Week 12: November 19 - 23

Bible lesson and verse: No adventure club this week because of Thanksgiving and it is a lighter week all around. We will continue lessons but not all subjects.

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This week in History and Geography:

The Mycenaeans c 1600BC - 1200BC

Mapping the Mycenaean World: 2000 BC The Mycenaeans settle in Greece
1600 -1200BC The Mycenaeans are rich and powerful

Palaces and Tombs

This is what the city looked like. The palace contained:

*Workshops for metalworkers, potters and weavers. Some of the things they made were traded abroad.

*Offices where scribes kept record of all the good stored in the palace. They wrote on clay tablets using Linear B writing

*Bathrooms: the tubs were stone and the water had to be scooped away with a jug and poured out. The water was perfumed with fine oils for the nobility.



*Beehive tombs and treasure: The first graves were 40 foot pits. Later graves were "beehive" tombs made of mounded earth. The shaft graves were harder to rob, so a lot of the grave treasures have survived.
This is a golden funeral mask found in a grave shaft at Mycenae.



Trade

Mycenaean traders sailed as far as Egypt and Italy. They bought ivory and precious metals in exchange for wine, olive oil, weapons, pots and bowls.

Warriors

1450 BC Mycenaean warriors sailed to Crete and took control of the palace and Knossos. They also took over the Minoans sea trade and became the leading traders in the eastern Mediterranean.

Legend The Siege of Troy 1250 BC

Paris, prince of Troy, fell in love with Helen, the beautiful wife of a Mycenaean king, Agamemnon. Paris took Helen off to Troy so the angry Agamemnon attacked the city and kept is surrounded for 10 years. One day the Mycenaean soldiers left a large wooden horse outside the walls of Troy and pretended to sail away. The Trojans thought the horse would bring them good luck and brought it into the city. That night, Mycenaean soldiers who were hiding inside the horse climbed out. They opened the city walls, letting in the rest of their army and they destroyed Troy. Helen was sent back to Agamemnon.

The end of the Mycenaeans
by 1200 BC After several years of bad harvests, the people started attacking each other's cities, stealing their crops and cattle. Some even left Greece to search for new homes and their cities were gradually abandoned.