It's all Greek to me Trivia Quiz

Answer: Mycenaean

The Mycenaean civilisation flourished from around 1900-1100 BCE. Mycenae is about 90 kilometres from Athens, in the Peloponnese, and what we know about it is from the archaeological evidence, and from accounts such as Homer's 'Iliad', which tells of the war against Troy. The Mycenaeans were greatly influenced by the Minoan civilisation in Crete, and had a system of writing that we call 'Linear B' which was a development of the Minoan 'Linear A' script.

Around 800 BCE Greece began to split into 'City States', which were independent and frequently at war with one another. There were a great many of these city states, but some of the most powerful ones included Athens, Sparta, Rhodes, Corinth, Argos and Megara. The states would sometimes unite against an enemy, which is what happened in the case of the the Trojan War, the subject of Homer's 'Iliad'.

Answer: Zeus and Hera

The gods and goddesses were often married, sometimes many times and frequently to their own siblings. Zeus was married to Hera, who was also his sister.
Zeus was the God of the Sky, War and Justice while Hera was the Goddess of Women, Marriage and Childbirth.

Answer: The Wooden Horse of Troy

The Trojan War began because of the kidnapping of Helen, wife of King Menelaus of Sparta, by Paris, son of King Priam of Troy. The war lasted for ten years, and an account of it can be found in Homer's 'Iliad'.

After bitter fighting during the siege of Troy, in which many of the Greek heroes were killed, the Trojans looked out one morning to find that the Greek army had vanished, but outside the great doors of their city was a huge wooden horse on wheels. On its side was inscription dedicating the horse to Athene and praying for the safe return of the warriors to their Greek homelands. The Trojans examined the horse, which they took to be a gift, and it seemed harmless, so they took it into their city. However, un beknown to them there were fifty Greek warriors concealed in its belly, and the rest of the Greek army had been sheltering out of sight in ships nearby. The soldiers killed the Trojan guards and let the rest of their army into Troy, which brought the war to an end, and Helen was returned to her husband Menelaus. Hence the expression 'Beware of Greeks bearing gifts' - in other words, beware of presents from your enemies.
The Trojan Horse was Odysseus' idea.

Answer: All of these

In the modern Olympic Games, not only are all the athletes fully clothed, they also wear a team uniform to show which country they are competing for.
Of course, women are included now both as athletes and spectators.
The prizes in the modern Games are medals, Gold for the winner, Silver for second place and Bronze for third place. The laurel wreath still survives in expressions such as 'resting on your laurels', meaning to depend on your past victories.

Answer: Lord Elgin

Lord Elgin was Ambassador to Constantinople at the time when Greece was part of the Ottoman Empire. The Parthenon had been used as a mosque and as a gunpowder store. Elgin realised that the statues and friezes were in a very bad state - the Parthenon had suffered a direct hit from a Venetian cannon in 1687 which brought down the internal walls as well as much of the statuary, and Turkish soldiers were using the statues for target practice. Additionally, local people were burning fragments to make lime mortar for building. He negotiated with the Turkish governor who said that he could take anything that did not interfere with the walls, so Elgin purchased the marbles for £36,000, a huge amount at that time, and brought them back to the UK. In 1816 they were bought from him by Parliament and presented to the British Museum.

The Greek government wants to have the Marbles back, and has actually built a special museum to house them and which currently holds plaster casts of the Marbles. However there is no likelihood of them being returned because the Elgin purchase was completely legal and well documented, and in any case British law precludes items in the Museum being removed. This is to safeguard treasures from being sold off as a money-making expedient by any government, (such as happened in Russia during the 1920s). Many other museums throughout the world also hold parts of the Parthenon Marbles.

Answer: Macedon

Alexander was the son of Philip of Macedon, and we know what he looked like because his image survives on coins, carved into gemstones and in sculptures, though many of these may have been made after his death. The philosopher Aristotle was his mentor.
During his short lifetime - he died at the age of 32 - Alexander conquered most of the then known world. His empire stretched, in modern terms, from the Balkans to Pakistan, and genetic evidence of the presence his armies survives still even in remote places like Afghanistan.
He died in 323 BCE in Babylon and was eventually buried in Alexandria, in Egypt. The actual whereabouts of his grave is unknown.

Answer: Archimedes

Archimedes (287-212 BCE) lived in Syracuse. He was a mathematician, physicist, inventor, astronomer and engineer and many of his writings still exist.
He invented a mechanism for for raising water, which is known as the
'Archimedes Screw'. He is probably best remembered for shouting 'Eureka' and running naked out of his bath after discovering the principle of buoyancy and displacement (Archimedes Principle).
A fascinating artifact called the 'Antikythera Device' was found in 1900 in a shipwreck off the island of Antikythera, and it is the earliest known mechanism for calculating astronomical positions. It was made over 2,000 years ago and it has been suggested that Archimedes may have been the inventor, but there is no proof of this.

Answer: Democracy

'Democracy' is a political system where every member of a society has an equal share in the power. In modern terms, this means 'one man, one vote'. This is the basis upon which most modern political systems are founded.
Probably there were other societies where a form of democracy existed, but the best known example is that which existed in Athens in the fifth century BCE. This was actually an experiment and lasted only around 100 years; in order to vote you had to be an adult man and a citizen, but most people in the city were not citizens.

Answer: Troy

Schliemann was not an archaeologist but a rich businessman. He was an advocate of the historical reality of places mentioned in works such as the 'Iliad' and the 'Aeneid', and once he was rich enough to put his ideas to the test he started to excavate the ruins of Hissarlik, which he believed to be ancient Troy.

He had studied the ancient texts closely, and used them to identify topographical landmarks which matched those described in the texts. To the amazement of almost everyone, he was right, and had found the site of Troy. His training in archaeology was inadequate, and his excavations actually dug straight through the level at which ancient Troy of the legends was located, and destroyed much of the evidence. Nevertheless he uncovered some spectacular finds of gold artifacts that he called 'Priam's Treasure', but which do not in fact come from the appropriate period.

These finds were looted from the Pergamon Museum in Berlin in 1945 and are now in the Pushkin Museum in Russia. There has, in any case, always been doubt about the authenticity of the finds because there were suspicions about past digs in which Schliemann may have 'spiced up' the excavations with fake finds.

Answer: Knossos

Knossos is a huge, complex site which has been associated with the story of the Minotaur, the half man, half bull monster that, in legend, inhabited a labyrinth built by the architect Daedalus at the behest of King Minos. This association may be because of the frescos and pottery depicting bull worship and the sport of bull-leaping that Evans uncovered.

He also found evidence of the Minoans having a writing system, known to archaeologists as 'Linear A', which remains undeciphered. Knossos was inhabited for thousands of years until its abandonment in 1375 BCE.

It may have been as a result of earthquake or volcanic eruption, but we do not know.