The document provides background information on ancient Greek civilization. It discusses important places in ancient Greece like Athens, Sparta, and Corinth. It also notes that the Greeks colonized throughout the Mediterranean. The rugged terrain of Greece led city-states to develop as independent entities, each with their own governments and cultures. The Mycenaeans were an early Greek civilization between 1600-1100 BC who adopted the Minoan writing system of Linear A and adapted it to early Greek as Linear B. After the collapse of the Mycenaean civilization around 1100 BC, Greece entered a dark age with no written records until later. Homer was a famous Greek poet who wrote the Iliad and Odyssey, epic tales that were originally part of an oral

1. Ancient Greeks

2. Greece: the basis of the West Some important places - Athens Sparta Corinth Thebes Olympia Troy Ephesus

3. The Greeks didn’t stay put in Greece or the Aegean, though. They colonized all over the Mediterranean

6. Linear A Linear B

9. Lion’s Gate Entrance to citadel at Mycenae

10. Entrance to the tholos tomb in Mycenae. That doorway is 18 feet high. Note the relieving arch. The inner lentil weighs 100 tons. How’d they do that?!