THE MYTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT GREECE
Fall Semester, 2003
D. White
Course Number: 3200:289-080
Tuesday, 9 September 2003
QUIZ #1 – STUDY GUIDE
For the first quiz I will include some of following, from the lectures and readings. It will be a short-answer quiz, and
I will give you choice of questions, as I always do. I will probably ask you to choose 20 out of a larger number of questions
that I will give you. If you answer more than the requested 20, I will count the 20 that are right. I will probably let you do
an additional one for extra credit. The quiz might also include some topics that aren’t on this sheet but which will be
covered in class between now and the date of the quiz.
ANTHOPOLOGICAL PERIODS:
Paleolithic period (Old Stone Age), ca. 100,000-9000 B.C.
Neolithic period (New Stone Age), ca. 9000-3000 B.C.
Neolithic Revolution = agriculture (domestication of plants and animals)
Bronze Age, ca. 3000-1200/1100 B.C.
Use of bronze as principal material for tools & weapons
Iron Age: after ca. 1200/1100
Iron replaces bronze as main material for tools and weapons
BRONZE AGE CIVILIZATIONS IN THE AEGEAN:
Crete:
“Minoan”
Named “Minoan” by Evans because of the mythical King Minos of Crete;
We don’t know what they called themselves; Egyptians called them “Keftiu”.
Principal site: Knossos; also Phaistos, Mallia, Hagia Triadha
Not Greek-speaking
Bull-leaping; Horns of Consecration; “labyrinth”
No walls – possibly had control of the sea?
Palaces constructed around a large rectangular central courtyard.
Writing: tablet with writing that archaeologists call “Linear A”; not yet understood
Mainland Greece: “Mycenaean”
So named because Mycenae was the first site excavated, is one of the largest and
wealthiest, and is the principal mainland Greek city mentioned in Homer.
Principal sites: Mycenae, Tiryns, Pylos
Were Greek-speaking; heavily influenced by Minoans
Warlike; many weapons and depictions of warfare found.
Palaces constructed around a characteristic room called a megaron, with a large open hearth.
Writing: tablet with writing that archaeologists call “Linear B”; deciphered in 1952 by Michael
Ventris; language is early form of Greek. Found at Knosses on Crete as well as on mainland.
Aegean Islands: “Cycladic”
Not mentioned in class with the above two; the islands in the Aegean Sea are called
the Cyclades, and their culture is called “Cycladic”
Unique, very recognizable and characteristic sculptures, with stylized faces.
DISCOVERERS:
Heinrich Schliemann
Excavated at Troy beginning 1870, also at Mycenae and Tiryns
Discovered Bronze Age civilization at Troy and on mainland Greece
Carl Blegen
University of Cincinnati, excavated at Troy, also at Pylos on mainland Greece, in 1930s
Recorded excavations with movie cameras
Sir Arthur Evans
Began excavating at Knossos on Crete in 1900, discovered and named the Minoan civilization
GREEK HISTORY (Periods):
Bronze Age, ca. 2000-1200/1100 B.C.
Dark Ages, ca. 1200/1100-800 B.C.
Archaic Period, ca. 800-480 B.C.
Classical Period, 480-323 B.C.
Hellenistic Period, 323-31 B.C.
Roman Period, 31 B.C.- ca. 500 A.D.
ATLANTIS:
The Atlantis myth was possibly inspired by the volcanic eruption that destroyed much of the island of Thera (today =
Santorini) in the Aegean in the late Bronze Age and destroyed a Minoan colony called Akrotiri. The myth is first
mentioned by Plato (427-348 B.C.) in two philosophic dialogues, Timaeus and Critias.
TYPES OF MYTH:
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Myth (or, Divine Myth) – deals with gods, supernatural forces.
Legend/Saga – deals with heroes, events of the (more or less) remote past, sometimes contains kernel
of real history, often treated as reliable history by the culture that created it.
Folktale – generally deals with ordinary people, set in a timeless world, often features a hero of humble
origin who lives by his wits and who ends up defeating or confounding those higher on the
social/political scale.
Many myths contain two or more of these types in the same story – e.g., the story of Odysseus is part of the Trojan
War story, which is mostly of the legend type; but it contains many folktale elements, as Odysseus embodies the hero
who lives by his wits. The gods and their powers also figure prominently.
SOME PURPOSES/FUNCTIONS OF MYTH:
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(a)etiological myths– explain the cause (Greek, aition) of something that the culture creating the myth
can’t otherwise explain. Many myths of this type attempt to explain natural phenomena that couldn’t
be otherwise explained given the state of scientific knowledge at the time. (American spelling:
etiological; British spelling: aetiological)
Foundation myth – gives an explanation or narrative of the founding/formation of the people/nation
who originate the myth, and give a justification for their national character, way of life, laws, customs, etc.
Ritual myth – explains the origin, purpose and prescribed manner of performing religious and other
rituals. Many, many myths are thought to be of this type.
Cosmogonies (stories of the birth of the cosmos, or universe), and Theogonies (stories of the birth of
the gods) – these attempt to give an account of the origin of the universe, the origin of the gods, the
creation of the world, etc., and explain the place of humans in the universe.
Didactic – are used to teach something, esp. such things as virtues, moral qualities, reverence for the
gods, the right way to live, etc.
Combination – many, if not most myths, perform several functions at once – they may explain the
foundation of a society, explain the origin of rituals, account for the place of that nation’s inhabitants
in the greater scheme of the universe, explain characteric features of the geography and climate of the
place where the people live, etc.
TEXTUAL TRANSMISSION:
“Textual transmission” is the process by which ancient literature has come down to us, through copies of
copies of copies of copies of copies, until printing invented ca. A.D. 1450.
Papyrus – ancient book material, invented by Egyptians, introduced into Greece through Phoenician traders.
“Biblion”, Greek for “book”, comes from Phoenician city of Byblos, a center of the trade with Greece.
Papyrus is written on with ink, using a pen (a reed, feather, etc.)
Sheets are pasted into rolls; longer works required several rolls to contain all the text, so longer
works were divided into “books”, individual rolls. Iliad and Odyssey each divided into 24 books,
i.e., 24 papyrus rolls each. A complete copy of each poem consisted of a leather case with 24 rolls.
(Our work “volume” comes from the Latin word volumen, meaning “a roll”, “something rolled up”.)
“Codicilli” – waxed wooden tablets, used for rough drafts, letters, accounts, contracts, etc;
written on with a wooden, metal, ivory or bone stylus, with a flat end for smoothing out the wax if
you wanted to erase something. (Latin invertere stylum, “to invert the stylus” = “to erase”)
Parchment – invented in city of Pergamum in Asia Minor (modern Turkey) as a substitute for papyrus;
consists of animals skin treated, stretched and dried so it retains its stretched shape as a writing surface.
Codex book – a book of the sort that we think of as a book, with leaves bound at one end. (Plural is codices)
Generally (though not always), papyrus was used for rolls, parchment was used for codices.
4th-5th century A.D. format shift – there was a shift in format from the papyrus roll book to the parchment
codex book. What wasn’t recopied from the old format to the new didn’t survive (similar to the
format shift in audio recordings in the early 1980s, from the vinyl LP to the CD).
“Paleography” – literally the study of “old writing”; the study of manuscript texts.
I don’t have anything on this sheet about theories of myth interpretation, but look at chapter 23 of Powell (if you
have it) and, mainly, the class notes. However, I am not going to stress that on the quiz.