Sunday 31 May 2009

Greek Art

Towards the end of the seventh and during the sixth century BCE evolved the two major styles of Greek architecture: DORIC and IONIC. Evidence indicates that the older Doric order did not appear until after the Greeks had made full contact with Egypt, which began in 664. The earliest representation of a Doric capital appears on a Protocorinthian sherd of about 650. The most characteristic building type in Greek architecture is the temple.

Rectangular plan for temples were already being adopted in the Geometric period, Their tructure was essentially a rectangular building (cella, or naos) that housed the cult statue, surrounded by a colonnade or peristyle. (Note: when the colonnade runs all the way around the cella, we refer to the temple as peripteral). Front and back porches (pronaos, opisthodomos) were formed by extending and thickening of the cella walls (antae; singular, anta). When two columns stand between the wall ends, described, in Latin, as being "in antis". A series of rules gradually developed which dictated general proportions, placement, and use of various decorative and functional members of the building.

DORIC ORDER
Evolves through the Archaic period mostly in terms of refinements in proportion.
Distinguishing characteristics of the Doric order are:

1. A simple column shaft with twenty channels or flutes with sharp divisions (arrises) between them, and with three necking grooves near top. Slight convex tapering (entasis) from bottom to top

2. The column stands directly on the stylobate, without a base.

3. The capital has a swelling, cushion-like echinus, and a block-shaped slab for an abacus.

4. The architrave is a continuous undecorated flat surface.

The frieze has triglyphs ("three-grooved"), metopes, and regula-guttae and mutule-guttae constructions.

IONIC ORDER
Higher and more slender than the Doric, and more highly decorated. Earliest manifestations found in Ionia (Asia Minor). Distinguishing characteristics of the Ionic Order:

1. The column shaft slender with twenty-four flutes separated by broad, flattened arrises.

2. The column has an elaborately carved base.

3. The capital consists of two hanging volutes, beneath which is an ornamental area, and above a thin abacus.

4. The architrave carved with three flat undecorated projecting bands.

The frieze is continuous flat surface that may been decorated with sculpture or painted.

VOCABULARY
  • Doric
  • Ionic
  • stylobate
  • column
  • flute
  • capital
  • echinus
  • abacus
  • architrave
  • guttae
  • entablature
  • architrave
  • frieze
  • triglyph
  • metope
  • cornice
  • pediment
  • base
  • volute
  • naos or cella
  • pronaos
  • opisthodomos
  • anta
  • columns in antis
  • peristyle or colonnade
  • peripteral


TAREA: TOMA LA IMAGEN DE LOS ELEMENTOS QUE FORMAN EL ARTE GRIEGO Y USANDO EL PROGRAMA DE DIBUJO PAINT, COLOCA EL NOMBRE DE CADA ELEMENTO DONDE CORRESPONDA, LUEGO PUBLICA LA IMAGEN EN TU BLOG. Puedes usar los vídeos para revisarlo en Castellano si tienes alguna duda.

Thursday 28 May 2009

Greek timeline


Click here to go on the parts of the ancient Greece timeline to find out what import events occured

And choose a pot to decorate


Tuesday 26 May 2009

Legend of the Trojan Horse


Legend says ...... Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was an ancient city named Troy. Troy was located on the coast of Asia, across the sea from the Greek city-state of Sparta.

In those days, people used to build walls around their city to help protect them. Some walls were only a few feet high. Others as much as twenty feet high!

The people built gates in the wall. The gates could be opened to let people inside the city. In times of war, the gates could be closed and locked to stop intruders from getting inside.

Along the wall, inside of the city, a set of stairs wound up to the top. Warriors could stand at the top of the stairs and shoot arrows down at intruders who were trying to get inside the city. There were also holes built high on the wall. Archers could shoot arrows though the holes as well. If the wall was high enough and strong enough, it could do a pretty good job keeping intruders from coming inside.

The walls around Troy were very high and very strong. According to the legend of Trojan Horse, for ten long years, the Greeks had been trying to get over the wall around the city of Troy. But the Greeks could not get over the wall. And the Trojans could not drive the Greeks away. Year after year they fought. And year after year, neither side won.

One day, a Greek general, Odysseus, had a tricky idea. "Let's pretend to sail away," he suggested. "We'll leave a gift for Troy, a gift to announce the end of the war, a wooden horse with 30 men hidden inside. At night, these men can sneak out and open the gate of Troy!"

The Greeks thought it was a brilliant idea. They had their best artists build the horse. It was a magnificent horse. When it was ready, the Greeks brought the huge wooden horse. They placed it by the gates of Troy. The Greeks sailed away.

When the archers at the top of the stairs saw the Greeks leaving, they could not believe their eyes. The Trojans thought they had won the war. They laughed when they saw the horse. They loved it actually. The Greeks were famous for their art. The Trojans were delighted with their gift. They dragged the horse inside their city and closed the gates. Then they began to celebrate.

That night, while the Trojan people slept soundly, the 30 Greek men hidden inside the wooden horse climbed out and opened the gates of Troy. That was the end of Troy. ( tomado de ..)

Tarea : Qué piensas sobre la Guerra de Troya? y ¿sobre la Leyenda del Caballo? Publica tus reflexiones sobre ello en el blog

Troya, película



Para saber más sobre Troya o sobre la guerra de Troya

Thursday 21 May 2009

Ancient Greece videos

Un interesante juego


Es una interesante página para que puedas participar de primera mano en la vida e historia griega.

Pulsa sobre la imagen para entrar.


Puedas colocar aquellos aspectos que consideres de interés en tu blog

Wednesday 20 May 2009

Greek colonization

The Greek Colonies

As the Greeks began to see great prosperity, their population exploded. As a result of this increasing population, the farmers in the city-states where not able to produce enough food to support and feed everyone.

To solve this problem, the city-states began to colonize regions around the Mediterranean Sea. These colonies supplied their parent polis, known as a metropolis with grain and food, while the metropolis would supply its colony with the supplies that it needed.

In the map the Mediterranean in ca. the 6th century BC. Phoenician cities are labelled in yellow, Greek cities in red, and other cities in grey.

to see Wikipedia


Tarea: Buscar y citar colonias Griegas y colonias fenicias en España, para ello vas al mapa, pulsando sobre ello, luego realizas un pequeño resumen sobre la colonización griega y junto a un mapa lo colocas en el blog, indicando qué colonias son griegas en España y cuales fenicias, con sus respectivos nombre.

Monday 18 May 2009

"The term acropolis means upper city and many of the city states of ancient Greece are built around an acropolis where the inhabitants can go as a place of refuge in times of invasion. It's for this reason that the most sacred buildings are usually on the acropolis. It's the safest most secure place in town." Athens Guide
The Acropolis in Athens is perhaps the most famous. In Athens, as in other Greek city-states, the ancient Athenians built temples and moments on the Acropolis dedicated to Athena and other ancient Greek gods. The Parthenon was built by Pericles in the 5th century BCE.

ver ímágenes de la acróplis de Atenas




Esquema de la polis tomado de....


Saturday 16 May 2009

Egyptian pyramids

The Egyptian pyramids are ancient pyramid-shaped masonry structures located in Egypt.There are over 100 pyramids in Egypt. Most were built as tombs for the country's Pharaohs and their consorts during the Old and Middle Kingdom periods

The earliest known Egyptian pyramid is the Pyramid of Djoser which was built during the third dynasty. This pyramid and its surrounding complex were designed by the architect Imhotep, and are generally considered to be the world's oldest monumental structures constructed of dressed masonry.

The best known Egyptian pyramids are those found at Giza, on the outskirts of Cairo. Several of the Giza pyramids are counted among the largest structures ever built.

The Pyramid of Khufu at Giza is the largest Egyptian pyramid. It is the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still in existence.

By the time of the early dynastic period of Egyptian history, those with sufficient means were buried in bench-like structures known as mastabas.

The first historically documented Egyptian pyramid is attributed to the architect Imhotep, who planned what Egyptologists believe to be a tomb for the pharaoh Djoser. Amenhotep is credited with being the first to conceive the notion of stacking mastabas on top of each other — creating an edifice composed of a number of "steps" that decreased in size towards its apex. The result was the Step Pyramid of Djoser — which was designed to serve as a gigantic stairway by which the soul of the deceased pharaoh could ascend to the heavens. Such was the importance of Imhotep's achievement that he was deified by later Egyptians.

The most prolific pyramid-building phase coincided with the greatest degree of absolutist pharaonic rule. It was during this time that the most famous pyramids, those near Giza, were built. Over time, as authority became less centralized, the ability and willingness to harness the resources required for construction on a massive scale decreased, and later pyramids were smaller, less well-built and often hastily constructed.

Long after the end of Egypt's own pyramid-building period, a burst of pyramid-building occurred in what is present-day Sudan, after much of Egypt came under the rule of the Kings of Napata. While Napatan rule was brief and ceased in 661 BC, the Egyptian influence made an indelible impression, and during the later Sudanese Kingdom of Meroe (approximately in the period between 300 BC–300 AD) this flowered into a full-blown pyramid-building revival, which saw more than two hundred indigenous, but Egyptian-inspired royal pyramid-tombs constructed in the vicinity of the kingdom's capital city

( Wikipedia english) ( Wikipedia Castellano)

Tuesday 12 May 2009

Tuthankamen´s treasure


Use the Computer to create a presentation to Tuthankamen´s life. Try to answer each of these questions:
Who was Tuthankamen?
Where and When did he live?
Who discovered his tomb?
What was there in Tuthankamen´s treasure?
Why was this discovered so important?


Add some pictores to make your presentation more interesting.

You con use these links:
TAREA: PUBLICA EN TU BLOG LA RESPUESTA A ESTAS PREGUNTAS, ACOMPAÑADAS DE IMÁGENES

Sunday 10 May 2009

Why was the Nile crucial to Ancient Egypt


The ancient Egyptians enjoyed many natural barriers. There were deserts to the east and west of the Nile River, and mountains to the south. This isolated the ancient Egyptians and allowed them to develop a truly distinctive culture.

The Nile is one of the world's longest river. It is over 4000 miles long! It is shaped like the lotus flower so often seen in ancient Egyptian art. Each spring, water would run off the mountains and the Nile would flood. As the flood waters receded, black rich fertile soil was left behind. The ancient Egyptian called this rich soil The Gift of the Nile.

Fertile soil for crops was not the Nile's only gift. The Nile gave the ancient Egyptians many gifts. Thanks to the Nile, these ancient people had fresh water for drinking and bathing. The Nile supported transportation and trade. It provided materials for building, for making cloth for clothes, and even for making paper - made from the wild papyrus weed, that grew along the shores of the Nile.

Because of the annual flooding of the Nile, the ancient Egyptians enjoyed a high standard of living compared to other ancient civilizations. Without the Nile, Egypt would be a desert.


TAREA: Busca información sobre la Geografía de Egipto, sobre las innundaciones, sobre sus creencias en relación con las innundaciones y publícala en el blog. Debes realizar también un pequeño resumen de lo que te cuenta el texto.

Monday 4 May 2009

The fertile Crecent. Mesopotamia


The Fertile Crescent: You may read on the web that ancient Mesopotamia is nicknamed "The Fertile Crescent". It is true that ancient Mesopotamia is located inside the geographic region referred to as The Fertile Crescent. Today, The Fertile Crescent includes the countries of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Cyprus, Jordan, Palestine, Kuwait, the Sinai Peninsula, and Northern Mesopotamia. It is a big place.
A place where you con see one map of Mesopotamia.

The Land Between Two Rivers: Ancient Mesopotamia was located in a piece of The Fertile Crescent, in what is now southern Iraq. It covered an area about 300 miles long and about 150 miles wide. The word Mesopotamia actually means (in Greek) “the land between the rivers.” The two rivers referred to by the ancient Greeks are the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers.

Why would anyone wish to build a civilization in the middle of the desert in what is now lower Iraq? Because it was a great place to live!

In Northern Mesopotamia, the land is fertile. There is seasonal rain. The rivers and streams are fed from the hills and mountains of the region.

In Southern Mesopotamia, the land is mostly flat and barren. Temperatures can rise over 110 degrees Fahrenheit. There is very little rainfall. Storms do blow in from the Persian Gulf, which cools things off. The area does have slight seasons. It can get quite cool at certain times of the year.

Many thousands of years ago, early settlers wandered into the land between two rivers. Natural vegetation and wildlife kept the people well fed. The rivers provided fresh drinking water, and a place to bathe. These early people settled down, invented a system of irrigation, and began to farm the land ( tomado de ...).


TAREA: LEER EL TEXTO Y COLOCAR TU OPINIÓN SOBRE EL MISMO EN TU BLOG. ¿QUÉ PIENSAS SOBRE LA GEOGRAFÍA DE MESOPOTAMIA Y DE SUS RECURSOS? ¿ POR QUÉ SE DESARROLLARON ESTAS CIVILIZACIONES EN ESTA ZONA?