Homer, Iliad, Odyssey

• set ca. 1200 B.C. - Troy > Trojan
• composed ca. 750 B.C. (Homer)
• edited into current form in 3rd century B.C. (Hellenistic)

Paris - Helen - Menelaus
Hector - Achilles - Patroclus
Agamemnon

myth = the memory of national trauma

Jason and Medea
Quest for the Golden Fleece
Orchomenus

                  Athamos       =      Ino
                 ___|___
                |             |
          Phrixus     Helle

Colchis (eastern Black Sea at Caucasus Mts.)

Iolcus

                 =  Tyro  =  Poseidon
            |_________|
            |                  |
       Aeson           Pelias
            |
       Jason
Argo > Argonauts

Hera
Athena
Aphrodite
Eros
Hecate

Aeetes, king of Colchis
Medea, priestess of Hecate

Phaeacia
     Alcinous = Arete

Corinth
            Creon
                  |
            Glauke = Jason

Greek Periodization

Points of Reference

ca. 1500 eruption of Thera (Knossos destroyed, rebuilt)
ca. 1380 Mycenean conquest of Crete, eastern Mediterranean
ca. 1200 Trojan War
ca. 750 Homer
479 Persian invasion

Minotaur
Minos, king of Crete > Minoan Civilization
Poseidon
Pasiphae
Daedalus
labyrinth

Eteo-cretans (Odyssey, bk. 9)
Linear A
Knossos
matriarchal

Bronze Age - 3,500 to 1,200 B.C.

Mesopotamia / Fertile Crescent

• Sumer
• Assyria
• Babylon
• Persia

Egypt

Greece

• Mycenean (southern Balkans)
• Minoan (Crete)

1. organize large numbers of people
2. engineering
3. writing
4. hierarchy

Minoan Civilization
matriarchal
religion
sports