Lec 5: Greek Colonization

Flashcards covering key vocabulary terms, figures, architectural orders, and concepts from lecture notes on Archaic Greek culture, Near Eastern influences, and Mediterranean colonization.

Greece post-Collapse

Massive depopulation, migrations, and withdrawal into the interior

and abandonment of cities

Phoenicia

A Levant civilization centered around cities like Tyre, Byblos, and Sidon that established a massive Mediterranean trading network, sent out colonies like Carthage, and facilitated the spread of written alphabet scripts.

Polis System

The Greek city-state structure that began developing during the Later Iron Age as populations returned to urban centers.

Orientalizing Period

An era in Archaic Greece following the Early Iron Age marked by strong cultural, artistic, and technological influences from Near Eastern and Egyptian civilizations.

Horror Vacui

An artistic concept in 'Orientalizing' Greek art defined by filling all empty space on a decorative surface with patterns or motifs.

Mistress of the Animals

A Near Eastern artistic motif adopted into Archaic Greek art depicting a central female deity holding or flanked by wild animals.

Symposia

Ancient Greek social drinking parties for elite men, adapted from the Near Eastern practice of reclining on couches while drinking wine.

Kouroi and Korai

Archaic Greek free-standing statues representing youth (male kouroi and female korai) influenced by Egyptian monumental stone sculpture.

The Later Iron Age Aegean

Greeks start moving back to cities, creating the basis

for the polis system; Massive population boom; cities begin to outgrow the support of the surrounding countryside, turning elsewhere for food and

exploitation; Trade for raw materials prompts outposts in Egypt

and the Near East

Doric Order

The earliest classical architectural order, predominant on the mainland and western colonies, featuring fluted columns resting directly on the temple platform with simple cushion-like capitals.

Ionic Order

An architectural order developed in Ionia used in the East, characterized by columns with bases and capitals featuring scroll-like volutes.

Corinthian Order

The latest and most elaborate classical Greek architectural order, distinguished by capitals decorated with carved acanthus leaves.

Motivation for Colonization

Pursuit of food and raw materials, and an increase in trading networks

Phoenician Alphabet Transmission

The historical process in which Greeks adopted and adapted Phoenician letter forms, leading to regional Greek alphabets and later Etruscan and Latin scripts.

Metropolis

The founding 'mother city' of an overseas Greek colony, maintaining ongoing economic, cultural, and religious links with its settlement.

Al Mina

An early Euboean trading post established in Syria around ~750 BCE to secure Near Eastern raw materials and luxury trade goods without establishing full Greek civic systems.

Naukratis

A Greek trading outpost founded in Egypt around ~620 BCE, serving as a source for imported Egyptian grain traded for Greek olive oil and silver.

Tomb of the Diver

An ancient tomb in Paestum, Southern Italy, featuring frescoes depicting Greek symposia and afterlife motifs.

Etruria

A region of central/northern Italy composed of city-states rich in natural resources that engaged in trade with Greek colonists and absorbed Greek culture and mythology.

Near Eastern influences in art and technology

Artistic motifs, sculpture technology, gold-making, ivory working, etc.

, Stone construction for temples!

Impacts of Greek Colonization

Cultural influences: In both directions to and from the Greek world, Philosophical thought and social values; Sustenance and profit: Mother cities received the much-needed food as well as foreign goods and opportunities to export/trade

Scythians

A group of nomadic, war-loving horsemen inhabiting the Black Sea region who traded grain, fish, and timber with Greek colonies.

City-planning

Colonies were often planned significantly better than their mother cities: a cluster of civic buildings around a central agora (marketplace)

Greek Culture development in Orientalizing Period through Archaic Period

Innovations in art, architecture, and philosophy bounce back and forth in

both directions