7/8 World History

Week 10

The Late Bronze Age

Monday

Do Now

What do you know about Greece?

ObjectivesStudents will identify the main idea and key points

in the notes.Students will compare/contrast Greece to other

civilizations we have studied.

The Minoans

• The Minoan civilization was located on the island of Crete (part of the modern country of Greece), in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, northwest of Egypt and Mesopotamia.

• The island is long and skinny, about 100 miles south of the mainland of Greece. The shape of the island means that nowhere on it is very far from the sea.

• The island is very mountainous, with a lot of small rivers and lakes providing water.

• The climate is generally warm and dry, but more mild than Egypt or Sumer.

History

• Humans had been living on the island of Crete for thousands of years, but the Minoan civilization did not began until about 2600 BCE, around the same time as Old Kingdom Egypt.

• The Minoan civilization is known for being the first major European civilization.• The civilization reached its peak from about 2200 to 1700 BCE, then disappeared

after being conquered around 1500 BCE.

Below: ruins of the Minoan palace of Knossos

Economy

• The Minoans practiced a wide variety of agriculture, growing crops including wheat, grapes, olives, and pomegranates. In addition to this, they raised cows and sheep, practiced a lot of ocean fishing, and were the earliest known civilization to keep colonies of bees for honey.

• The Minoans are much better known for being the earliest major trading civilization. Fleets of Minoan ships sailed all around the Mediterranean Sea, and carried goods over land as well.

• Their largest trading partners were Egypt and the tribes of mainland Greece, but they also traded extensively with Turkey and Mesopotamia.

• Crete was rich with natural resources, including a spice called saffron (which grew to be very popular in Mesopotamia), tin (important for making bronze), gold, and silver.

• They also acted as middle men, buying and selling goods between the different civilizations they traded with.

Language

• The Minoans had an advanced writing system which was mostly hieroglyphic (using picture symbols rather than symbols representing sounds).

• Unfortunately, the writing and language remain almost entirely undeciphered.• Based on the patterns of symbols, linguists believe the Minoan language was probably an

isolate, unrelated to any languages existing then or today.

Society

• Like Sumer, the Minoan civilization was not united under one king, but instead had several large cities with their own kings, who were wealthy and powerful but not worshipped like gods.

• In general, the Minoans were very prosperous, but only the wealthiest people had drainage systems and access to water in their homes.

• The Minoans palaces were the most important buildings. They were huge complexes of buildings, a sprawling combination of palace, government offices, and temples.

Right: rooms and corridors inside the Minoan palace of Knossos

Religion

• The Minoans had a somewhat unusual religion – although it was polytheistic, almost all the gods were female, and there were only female priestesses.

• Snakes, bulls, and trees were common religious symbols, and they practiced a mysterious tradition known as bull-leaping, in which young men performed choreographed dances and acrobatics around live, charging bulls, grabbing onto their horns and leaping over them, performing flips.

• The purpose of bull-leaping is unknown, but it is a common theme in Minoan religious art.

Downfall

• The Minoans went into a period of slight decline around 1700 BCE, but after a large volcano erupted on a nearby island around 1500 BCE, the Minoans were weakened to a critical level. A tsunamifrom the volcanic eruption destroyed most of the Minoans' ships and piers, which were critical for their trading networks.

• A warrior tribe from mainland Greece called the Myceneans took advantage of their temporary weakness and invaded Crete, successfully taking over and ending the entire Minoan civilization.

Top: Aerial view of the island of Thera, near Crete. The entire island was an active volcano, which suddenly erupted and collapsed around 1500 BCE.Bottom: Collection of Mycenean swords

Exit TicketName one similarity and one difference

between the ancient Greeks and another civilization we have studied.

Homework

• Mycenean civilization reading & questions

Tuesday

Do NowDo you think that all civilizations must

eventually come to an end? Why or why not?

ObjectivesStudents will analyze historical text for key ideas and important information.

Students will effectively annotate text.

Hittite Empire in red, Egyptian Empire in green

• Read article about the Late Bronze Age Collapse

Discussion

1. What chain of events led to the Late Bronze Age Collapse?2. Do you think the collapse could have been avoided? How?

Exit Ticket

Do you think that our modern civilization will eventually collapse and be replaced by something else, or just slowly change

over time? Why?

Block Day

Do NowWhat do you know about Jewish people

and the Jewish religion?

ObjectivesStudents will shift focus from detailed cultural analysis of civilizations, to an

analysis of historical events.

Assyria

• After the Late Bronze Age Collapse, the lands of the old kingdoms were up for grabs. In Mesopotamia, a group of people called the Assyrians took control.

• Culturally, the Assyrians had many things in common with the Sumerians, and the Akkadians who became powerful after them. All three groups worshipped the same set of gods (just with slightly different names), and all of them used cuneiform as their writing system.

• Unlike the others, though, the Assyrians had a single powerful king, instead of many less powerful ones.

• The Assyrians were also a warrior society, similar to the Myceneans, and unlike the Sumerians and Akkadians who were mostly interested in agriculture and trade. They had powerful armies and spent a lot of time conquering neighboring people and taking their land and wealth.

Canaan

• The land along the middle of the eastern Mediterranean coast (which Egypt and the Hittites were constantly fighting over) was called Canaan, and the people there were known by their neighbors as Canaanites.

• Before the Late Bronze Age Collapse, the Canaanites were not a rich, powerful group of people. They practiced a blend of pastoralism (animal herding) in the winter, and agriculture in the summer.

• Instead of living in cities, they lived in small seasonal villages. And instead of having kings, they lived in large family clan groups, with the oldest men in charge.

• But once Egypt collapsed around 1200 BCE, some small cities started to form in Canaan, and by about 1000 BCE, some of those cities had blossomed into two separate kingdoms: one in the north called Israel, and one in the south called Judah.

Bottom: animal herding in modern Israel

• Most of the Canaanites were polytheistic at this time, but a small group of people in both kingdoms began worshipping only the chief of the gods, El, as the one and only god - creating a monotheistic religion.

• The monotheists built a temple to their one god in the city of Jerusalem, in the kingdom of Judah. Their holy writings, now known as the Old Testament of the Bible, began to be written around 1000 BCE.

Right: Canaanite god Ba'alBottom: modern drawing of the original temple in Jerusalem

• Neither of the kingdoms of Canaan were very powerful, and often had to pay tributes to the Assyrian kings to the east.

• Over the next few centuries, more and more of the Canaanites started worshipping the monotheistic religion, until they finally became the majority in both kingdoms.

• Because it was more popular in the southern kingdom of Judah first, the religion became known as Judaism, and the people who followed it called themselves Hebrews (a term meaning "those who have crossed over" in their language).

• Around 600 BCE, both the Hebrew kingdoms were quickly conquered by a new empire originating in the old Akkadian city of Babylon, who also conquered the powerful Assyrians at the same time.

• The Babylonians destroyed the sacred temple in Jerusalem, and took thousands of the Hebrews back with them to Babylon as slaves.

Left: Babylonian warrior Right: modern drawing of the destruction of Jerusalem

Exit TicketHow was the Caananites coming into power related to the Late Bronze Age

Collapse?

Homework

• Ancient Hebrew reading & questions

Friday

Do NowWhat are the seven continents, and

which one was the only one to never have people live on it full time?

ObjectivesStudents will analyze the relationship

between geography and social interactions of early civilizations.

•Map activity!

Exit Ticket

How does proximity (closeness) affect the relationship between two

civilizations?