanwhile I am off for home, partly walking, partly running, and having reached home I take a bath and give myself a rub, - and then I breakfast, - a repast that leaves me neither hungry nor overfed, and will suffice me through the day."

In mild weather, infants often went unclothed or wore only a cloth diaper and children wore a cloth tied around their middle. Men wore knee-length tunics and most went barefoot. Women wore one long piece of cloth draped around the body and pinned to stay in place. As with women’s clothing today, different fashions arose as people found different methods to pin the cloth.

Statuette of an infant from Hellenistic Greece

Vase depicting typical female dress

Most children in Ancient Greece did not attend school as most Greeks were poor and only boys whose parents could afford the expenses were formally educated. Girls stayed at home, learning from their mothers, until they were married. Boys who were not educated became soldiers, potters, metalworkers, builders, famers, fishermen, sailors, and tradesmen.

Detail on a vase depicting Greek education. The teacher is sitting and the pupils stand before him.

A sketch of Socrates still teaching even with the hemlock held in his hand and men weeping in the background.

Ancient Greece had a warm dry climate fostering the growth of olives, grapes, figs, and almonds. A Greek’s diet typically consisted mostly of bread, wine, and olive oil. Meat was rarely eaten, most people only had it on holidays. Fish was the most prevalent meat available. Back to Exhibits

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Disclaimer: The recognizable Pantheon building was built by the Romans, not the Greeks.

The gods and goddesses in the two upper tiers, with the exception of Hestia and Hades, are the twelve gods and goddesses who have a seat on Mount Olympus.

This image comes from D’aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths. Click on a face to learn more about that character. Not all characters have more information provided. Click on the links to read myths about that character.

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Zeus was the god of the sky, weather, thunder, lightning, law, order, and justice . He is the ruler of Mount Olympus and is usually depicted holding a lightning bolt. The son of Cronus and Rhea, he married his sister Hera after overthrowing Cronus’ tyrannical reign.

Zeus has a penchant for unfaithfulness to his wife and this is an impetus for many myths.

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Poseidon was the god of the sea, rivers, floods, droughts, and earthquakes. Dolphins and horses were sacred to him. He is most often depicted wielding a trident. Zeus’ brother, he chose dominion of the seas after the defeat of Cronus.

Poseidon is rarely the main character of myths. He’s more often used to further a plot as with causing stormy seas to prevent Odysseus from returning to Ithaca and turning Daphne into a laurel tree to save her from Apollo’s desire.

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Hera was the goddess of marriage, women, childbirth, heirs, kings, and empires. As Zeus’ wife and sister, she was also the queen of the gods.

Hera is usually angry about something, whether it be Zeus’ latest infidelity or some slight from another. She’s also not the greatest mother.

Demeter was the goddess of grain, agriculture and the harvest, growth and nourishment. She is the sister of Zeus and does not play a large role in most myths. Although, according to some, she is the reason Poseidon invented horses. She wished to stave off his advances and so asked him to create for her the most beautiful creature on earth. By the time Poseidon was successful, his passions had waned.

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Hades is the king of the underworld and the dead, and god of regret. Zeus’ brother, he took dominion of the underworld after the defeat of Cronus.

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Hades is probably most famous for his kidnapping of Persephone. However, he also plays key roles in the story of Orpheus, Heracles’ 12 tasks, and the Odyssey.

Hades had a three-headed dog named Cerberus who guarded the gates of the underworld. Cerberus is the latinised version of the Greek kerberos in turn coming from k̑érberos, which means “spotted.” Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the god of the underworld named his guard dog Spot.

Hestia, Zeus’ sister, was the virgin goddess of the hearth, home and chastity. The only real role she plays in mythology is stepping down from her seat on Mount Olympus to tend the hearth so that Dionysus could have a seat.

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Persephone is the daughter of Demeter, queen of the underworld, wife of Hades and the goddess of spring growth. She tends to act as a soothing agent for Hades’ lack of mercy. Especially in the case of Orpheus.

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Hermes is the god of animal husbandry, roads, travel, hospitality, heralds, diplomacy, trade, thievery, language, writing, persuasion, cunning wiles, athletic contests, gymnasiums, astrology, and astronomy. He serves as the messenger of the gods. He’s also a bit of a mischief maker.

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Hephaestus is the god of fire, metalworking, and crafts. He became crippled when his mother, Hera, threw him from Mount Olympus as an infant for the crime of being ugly. He’s also Aphrodite’s husband. He is also credited with crafting Pandora, the world’s first woman. Back

Ares was the god of war, bloodshed, and violence. Basically all he does in Greek Mythology is kill people, be angry, and sleep with Aphrodite.

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Athena was the goddess of intelligence, skill, peace, warfare, battle strategy, handicrafts, and wisdom. According to myth she was born fully armored from Zeus’ skull. She also

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Athena cursed Arachne to be a spider because the girl disrespected the gods

Apollo was the god of music, arts, knowledge, healing, plague, prophecy, poetry, manly beauty and archery.

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Artemis was the virgin goddess of the hunt, wilderness, animals, young girls, childbirth, and plague. Artemis was very protective of her chastity.

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Dionysus was the god of wine, parties and festivals, madness, chaos, drunkenness, drugs, and ecstasy. According to myth, he was born from Zeus’ thigh.

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When Dionysus was an adult, he decided he wanted to travel. Eventually, he finds Ariadne, who has been abandoned by Theseus, and marries her.

Eos was the titaness of the dawn and the sister of Helios and Selena

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Helios was the titan of the sun and guardian of oaths.

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Every day, Helios would drive his chariot across the sky. Only Helios could control the horses. Phaethon wanted to try.

Selena was the Titaness of the moon. She is most known for her love of Endymion.

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Atlas was a titan who fought with Cronus against Zeus. He led many of the titans in battle. As punishment, he was forced to carry the sky upon his shoulders by Zeus.

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Prometheus was the Titan of forethought and crafty counsel, and the creator of mankind. He also brought fire to mankind from the eternal flame on Mount Olympus earning him Zeus’ wrath. As punishment, he was chained to a mountain where an eagle (or vulture depending on who’s telling it) would eat his liver each day after it had regrown from the previous day’s torture.

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The leader of the Titans, who overthrew his father Uranus only to be overthrown in turn by his son, Zeus. He had become paranoid and had taken to eating his children. When Zeus was born, Rhea, Cronus’ wife, couldn’t stand to see another of her babies eaten so she gave Cronus a rock wrapped in blankets instead. Zeus grew up and freed his brothers and sisters from Cronus’ stomach.

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The nine muses were the inspirers of the arts. Calliope, the muse of epic poetry; Clio, the muse of history; Euterpe, the muse of song and elegiac poetry; Erato, the muse of lyric poetry; Melpomene, the muse of tragedy; Polyhymnia, the muse of hymns; Terpsichore, the muse of dance; Thalia, the muse of comedy; and Urania, the muse of astronomy

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Aphrodite is the goddess of love, beauty, desire, and pleasure. Although married to Hephaestus, she has many torrid affairs, notably with Ares and Adonis.

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Homer wrote The Iliad and The Odyssey in 750 B.C. Homer’s epics provided a common set of values and a fixed standard for what it means to be a hero. His works consider disgrace due to dishonor to be the worst possible fate that can befall a hero. Immortality can only be obtained by great deeds. As such a short life of glorious deeds is considered far superior to a long life of peace and mediocrity. He also portrayed the gods in an interesting fashion because, in many ways, they are used for comic relief, possessing far less dignity than their heroic mortal counterparts.

Plato was a student of Socrates. What we know of Socrates we learned from Plato. No writings by Socrates have ever been found and the series of books, the dialogues, we attribute to him were actually written by Plato.

Plato also brings us the myths of Atlantis. An ideal society which, if real, probably existed long before the Classical Greek period. Plato tells us of the decline of the noble civilization. He describes the fall of the empire after a devastating earthquake. During his time, earthquakes played a key role in power shifts and struggles between Athens and Sparta. An earth quake and tsunami destroyed the city of Helike and this is the disaster which inspires Plato’s description.

Aesop is most famous for his stories, especially “The Goose With the Golden Eggs”, “The Fisher”, and “The Sick Lion”. He was either Ethiopian or Greek and lived somewhere between 620-560 B.C. Aesop was a slave whose stories each had a moral to educate children.

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Bull Leaping 1550-1450 B.C.

The earliest art in Ancient Greece consisted of frescoes painted on the walls of the palaces in Minos and Mycenae.

Left Dolphins from the palace of Knossos 1500B.C. Right Mycenaean fresco of a woman

Bottom Mycenaean Fresco

During the Stone Age, statues were small simple shapes which would be painted so they didn’t look plain (Top Left). During the Bronze Age, the time of the Minoans and Mycenaeans, statues were made from bronze and showed more detail (Bottom Left). In the Greek Dark Ages, statues again became simplistic (Bottom Middle). When Greece leaves the Dark Ages, life size sculptures start being made (Top Middle). By the Classical Period, sculptures were more fluid and graceful (Top Right). In Hellenistic Greece, following the Peloponnesian War, statues are given a more serious mien (Bottom Right).

The first pottery in Ancient Greece appears in the Stone Age and is called Rainbow Ware (top left) because of the way the colors fade into each other. By the end of the Stone Age, pottery was being made with geometric patterns and the Dimini people added spirals; this is called Dimini Ware (top right). The Minyan Ware of the Early Bronze Age (bottom left) wasn’t all that interesting. What sets it aside is the fact that it was made on a pottery wheel. By the late Bronze Age, potters were again putting images on their pottery (bottom right).

During the Dark Ages, pottery once again became simple (top right) as people lost the ability and motivation to make artful pieces. After Greece pulled itself out of the Dark Ages, Geometric Ware (top right) became popular, sporting lines of patterns covering the entire pot. During the Archaic Period, potters in Athens produce Black-Figure vases (bottom left). Around 530 B.C., frustrated with the limitations of Black-Figure vases, potters began producing Red-Figure vases (bottom right). This allowed artisans to paint more intricate figures.

We have no way of knowing what Ancient Greek music sounded like. The Greeks did not develop a way of writing down music. However, we do know what kind of instruments they had; pipes, lyres, drums, and cymbals. Supposedly, Athena made the first set of pipes from deer bones. Their pipes were made from wood or reeds, and resembled recorders and flutes with holes which would be covered by fingers. People would lively music on pipes and drums when they were worshipping Dionysus, the god of wine and parties. Lyres are basically small harps. According to myth, Hermes made the first lyre from a turtle shell as a baby.

Panpipe

Left Double Aulos Right Lyre

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The earliest Olympics were held at Olympia. Over time, Olympia expanded to contain many buildings, dedicated to the different sports.

A palaestra (gymnasium) was built where prospective athletes would train together for the month leading up to the games. Only the best of the best were allowed to compete. The athletes were fed a diet of fresh cheese and water during their month of training.

Top Ruins of the palaestra in Olympia. Right Sketch of what Olympia looked like in its prime.

The first sport to be introduced at the Olympics was running and for the first 12 Olympic games, running was the only sport in which athletes could compete..

Arch at Olympia through which only athletes, and therefore men, were allowed to pass.

Tourists lining up at the start line which still stands in Olympia

In 700 B.C., the pentathlon was introduced. This consisted of javelin, discus, running, jumping, and possibly wrestling. We know wrestling was included in the games but it is unknown whether it was a part of the pentathlon.

A relief of men wrestling. The Ancient Greeks competed in most sports unclothed.

The Discus Thrower

In 688 B.C., boxing and chariot racing were introduced. Prizes in the chariot races were given to the owner of the horses and not to the charioteers. It is the same with modern day horse racing.

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The Greeks had a very cumbersome number system not dissimilar to Roman Numerals. Numbers were represented by the first letter of their name. For instance, five was called “penta” and was annotated “p”, ten, “deka”, was “d”, one hundred, “hekaton”, was “h”. One was annotated with a single vertical line. Larger numbers were made by adding up smaller numbers, e.g. 237 would be hhdddppll. This made algebra virtually impossible. Instead, the Greeks focused on geometry. They used geometry to write “proofs” of mathematical fact. This idea of using math to write proofs is still prevalent today. All mathematicians must take a course learning logic and how to write proofs.

Illustration of one of the Pythagorean Theorem in which the squares of the legs of a right triangle equal the square of the hypoteneuse, or 𝑎2 + 𝑏2 = 𝑐2. This concept has many diverse proofs. Peruse a few at cut-the-knot.org.

Archimedes was a Greek mathematician credited with discovering the physics principle that density equals mass over volume. It is reported that, while pondering how to determine whether a crown was made of gold, without melting or otherwise harming the crown, Archimedes took a bath and noted the displacement of the water. “Eureka!” was his cry of triumph. He realized that by placing the crown in water and measuring the displacement it caused, he could figure out the density, thereby ascertaining whether it was solid gold.

The Greeks also made advances in astronomy.

Thales discovered that the Earth is round

Anaxagoras figured out the cause of an eclipse

Aristarchus discovered that the earth orbits the sun. This was discredited because when they looked at the stars the Greeks observed no parallax (when and object shifts position when you switch between eyes). This meant that either Aristarchus was wrong or the stars were trillions of miles away. This seemed preposterous to the Ancient Greeks so it was accepted that Aristarchus was wrong.

Most of what we know about Ancient Greek medical practices, we get from the Hippocratic Writings. These were written by Hippocrates. It was thought that the body consisted of four humors: blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm. Illness was caused when these humors were unbalanced. Blood-letting was the preferred method of putting them back in balance. Whereas most of their theories were wrong, the idea that one can understand and treat diseases from careful observation and logical thought is an important contribution to medical practices today.

Hippocrates

An illustration of the four humors and their relation to the elements.

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During the Stone Age, the most notable houses were Megaron, “big room”, houses. These houses were built of stone and consisted of one large room with a porch at one end. During the Bronze Age, the people took to building large tombs, called tholos tombs. These tombs were wide at the bottom and gradually thinned at the top.

Inside the tholos tomb at Mycenae

After the Dark Ages, the Greeks started building large temples to honor the gods and goddesses. This idea was probably borrowed from the Egyptians for whom many Greeks were working at this time. The Parthenon is the most famous example of a Greek temple.

Left In front of the Parthenon. Top The steps to the Agora across from the Parthenon.

The top triangular section is known as a pediment.

There are three types of columns named for the region they come from; Doric columns used by the Dorians near Athens, Ionic columns used by the Ionians near Sparta, and Corinthian columns used in Corinth.

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