Chapter 9 Section 2 The Mycenaeans Page 155-160

1. Chapter 9 Section 2 The Mycenaeans Page 155-160 Objectives: Students will be able to describe what life was like for the Mycenaeans. Determine how the Dark Age affected the Aeaean world.

2. Introduction A. The Mycenaeans came from the grasslands of southern Russia and settled on the Balkan Peninsula in the lowlands of Greece. B. The Kings build fortress-palaces on top of hills. During attacks people went into the center room of the fortress called the Megaron. It had a fireplace in the middle of the square room. They held council meetings there and had parties too.

3. C. The land was divided into estates and the land owners gave supplies (horses, chariots, weapons, wheat, farm animals, honey and hides) to the King for his protection of their lands. D. Enslaved people or tenants worked on the land to provide the landowners the supplies. E. Hunting was a large part of their food harvest.

4. II. Traders and Pirates A. The Myceneaeans soon started to trade with the Minoans after their arrival to Greece. They learned how to do the Minoan crafts, mainly ship building. B. They grew olives and this made them a lot of money in trades. C. They traded goods but they were still strong warriors and they used the ship skills to conquer the islands of Greece and then replaced the Minoan’s power over the area.

5. III. The Trojan War A. Mycenaeans were famous as the attackers on Troy, a major city of Asia Minor. Troy, or Trojans were the controllers of trade between the Black Sea and the rest of Greece. They collected taxes on gold and grains in the ships. B. About 500 years after the attack on Troy, a man named Homer wrote a long poem about the event. 1.The poems is called the “ILIAD”.(610 pages w/ 193,424 words) He also wrote the Odyssey about one of the heroes of the Trojan war.

6. 2. The War involved a Greek woman named Helen. (Married) 3. Paris of Troy fell in love with her. (He took her away to Troy with high, thick walls.) 4. The Greeks went after them. (She was married to the King. His army couldn’t get in the city until they built a wooden horse that they hid solders in and then jumped out of, after the Trojans pulled it into the city, because they thought it was a gift, as the Greek’s navy sailed away. The Greeks burned the city and killed everybody. ) 5. The war lasted ten years.

7. IV. A Dark Age A. After the Trojan War the Greeks went into a period of Civil Wars that lasted 100 years. After which there were not Fortress-Palaces left in Greece. B. This is when the Dorians came in and took over Greece. Learning and art was forgotten in this dark time much like the Middle Ages of Europe.

8. C. After awhile the new areas, islands in the Aegean Sea called Ionia that the few Greeks went and lived on them. They started all over and raised sheep and farmed. D. They called themselves Hellenes, or Greeks. They Flourished from 700’s B.C. to 336 B.C.