Greece+Facts

=**ANCIENT GREECE !**=

** At home **

 * Most Athenian houses had two stories they were fairly big. The Greeks had three to four meals a day, breakfast which was bread dipped in wine sometimes with figs or olives, lunch was around noon or early afternoon, Dinner the most important meal of the day, was generally taken at night. A light meal was sometimes taken in the late afternoon a "lunch-dinner", was eaten in the late afternoon instead of dinner. **


 * Western civilisation begins **
 * Most of what we take for granted today has had its roots in ancient Greece. An obvious example is the Olympic Games another one is drama. The first know inhabitants of Grete were civilised seafaring people who had previous trade with places like Egypt they lived a peaceful life they enjoyed singing and dancing and daredevil sports like back flipping over bulls. **
 * A man was the most important figure in Athenian life he decided everything when and who his daughters would marry whether there babies would live or die most girls were married in their early teens to men twice their age. **

ANCIENT GREEK ALPHABET
 * Medicine **
 * Most ancient Greeks believed that sickness or disability was a punishment from the gods and recovery was seen as a supernatural event disability was a punishment from the gods and recovery was seen as a supernatural event Hippocrates was the first doctor to suggest a person’s medical condition had nothing to do with religion and more to do with living conditions, diet, and fitness. **

The Greek alphabet is the script that has been used to write the Greek language since at least 730 BC. The alphabet in its classical and modern form is made up of 24 letters ordered in sequence from alpha to omega. The Greek alphabet was made from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, from which it differs by being the first alphabet that provides a full representation of one written symbol per sound both for vowels. During the period known as the Stone Age, the first Greeks lived in caves and used tools made of bone. They hunted bison and reindeer and gathered wild plants.
 * __ The First Greeks: __**
 * The stone age- **

In Greece, before 6000bc, farmers settled in the east to start farms where they grew wheat and vegetables and kept sheep. The landscape around that time wasn’t the same as it is now, back then it was more wooded and narrow valleys and coastal plains were the only good farming areas.
 * The first farmers- **

Since farming in Greece became more efficient, farmers were growing more food than their families could eat. So, farmers started exchanging food for useful items such as tools and pottery. Some people even gave up farming to become craftsmen. Eventually the population increased and some villages grew into towns.
 * The first towns- **

It is believed that the Greek legend, the god Zeus, fell in love with an amazingly beautiful princess named Europa. Zeus was known to turn into a bull and swam to Crete with her on his back. One of three of their handsome sons became the king of Crete. The sons name was Minos. They all saw Minos as a legend, like a pharaoh.
 * The legend of Minos- **


 * __ Gods and Goddesses: __**


 * Aphrodite- **

The daughter of Uranus and wife of Hephaetos was the goddess of love and beauty. She was born in the sea and rode to shore on a shell. Aphrodite was charming but vain; she also had many admirers because of her great beauty.

One of those admirers was Ares (god of war), which made Hera very jealous. Aphrodite was thought to have provoked the Trojan War, by promising Helen, the wife of Menelaus, to Paris, if he judged her the most beautiful goddess.

Her symbols were roses, doves, sparrows, dolphins and rams.


 * Hephaestos- **

The patron of craftsmen was hard-working, skilled at making things and kind, but life was unkind to him. As a child he was crippled after being thrown from Olympus by his bad tempered mother, Hera. Aphrodite was forced to marry him against her will and he suffered ever after from her constant infidelities.