Greece+Seven

__Ancient Greece; Overview__
Ancient Greece is a peninsula in south east Europe. It is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea. Many people believe that it was the birthplace of western civilization.It lasted through out 8th to 6th centuries BC, to 600 AD.Though it was a part of modern day Greece, it mainly referred to all of the Greek speaking countries at the time, such as Bulgaria, and Turkey. Ancient Greece’s most important cities at the time, were Athens (Greece's capital, named after the Greek's goddess of wisdom and courage Athena), and Sparta. Greece is known for many important things. They were the first people to have a democracy, as well as started the Olympic Games. The Greeks also have their own alphabet that is nearly 2500 years old!

__Greece's Climate and Geography__

Greece is in Southern Europe, so the climate is mostly Mediterranean, which means it has mild, wet winters and dry, hot summers. The crops would be hard to grow in these weather conditions. Though, it is a different climate in different areas. For example, to the west of the Pindus Mountain, it's usually quite wet. To the east of the Pindus Mountain, it's usually drier and windier in the summertime. When the winter is harsh with huge snowfalls and the summers are cool with recurring thunderstorms, it is called the Alpine Mediterranean climate. The Alpine Mediterranean climate is found on high mountains like the Pindus, also. The last climate well known in Greece is the Dry Mediterranean climate, which occurs in many different islands like, the Cyclades, the Aeagan islands, some low areas of Crete, and more. The Dry Mediterranean is in the summertime in these areas where it's very hot, sunny, dry, and warm at night. Even though the summers are quite hot, the winters are pretty wet, which can be quite heavy, and that can sometimes cause floods.



Greece is a country located in Southern Europe. Greece is surrounded on the north Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia and Albania. In the west, it is located by the Ionian Sea. To the south is the Mediterranean Sea. To the east is the Aegean Sea and Turkey. 80% of Greece is mountainous. It is one of the most mountainous countries in Europe. Greece has over 7,000 islands. Some islands are, The Ionian Islands, The Aegean Islands, and The Cyclades. Greece has a large peninsular called the Peloponnese. The mountains continue across the Peloponnese and under the sea to form many islands. Mount Olympus is the highest mountain in Greece. In the Western part of Greece, there are lakes and wetlands.

__Adapting & Managing Their Environment__

Living Ancient Greece definitely was not easy. With their rocky terrain came problems with farming. Their fresh water supply was very limited, and they found it hard to water their crops. That is where irrigation came in very handy. The Greeks were forced to look out of the country, to further land, to find nice, soft fertile soil to farm on. Due to these bad farming conditions, people did not settle down in Greece, as early as they did in Ancient Egypt, or The Fertile Crescent.

Ancient Greece was also right in the middle of a very active volcanic zone. Active Volcanoes and earthquakes were very common. It made the Greek people constantly nervous. That was what started some of the Greek Mythology, to help people understand why it happened, and to see what will happen in the future. There were also many upsides to living in Ancient Greece. It was made up of many islands, with a very long seacoast along the Aegean Sea. Ancient Greece was full of tall mountains, making it difficult to walk, but with the ocean so nearby, easy to travel in a boat. They have many beaches, with Greece being no further than forty miles from the ocean. With this type of environment, visitors were most often avid sailors. With the Mediterranean Sea so nearby, and horrible farming conditions, the Ancient Greek people had to figure out how to make a living, keeping the sea in mind. They started to go fishing, and at the end of the day trade their catch. The Greek people also sold sailing trade routes, from one city to another, both in Greece, and other cities elsewhere.

Ancient Greece used to have many trees along the hillsides, but now in modern day, there are only small bushes, or none. Nobody is quite sure when the trees were cut down, but the most logical explanation would be when the Greeks first begun to use iron, and making it (in order to make it, you have to heat iron very hot, using lots of wood), around 800 B.C.

On the steep hills, vineyards were planted; the grapes were eaten and used for wine. In the Greeks few fertile valleys, farmers grew olives, figs, grain, and grapes and fruit.

__Greece's Modern Lessons__ People often choose land that has enough rain fall to farm on, so that the rain waters the plants naturally. That is called 'dry farming", since the famers do not have to worry about carrying water to the crops. Sadly, in places like Ancient Greece, and Egypt, it was extremely dry. There was barely any rain, which made it very hard for farming. The Ancient Greeks were forced to figure out another way to get water to their crops.  The way that they got water from the river to the fields was called "Wet Farming". How they got the water form the river is called irrigation.  In the ancient times, they figured out that they could carry the water from the river themselves, using buckets. This worked well, but it was extremely tiring, and hard work to do. Since it is so heavy, the water was hard to carry, even if they tried their best, it wasn't possible to retrieve large amounts at one time. Surprisingly, even an Ox, or a Donkey can't carry enough water, to irrigate the fields.  Another way of irrigating land in the ancient times was diverting water from their natural sources, such as the ocean or rivers, to a man- made place for agricultural purposes. Some ancient civilizations build large dams, and canals, to redirect the waters natural paths into their canals. The only problem with this sophisticated Ancient irrigation system, was that the ancient peoples were not able to,like we do today, filter out the salt water our of their water supply. Places with large amounts of water, like Nile River, did not have this problem, because of the constant water flow of the river that flushed out the salts. But, places like, had fields filled with water that were very difficult to drain.

Today, people do still use the original way to irrigate, simply getting a bucket of water filled at your town water supply, and manually pouring it onto the crops, because it was so easy and cheap. But, most people that do use that method nowadays usually have only small gardens that they need to water. The modern day farmers have to use something different, since they have very large acres of land, and crops to water. [|Irrigation systems that we now have], have definitely advanced from the simple bucket of water. We now have two popular methods to irrigate the land. To either use the drip irrigation method, or the spray irrigation method. The drip irrigation method, is ideal for vegetable and fruit crops, because it can be put in-between the crops, or even submerged into the ground, so that the crops roots can get watered directly where they need it, and there is no worrying about the water evaporating. Spray irrigation is more popular for larger fields of crops, and fruit, since it covers a lot more area. The most common used spray irrigation system is called the center-pivot system. The center-pivot system has metal frames that hold water tubes, which end in a water gun that sprays water all over the crops in large bursts. The turning head of the system lets there be even coverage of water on the plants.

This is still used today in plenty of different countries such as Africa, India, China, and many others. I definitely think that this was a great invention, and discovery, because, well without it the Ancient Greek people would not have enough food, because of their very dry lands, and the population would most likely decrease. It has also helped us by making it possible to have large farms that have good, and healthy crops, that are watered, to sell, and help the economy.

The Ancient Greeks are most commonly known for their temples, which are found all through Greece. The other popular type of building was the open-air theatre, with the earliest dating all the way back to 350 BC. [|Ancient Greek homes] were built out of stone, wood, or sun dried clay bricks. They were specifically designed to keep cool in the warm summers, and conserve heat in the cold winters.

Nowadays, we still use bricks, stones, and wood to build our buildings. We also still have the same purpose, to have our house warm in the cold winter, and nice and cool, in the boiling hot summer. Because of our advanced technology in modern times, we now have fans in our homes to stay at a pleasant temperature in the blazing sun, and electric heaters, to keep us toasty warm in the freezing cold snow.

__Bibliography__
[|Ancient Greece Info + More] [|Ancient Greeks Info] [|Ancient History: Greece] [|Geography Info] [|More Geography Info] [|Overview Info] [|Mr Donn's Website] [|Picture: Map of the Ancient Greek World] [|Ancient Greece: Great Info] [|Info on Farming, as well as picture of Ancient Greece's Farmland] [|Ancient Irrigation] [|Ancient Greece's Environment] [|Ancient Greek Architecture] [|Picture of Ancient Greek Home] [|Picture of a Simple Irrigation System] "Eyewitness: Ancient Greece" Published in New York, 2007, DK Publishing Inc