Help me Jesus

We watched 2 videos on Baltimore and Los Angeles. We compared how each commercial was presented in terms of music, scenes, etc. We were then introduced to the assignment where we have to make our own commercial, showing off Athens or Sparta. It's worth a lot of points and I am scared. The Baltimore video we saw made us cry because of how boring we are. When I looked at the Los Angeles video I just was speechless. It went from showing you buildings and old people to like electro music and great scenery with sports, celebrities, the zoo, the aquarium, and much, much more. We don't have to do the assignment, because we are American, as stated by Bob, but there goes our education and then we will just lose our minds, picking up can in Los Angeles for nickels.

new teacher

Today Andrew was out teacher, presenting his like 7 page word document filled with notes and had pictures as well...making it the best presentation EVAR. Mr. Schick was examining him and every now and then, he would tell us that some of the things Andrew was saying, was going to be on the test. Grant broke his computer and couldn't do anything and Sam was here. We just went over the notes we took on Monday with Athens and Sparta, so we didn't really learn anything else new.  However I did learn that the land, which Sparta lies is called Peloponnesia.

More on Greece

Geography
Mountainous Peninsula
      3/4 of Greece
Approximately 1,400 islands in the Aegean and Ionian Seas
-Location shaped its 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 of peninsula
-Because of geography the Greek diet consists of grains, grapes, and olives
-Lack of resources most likely led to Greek colonization
-Temperatures range from 48 in the winter to 80 in the summer

Mycenaean's
Began around 2000B.C.
-Mycenae is located on a rocky ridge and protected by a 20 ft. thick wall
-Mycenaean kings dominated Greece from 1600 to 1200 B.C.
            controlled trade in the region
-1400 B.C. Mycenaean's invaded Crete and absorbed Minoan culture and language
"Mediterania"-the middle of the earth

Culture in Decline
-Around 1200 B.C. sea people began to invade Mycenae and burnt palace after palace
-The Dorian's moved into the war-torn region
  -far less advanced                                                              <<<<<Dark Ages
  -economy collapsed
  -writing disappeared for 400 years

Homer and Myths
-Stories were passed on by word of mouth
-Homer lived at the end of the "Greek Dark Ages"
-Recorded stories of the Trojan War in the Iliad and The Odyssey
    -Trojan war was probably one of the last conquests of the Mycenaean's
    -Odyssey was 12,110 lines of dactylic hexameter
-The Iliad was an epic poem and was written in verse and it was huge

LO3

Greek City sates were small places, generally consisting of no more than a town and a few square miles of surrounding countryside.


Athens and Sparta
     -were about the same size as a couple of U.S.counties
     -were fiercely competitive
     -constantly fought each other
     -most important civic activity was worshipping a god or goddess


Athens
    - population may have reached as many as 250,00
    - Was built around a hill, at the top stood an acropolis
    - city of the goddess Athena(Athena's temple, Parthenon, overlooked the whole city)

acropolis- a combination of temple and fortress precinct

Greece was protected by many miles of land and sea. With no universal empire to keep them in order, the city-states were free to struggle among themselves. They occupied a land that was far less wealthy than Mesopotamia or Phoenicia. In their conflicts with one another, they could not afford professional soldiers or large cavalry forces.  Instead they came to rely mainly on infantry armies made up of their own male citizens. They equipped themselves with bronze helmets and armor, round shields, long spears with iron blades, and short iron swords.
    They fought in formidable shock units of several hundred men each know as phalanxes or "rollers. Poorer citizens fought as light armed infantry, harassing the enemy ahead of the phalanx's charge or covering its vulnerable flanks.

Each city state was believed to have been founded and developed by a family or clan descended from a divine or semi divine founder.

Government

Vocab
monarchy- government by kings
oligarchy- government by few
tyranny- the rule of a tyrant
democracy- literally, government by the common people)

Monarchy
Citizen armies gave way to new forms of government that distributed power more widely among male citizens.

Oligarchy
A minority of citizens dominated the government, and the power of the majority was limited in various ways. Many city states in mainland Greece were oligarchies, above all Sparta.

Tyranny
Self proclaimed dictator who held power partly by force, partly by exploiting internal divisions, and partly by providing efficient government.

Democracy
All government decisions were made by the majority of male citizens.

Sparta
Decedents of the Greeks who had conquered part of the southern mainland, the territory of Lanconia. By the 8th century B.C., they were a minority of landholders ruling over a majority of helots, decedents of earlier Greek immigrants.

Through the Laconian helots were the relatively well treated and even fought in the army, the Messenians were harshly exploited, never accepted their defeat, and often rebelled. To hold down the helots, the Spartan citizens had to accept a government system that put them under almost total domination by a few among themselves.

The Spartan government was a leading example of oligarchy


Spartan Life
Women were the organizers, they had to set up fairs, etc. but they didn't have power when it came t politics.
Boys were taken from their families at age 7 and they were taught manly behavior and reading as well as writing. They also had to undergo a life long routine of physical toughening and military training.

To protect their harsh and rigid way of life, the Spartans tried to seal off their city state from outside influences. Sparta had little contact with foreigners; it discouraged trade and showed visitors little hospitality.

The state did not control women as rigorously as men, and for long periods they lived apart from their husbands, so that they led relatively free and active lives.

Persian Wars
Persians conquered a realm that stretched from the border of India to the Nile and the Aegean. For the first time, a universal empire had come within striking distance of the Greeks, and the Persians were able to bring the Greek city states in the west of Asia Minor under their rule.

490 B.C. Persians lost the first battle to the Athenians at Marathon. Ten years later, in a sea battle off the island of Salamis near Athens, the Athenian navy smashed the Persian fleet. On land a small spartn force held up Xerxes' army in their renowned suicidal stand at Thermopylae in 480 B.C.

After Athens was burnt down, Democracy came into effect with the new Athens. The leader of the democratic Athens after the victory over Persia, was an aristocrat named Pericles.

Assembly
Meetings were held once a week and there was usually less than 5 thousand citizens attending.
-The Assembly met in the marketplace of Athens(agora), later it met on the slopes of a nearby hill(the Pnyx)
-Voting was by a show of hands.

Aliens
The 50,000 or so resident aliens were a very varied group. Some were wealthy business men, or independent women like Aspasia, who socialized on equal terms with the "fine and noble" citizens. Many were owners of stores and workshops, hardly different from citizens in the same lines of business.

Slaves
They were the powerless and the unpopular

Greece!

Today we learned about how Greece invented new ideas, democracy, art forms, and they had innovators in welfare. We talked about Stonehenge, which was a megalith. Megalith's a re rough cut stones used to construct monuments and tombs. We talked about LO1 as well. in 4000 B.C. farming and village life spread from Sumerian and Egyptian lands across SW Asia and NE Africa, and the European continent. Their lives centered around strength and courage, comradeship and loyalty, contests and battle. Also know as "Arete"
      We talked about barbarians. They had a destructive way of life that focused on farming and warfare. They moved to southeastern Europe by 2000 B.C. The Greeks shared knowledge and adjusted the barbarians way of life. THEEEEEEEEEEEEEE END

Pyramid challenge...

Today, we did the pyramid challenge, being a pain in the butt, it was impossible to beat and still is. At least, for me it is. If we complete it tonight, we get half points, but we have to take screenshot of it to prove it. hope I can do it..

Cyberday 2

Short Answer A
Inventions discovered back in the stone age, helped the Egyptians farm, trade, battle, and more. The sailboat being one of them, allowed for transportation along the Nile, allowing trade to nearby villages, etc. The Egyptians invented the plow. The plow made it possible to produce more food for storage. The Egyptians invented hieroglyphics to write. These were pictures used to describe events, etc and stood for whole words.

Short Answer B
Pyramids are the most fascinating structures in the world and are still standing today, thousands of years later. However, there is more to this three dimensional triangle, for example, when they were first build, the pieces could so well fit together that a person couldn't slip a knife through the blocks. On the inside of the Pyramid, Past pharaohs are buried with valuable items that are worth some money. However, finding these chambers are difficult. Each pyramid has a maze inside, with traps that could leave you dead, or leave you trapped. To get inside, it is said that on the outside, there is a single block that can be removed, but finding this block out of thousands is hard.

Cyberday 1

Power has been off and on..

Essay A
The social hierarchy of the Egyptians was: from top to bottom
 Pharoah
 Government officials
 Soldiers
 Scribes
 Merchants
 Artisans
 Farmers
Slaves and Servants

    Starting with the top, Pharaohs were the religious and political leaders of the Egyptian people. They help two titles, "Lord of the Two Lands" and "High Priest of every Temple." Lord of the Two Lands was the ruler of upper Egypt. He owned all land, made laws, and collected taxes.
    The Government officials were apart of the upper class, known as the "White Kilt Class." This was composed of priests, physicians, and engineers.
    Soldiers used wooden weapons(bows and arrows, spears) with bronze tips and might ride chariots.
    Scribes kept records, told stories, wrote poetry, described anatomy and medical treatments- they wrote in hieroglyphs and in hieratic.
    Merchants accepted bags of grain for payment- later , coinage came about.
    Artisans would carve statues and reliefs showing military battles and scenes.
    Farmers raised wheat, barley lentils, onions-benefitted from irrigation of the Nile
    Slaves and Servants helped the wealthy with household and child raising duties, working 24/7.

Essay B
The Nile River, flowing south to north, helped the Egyptians with many things. Farming became easier, it allowed for better transportation, and it became just an easy access to water. However, the Nile did overflow at times, especially, in July. The Egyptians made their own little path for the water, when it does overflow. It helped them water crops better and extra water for bathing.
  

Pyramids

We watched a video on the inside of a pyramid and talked about how every pyramid has chambers that have a different path to get to Pyramids held treasures buried with past pharaoh's and pyramids were built so precisely that one couldn't stick a knife in between the marble. However, there was one block that could be easily removed to get inside, but it proved to impossible to find back then. Pyramids also had a chamber that went actually below the ground.... called the queen's chamber. 

Good Job Mr. Schick

Today, Mr. Schick broke another desk, spending half of our class time picking up the thousands of erasers and pencils, and thumbtacks. There was constant screaming, giving me a headache and making me want to just leave the room, but other than that we watched a video on mummification, talking about the layers and layers of resin and straps involved in this process. When a ruler is mummified, a bird has its organs taken out as well, and buried with the ruler. There is also a drawing of the ruler buried a long with it. 

The 5 topics

In class we learned about the five things that make up Egypt.
-Geography
-Daily Life
-Pharaoh's
-gods and goddesses
-Pyramids

Geography-Egyptian life is centered around the Nile, allowing crop growth, transportation, etc.
Daily Life- there are 8 social classes: from top to bottom
-Pharaohs
-Government Officials-Nobles, Priests
-Soldiers
-Scribes
-Merchants
-Artisans
-Farmers
-Slaves and servants

-Pharaoh's were the religious and political leaders of the Egyptian people. Holding the tittles "Lord of the Two Lands" and "High Priest of every Temple"

Government officials- upper class, known as the "white kilt class"

Soldiers-Used weapons(bows and arrows, spears) w/bronze tips and might ride chariots

Merchants- accepted bags of grain for payment-later coinage came about

Artisans- would have statues and reliefs showing military battle's and scenes

Farmers- raised wheat, barley, lentils, onions- benefitted from irrigation of the Nile

Slaves and Servants - helped the healthy with household and child raising duties

Gods and goddesses
Ra- the sun god
Hatshepsut- a women who ruled for 20+ years focusing on trade and not military like the male pharaoh's.

The two lands

The Nile flows south to north and was a major provider for the Egyptians. Lowe Egypt was the wide land of the Nile Delta, emptying into the Mediterranean Sea. The Two lands were united under a single king, or pharaoh. Pharaoh's were powerful, worshiped as a god, connected to other godss and goddesses, allowed to have multiple wives, and all routes to success were through the palace.

SNOW DAY

today in class we did nothing :)
       during advisory, we were told that we were going to get off early at 10. But, we still had to go to West Civ. Mr. Schick suggested a schedule for snow days like this. We all thought it was terrible because no one wants to be at school till 2 in the morning. Other than that, I am scared of falling on my face and dying :O