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This web page was created by the braintumorguy, in Athens, GREECE. please make a Small Donation, in my fight against my Brain Tumor which is Growing,

www.paypal.com my email account: braintumor2014@gmail.com

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(1) 2015-08-15 me and King Leonidas of Sparta, Greece, in front of the Acropolis Museum, in Athens, Greece.

(2) 2015-11-22 in front of the Acropolis, in Athens, Greece.

(3) 2015-11-26 in Athens GREECE, in Syntagma Square in front the Parliament Building. - in between the water fountain and the Christmas Tree.

(4) 2016-05-01 me and my Masters, the Great Ancient Greek Philosophers Plato, and Aristotle.

(5) 2016-05-30 Beautiful Greece & the Greek Islands from Space on a beautiful clear day. Thank you NASA.

for more information about me, please visit my main web page

https://sites.google.com/site/niactec/

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2016-10-23 : the website is under construction.

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What do we know about ancient Greek culture?

1. What was Greek culture like?
2. What was the theatre like?
3. Architecture and sculpture
4. Ancient Greek pottery
5. What Greek festivals were there?
6. Where next?

1. What was Greek culture like?

The Greeks had style! Their trademark red and black pottery was very fashionable, and it was bought and sold all over the Mediterranean and even parts of Asia.

They were great builders too. The Greeks built grand temples to their gods and superb sculptures of brave heroes. They pretty much invented the theatre as well. Thousands of people packed the hillside arena of ancient Athens to watch plays by famous writers like Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus.

The Greeks also celebrated the arts with big festivals. There was always music, dancing and feasting in honour of their gods.

2. What was the theatre like?

The Greeks loved going to the theatre. Why do you think it was so enjoyable?

Find out about the topsy-turvy world of the ancient Greek theatre

The Greek theatre

The Greeks loved theatre. They brought incredible stories to life with drama, music and dance.

So, in ancient Greece, theatres were everywhere. Every town had a big bowl-shaped arena, usually on a hillside, where thousands would flock to sit on hard stone seats and watch the latest play.

The most successful Athenian playwright was Sophocles, who won so many Greek theatre competitions that he became a big celebrity. There were three types of plays - comedies, tragedies (which were sad, serious play), and satyrs (a rude kind of play involving naughty half-men, half-goat characters).

Audiences could make a play a success by cheering and stamping their feet – or a miserable failure by throwing food at the performers.

But if the audience we’re getting too rowdy, the theatre staff had big sticks to keep them quiet.

Actors in ancient Greece were all men... apart from that one... oh no, that’s a man too.

Actors changed the way they looked by wearing masks, wigs and padded costumes.

The chorus, standing below the stage, told the audience what was going on in the story – lots of the time they delivered their lines in beautiful song and dance. Their costumes could be even stranger than the actors’ – with animal skins and bird heads!

So next time you see a play, a film or are even just sitting at home watching TV – remember that it all started with the Greeks and their masks. Just don’t try and throw your dinner at the telly!

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3. Architecture and sculpture

There were three main designs of columns in Greek architecture - Doric (left), Ionic (middle) and Corinthian (right).

The Greeks believed that the secret to making a great building was maths. They carefully designed and measured their buildings, making sure they got all their angles, shapes and sizes right.

Their temples were held up with stone columns and sometimes decorated with stone carvings of famous battles from Greek myths.

The Greeks were really good at making statues too. Master sculptors carved lifelike marble statues and decorated them with brightly-coloured paints.

To make them even more spectacular, they added some gold, bronze and ivory jewellery - this would glint and sparkle in the sunlight.

4. Ancient Greek pottery

The Greeks were famous for their clay pots. Potters in the city states of Corinth and Athens made beautiful pottery. They used a watery clay mixture to make patterns on the clay before it was hard. Then the pot was baked in an oven called a kiln. The areas painted with the clay mixture turned black and the unpainted areas turned a reddish-brown.

5. What Greek festivals were there?

The lyre was a popular instrument at many festivals. A lyre is a bit like a small harp and musicians play it by strumming or plucking it. It was sometimes used to accompany singing or poetry readings.

The Greeks were always putting on big parties for their gods.

Athens was the place to go in ancient Greece for culture. Every four years, Athens held the Panathenaic Games. Thousands of people paraded through the city to worship the god Athena. There were competitions for athletics, poetry reading and music. The Games ended with an enormous all-night banquet.

Athens was the place to go for plays too. The city put on a drama festival called the Dionysia in honour of the god Dionysus. He was the god of the theatre and wine. The festival was a bit like a competition. Judges gave prizes for their favourite tragedy and comedy performances.

The Pythian Games were held in Delphi for the god Apollo. They were a bit like the Olympic Games, but there were competitions for music, painting, acting and dancing, as well as athletics.

6. Where next?

https://sites.google.com/site/ancientgreeksthegreekworld/the-ancient-greeks-at-war

braintumor2014@gmail.com

and please send a text message to my mobile phone 0030 6942686838

( 0030 is the international area code of Greece )

in order I connect into the INTERNET and to my www.gmail.com email account and to reply to your email, withing the next 24 hours.

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( English ) the StatCounter was installed on 2016-10-23, 17:30 p.m. GMT

( Greek ) ( Ελληνικά ) Ο μετρητής εγκαταστάθηκε την 23-10-2016 19:30 μ.μ. ώρα Ελλάδας

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