Aegean Culture and the Rise of Ancient Greece
I. The early Aegean Period was dominated by three distinct civilizations.
A. The Cycladic Culture: the Cyclades Islands.
1. The female (?) statuette.
B. The Minoan Culture: the Island of Crete.
1. The Palace of Minos.
a) The inverted column.
2. The Myth of the Minotaur.
a. A rite of passage (coming of age?).
C. The Mycenaean Culture: the Greek mainland.
1. The Palace at Mycenae.
a. The Lion Gate.
b. The dome of the Treasury of Atreus.
II. The Rise of Ancient Greece.
A. Gods and Myths.
1. The nature of the gods.
a. Mirrors of human frailty.
2. The nature of humankind.
a. Mirrors of divine transcendence.
3. Hubris: downfall through pride.
4. Moira: the unalterable rule of fate.
B. The Geometric Period (The Heroic Age).
C. The Orientalizing Period.
D. The Archaic Period.
III. The Fine Arts.
A. Temple Architecture.
1. Regular Temple Ratio: 1 : 2 (+1).
2. Architectural components of the temple.
a. Platform.
b. Colonnade.
c. Entablature.
3. Column Capitals.
a. Doric.
b. Ionic.
c. Corinthian.
B. Sculpture.
1. The Kouros figure.
2. The Kore figure.
C. Literature.
1. Homer's Iliad.
a. The story: logos and mythos.
b. Structural elements: oral and textual.
c. Achilles the hero: strength-as-weakness.
2. The poetry of Sappho.
a. “Confessional” (subjective) vs. “Narrative” (objective).
IV. Philosophy.
A. The “Pre-Socratics:” of what is matter composed?
1. Herakleitos: the only constant is change.
2. Democritus: matter is composed of smaller (atomic) particles and space.
3. Pythagoras: number as proportion and ratio.