Today in class Phil and Matt taught the class. They went over Phil's blog on the notes he took for LO3. This section talks about Athens, Sparta, and how Greek city states lived their life. I learned that Mediterranean means "middle of the earth". They Greeks called it this because they thought their little part of the world was the whole world itself. I also learned where the Aegean and Ionian seas are. We talked about the project we have to present on either Sparta or Athens that is due a week from today, next Friday.

Questions
1.) Athens had a smaller population because they were land locked and it was hard to travel into city
2.) Athens had a limited democracy, people elect other people into office. Sparta had a oligarchy, controlled by a small group of people
3.)
4.) Athens had a better navy than Sparta because they were closer to water than Sparta was
5.) Athens had a better lifestyle, it doesn't surprise me because they are closer to water
6.) If you were a Greek women you would want to live in Sparta because they were treated the same as men
7.)

LO3

The Greek City-States
- dark ages began to develop city states
- small places, population few thousand
- Athens and Sparta were the largest city states, population 250,000
- Greece was protected by the sea and rocky terrain
- acropolis - the high fortified citadel and religious center of ancient Greece
- hoplite - a armed and armored citizen- soldier of ancient Greece
- phalanx - a unit of several hundred hoplites, who closed ranks by joining shields when approaching the energy
- monarchy - a state in which supreme power is held by a single, usually hereditary
- oligarchy - a state in which supreme power is held by a small group
- triremes - massive fighting vessels with three banks of oars, used to ram or board enemy ships
- tyranny - rule by a self proclaimed dictator
- democracy - a form of government in which all adult male citizens were entitled to take part in decision making
- helots - non citizens forced to work for landholders in ancient city-state of Sparta
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Today in class we took notes on the Mycenaean. These people controlled the trade in Greece and invaded Crete. Instead of killing all of the Crete people, they absorbed their culture and language. After these people kept on capturing cultures, they stop writing things down. Writing disappeared for 400 years. We learned about homer and how he wrote the two epic poems of "Odyssey" and about the Trojan War. Some of the popular greek gods are Zeus; leader of gods, Hera; Zeus' wife, and Athena; the goddess of wisdom.

Ancient Greece Notes

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

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

- 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 tree 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

- The early Europeans can't have had any sense of common identity, but time most of them came to share a distinctive way of life

- 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 riding, fighting, and drinking as a comrade of the gods in  the afterlife.

- People began to speak languages of Indo-European origin that were distant ancestors of Greek and Latin

- Stonehenge: the most famous megalithic structures was built by a farming and trading people in the west of England

- About 2200bc a distinct civilization, known today as Minoan arose on the Aegan island of Crete

- The Master of the Animals: this Cretan gold pendant made about 1700BC shows a powerful being with geese in each hand and bull's horn looming behind him

- Mycenaean civilization lasted shortly after 1200BC

- The Greeks settled in mainland Greece

Greeks

- new ideas

- incredible art forms

- democratic government

- innovators in warfare

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

- 3500bc- constructed megaliths, finished in 2000bc

- consisted of 160 boulders that weighed up to 50 tons

- 2500bc on, Indo-European nomads migrated from the steppes in eastern Europe

- language evolved to Greek and Latin

- their lives centered around strength and courage, comradeship and loyalty, contests and battles

- tribes were groups of people held together by their common interests

- tribes were headed by powerful hereditary chieftains, thought of as kings

- no cities, no written records, no fixed structures of government

- they were barbarians

- they adopted the way of life of those they encountered, and as they traveled

- the distinctive civilization the Greeks developed is the first that counts as definitely "Western"

Geography of Greece

- mountainous peninsula, covers 3/4 of land

- approximately 1,400 islands in the Aegean and Ionian Seas

- location shaped their culture

- skilled sailors

- poor natural resources

- difficult to unite the ancient Greeks because of the terrain; developed small, independent communities

- approximately 20% suitable for farming

- fertile valleys cover 1/4 pf peninsula 

- because of geography the Greek diet consists of grains, grapes, and olives

- lack of resources most likely led to Greek colonization

- temperatures ranges from 48 in the winter to 80 in the summer

Today in class we got our test back. I didn't too well on the test. I thought I did better than what I actually did. I guess I didn't spend enough time studying. Next time I going to spend more time studying to get a better grade.

Today in class we played a computer game. The objective of the game was to build a pyramid and satisfy your workers. We had to feed the workers, give workers days off, and we had to pick the right material and location to build the pyramid. The game was challenging and most of the teams didn't finish. My group finished and came in second place.

Chapter 1, LO-1

barbarian - term used to describe a way of living based on farming, warfare, and tribes. beginning around 2,500.
megaliths - massive rough cut stones used to construct monuments and tombs
tribe - a social and political init consisting of a group of communities held together by common interests, traditions.
- civilization had spread to southwestern Asia and northeastern Africa
- Stonehenge was a huge open monument built by people in western England, probably a religious center
- spoke Indo-European
- warriors were like gods
- formed tribes
- barbarians traveled and took over peoples land
- first civilization occurred in Europe in 2,000 B.C

Cyber Day 2

Question 1
       One invention that the Egyptians created was the calendar. This was useful because it helped them keep time and they knew when the Nile would flood. The sailboat was a major invention because the Egyptians could travel up and down the Nile. Another invention was the plow, which made it easier to plant crops.
Question 2
       A major feature for the pyramids were the passage ways. These secret tunnels made it challenging for thief's to steal valuable items. The tombs were used to bury the pharaohs in so they could have a good afterlife. Another feature was the blocks, there were millions of blocks in each pyramid and each one weighed a couple of tons. Also, these blocks were placed perfectly next to each other.
     

Cyber Day 1

Question #1 
Describe the social hierarchy of the ancient Egyptians.

The hierarchy in Egypt is shaped like a triangle, or pyramid. At the top is the Pharaoh, and there is only one so that's why its the top of the triangle. The Pharaoh was a god in human form, through the eyes of the Egyptians. The next class down was the government. The government was the priests and the religious leaders. The government and the church were the same thing in ancient Egypt. Next class was the "white kilt class" and these were the people with higher level jobs like doctors, physicians, etc. the were called "the white kilt class" because they wore bright white clothes that never got dirty. Below them were the soldiers who protected the pharaoh and used wooden weapons. Next were the scribes who knew how to read and write and would keep records of things like medicines. After them were the merchants who traded goods by bartering. Below the merchants were the artisans who painted and carved statues, usually of pharaohs. Next were the farmers who grew wheat and barley. At the bottom of the triangle was the slaves. These slaves didn't have as bad a life as the slaves in america. These slaves would work a certain amount of years helping the rich people with housework.                                                                                                    
       The upper class in Egypt had a better lives than the lower class did. The lower class always had to worry about money and living condition while the upper class had it all. Especially if you were a pharaoh you had everything that you could ever want. People built pyramids their whole life just so you could be buried in there. Their social hierarchy is sort of like our today because everyone is always trying to move up the triangle to have a better life than the class below them.

Question#2 
Discuss the importance of the Nile in the lives of the Egyptians

Today in class we took notes on Prezi. We learned about ancient Egypt and their social class system. There were pharaohs who were the highest in the social class and made all the laws and collected the taxes. The priest were the same as a government is today. Egypt's farming had major technological advances when they let the Nile flow to irrigate the crops.

Today in class we took notes on the PowerPoint and finished it. We talked about different ways we will have to make up school days because of all of the snow days we have had. At the end of the class we watched a video on how Egyptians used to mummify people. I learned that they took all of the vital organs out and then went through different series of salting and wrapping up the mummy.

Egypt
- the Nile river splits through the middle of Egypt (similar to the Tigris and Euphrates)
- rulers are known as pharaohs
- the great Sphinx is in Egypt
- sailboats and calendars
- made pyramid
- pyramid- massive structure with sloping sides that meet at an apex, used as a tomb
- Hyksos were a immigrant tribe