myth and historical greece, unearthed

lizz_7777

Transport

Since the 1980s, the roads and rail network of Greece has been significantly modernised. Important works include the Egnatia highway that connects north west Greece (Igoumenitsa) with northern and north west Greece. The Rio-Antirio bridge (the longest suspension cable bridge in Europe) (2250 m long) connects the western Peloponnesus from Rio (7 km from Patras) with Antirion on the central Greek mainland. An expansion of the Patras-Athens national motorway towards Pyrgos in the western Peloponnese is scheduled to be completed by 2014. Most of the highway connection of Athens to Thessaloniki has also been upgraded.

The metropolitan area of the capital Athens had a new international airport (opened in 2001), a new privately run suburban motorway Attiki Odos (opened 2001), and an expanded metro system (since 2000).

Most of the Greek islands and many main cities of Greece are connecting by air mainly from the two major airlines of Greece, Olympic and Aegean air. Maritime connections have been improved with modern high-speed craft, including hydrofoils and catamarans. Railway connections play a somewhat lesser role than in many other European countries, but railways too have been expanded, with new suburban connections around Athens, a modern intercity connection between Athens and Thessaloniki, and upgrading to double lines in many parts of the 2500 km network. International railway lines connect Greek cities with the rest of Europe, the Balkans and Turkey.



The Rio-Antirio bridge near the city of Patras is the longest cable-stayed bridge in Europe and second in the world.

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Demographics

The official Statistical body of Greece is the National Statistical Service of Greece (NSSG). According to the NSSG, Greece's total population in 2001 was 10,964,020. That figure is divided into 5,427,682 males and 5,536,338 females.As statistics from 1971, 1981, and 2001 show, the Greek population has been aging the past several decades.The birth rate in 2003 stood 9.5 per 1,000 inhabitants (14.5 per 1,000 in 1981). At the same time the mortality rate increased slightly from 8.9 per 1,000 inhabitants in 1981 to 9.6 per 1,000 inhabitants in 2003. In 2001, 16.71% of the population were 65 years old and older, 68.12% between the ages of 15 and 64 years old, and 15.18% were 14 years old and younger.Greek society has also rapidly changed with the passage of time. Marriage rates kept falling from almost 71 per 1,000 inhabitants in 1981 until 2002, only to increase slightly in 2003 to 61 per 1,000 and then fall again to 51 in 2004.Divorce rates on the other hand, have seen an increase

lica_mica

Aku pon membesar dgn cerita2 mitos dr greek ni. Hecules, hera, pluto. Yg kelakar tu zeus ni yg pegang bumi dgn tangan dia. One of 12 tasks hecules kena buat, perlukan bantuan zeus ni, so hercules ni pegang jap bumi, hahha..

kelakar pon ada, kekeke

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Immigration

Due to the complexity of Greek immigration policy, practices and data collection, truly reliable data on immigrant populations in Greece is difficult to gather and therefore subject to much speculation. A study from the Mediterranean Migration Observatory maintains that the 2001 Census from the NSSG recorded 762,191 persons residing in Greece without Greek citizenship, constituting around 7% of total population and that, of these, 48,560 were EU or EFTA nationals and 17,426 Cypriots with privileged status. People from the Balkan countries of Albania, Bulgaria, and Romania make up almost two-thirds of the total foreign population. Migrants from the former Soviet Union (Georgia, Russia, Ukraine, Moldava, etc.) comprise 10% of the total.

The greatest cluster of non-EU immigrant population is in the Municipality of Athens 杝ome 132,000 immigrants, at 17% of local population. Thessaloniki is the second largest cluster, with 27,000, reaching 7% of local population. After this, the predominant areas of location are the big cities environs and the agricultural areas. At the same time, Albanians constituted some 56% of total immigrants, followed by Bulgarians (5%), Georgians (3%) and Romanians (3%). Americans, Cypriots, British and Germans appeared as sizeable foreign communities at around 2% each of total foreign population. The rest were around 690,000 persons of non-EU or non-homogeneis (of non-Greek heritage) status.

According to the same study, the foreign population (documented and undocumented) residing in Greece may in reality figure upwards to 8.5% or 10.3%, that is approximately meaning 1.15 million - if immigrants with homogeneis cards are accounted for.

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lizz_7777

Religion

The constitution of Greece recognizes the Greek Orthodox faith as the "prevailing" religion of the country, while guaranteeing freedom of religious belief for all.The Greek Government does not keep statistics on religious groups and censuses do not ask for religious affiliation. According to the State Department, an estimated 97% of Greek citizens identify themselves as Greek Orthodox. However, in the Eurostat - Eurobarometer poll of 2005, 81% of Greek citizens responded that they believe there is a God,which was the third highest percentage among EU members behind only Malta and Cyprus
Estimates of the recognized Muslim minority, which is mostly located in Thrace, range from 98,000 to 140,000, (between 0.9% and 1.2%) while the immigrant Muslim community numbers between 200,000 and 300,000. Albanian immigrants to Greece are usually associated with the Muslim faith, although most are secular in orientation.Judaism has existed in Greece for more than 2,000 years. Sephardi Jews used to have a large presence in the city of Thessaloniki, but nowadays the Greek-Jewish community who survived the Holocaust is estimated to number around 5,500 people.



Stavronikita monastery, a Greek Orthodoxmonastery in Athos peninsula, northern Greece.

Greek members of Roman Catholic faith are estimated at 50,000 with the Roman Catholic immigrant community approximating 200,000.Old Calendarists account for 500,000 followers.Protestants, including Greek Evangelical Church and Free Evangelical Churches, stand at about 30,000.Assemblies of God, International Church of the Foursquare Gospel and other Pentecostal churches of the Greek Synod of Apostolic Church has 12,000 members.Independent Free Apostolic Church of Pentecost is the biggest protestant denomination in Greece with 120 churches.There are not official statistics about Free Apostolic Church of Pentecost, but the Orthodox Church estimates the followers in 20,000.The Jehovah's Witnesses report having 28,243 active members.There are also 653 Mormons,501 Seventh-Day Adventists, and 30 Free Methodists.

The ancient Greek religion has also reappeared as Hellenic Neopaganism, with estimates of approximately 2,000 adherents (comprising 0.02% of the general population).

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lizz_7777

Languages
Main articles: Languages of Greece and Minorities in Greece
Greece is today relatively homogeneous in linguistic terms, with a large majority of the native population using Greek as their first or only language. The Muslim minority in Thrace, which amounts to approximately 0.95% of the total population, consists of speakers of Turkish, Bulgarian (Pomak) and Romani. Romani is also spoken by Christian Roma in other parts of the country.

Further minority languages have traditionally been spoken by regional population groups in various parts of the country. Their use has decreased radically in the course of the 20th century through assimilation with the Greek-speaking majority. This goes for the Arvanites, an Albanian-speaking group mostly located in the rural areas around the capital Athens, and for the Aromanians and Moglenites, also known as Vlachs, whose language is closely related to Romanian and who used to live scattered across several areas of mountaneous central Greece. Members of these groups ethnically identfiy as Greeks[58] and are today all at least bilingual in Greek. In many areas their traditional languages are today only maintained by the older generations and are on the verge of extinction.

Near the northern Greek borders there are also some Slavic-speaking groups, whose members identify ethnically as Greeks in their majority. Their dialects can be linguistically classified as forms of either Macedonian (locally called Slavomacedonian or simply Slavic), or Bulgarian (distinguished as Pomak in the case of the Bulgarophone Muslims of Thrace.

The Jewish community in Greece traditionally spoke Ladino (Judeo-Spanish), today maintained only by a small group of a few thousand speakers.

Among the Greek-speaking population, speakers of the distinctive Pontic dialect came to Greece from Asia Minor after the Pontic Greek Genocide and constitute a sizable group.

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lizz_7777

Education

Compulsory education in Greece comprises primary schools (Δημοτικό Σχολείο, Dimotik

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Culture

The culture of Greece has evolved over thousands of years, with its beginnings in the Mycenaean and Minoan Civilizations, continuing most notably into Classical Greece, the Hellenistic Period, through the influence of the Roman Empire and its Greek Eastern successor the Byzantine Empire. The Ottoman Empire too had a significant influence on Greek culture, but the Greek war of independence is credited with revitalizing Greece and giving birth to a single entity of its multi-faceted culture throughout the ages.



Hermes bearing the infant Dionysus, by Praxiteles, Olympia Archaeological Museum


Philosophy


Most western philosophical traditions began in ancient Greece in the 6th century bce. The first philosophers are called "Presocratics" which designates that they came before Socrates. The Presocratics were from the western or the eastern regions of the Greece and only fragments of the original writings of the presocratics survive, in some cases merely a single sentence. A new period of philosophy started with Socrates the Athenian, like the Sophists, he rejected entirely the physical speculations in which his predecessors had indulged, and made the thoughts and opinions of people his starting-point. Aspects of Socrates were first united from Plato, who also combined with them many of the principles established by earlier philosophers, and developed the whole of this material into the unity of a comprehensive system. Aristotle of Stagira the most important disciple of Plato shared with his teacher the title of the greatest philosopher of antiquity but while Plato had sought to elucidate and explain things from the supra-sensual standpoint of the forms, his pupil preferred to start from the facts given us by experience. Except from these three most significant Greek philosophers other known schools of Greek philosophy from other founders during ancient times were Stoicism, Epicureanism, Skepticism and Neoplatonism

[ Last edited by  lizz_7777 at 9-3-2009 01:45 ]

lizz_7777

Cuisine




Greek salad with additional ingredients

Greek cuisine is often cited as an example of the healthy Mediterranean diet. Greek cuisine incorporates fresh ingredients into a variety of local dishes such as moussaka, stifado, Greek Salad, spanakopita and the world famous Souvlaki. Some dishes can be traced back to ancient Greece like skordalia (a thick pur閑 of potatoes, walnuts, almonds, crushed garlic and olive oil), lentil soup, retsina (white or ros

lizz_7777

Sports

Greece, home to the first modern Olympics, holds a long tradition in sports. The Greek national football team, currently ranked 20th in the world,won the UEFA Euro 2004 in one of the biggest surprises in the history of the sport.The Greek Super League is the highest professional football league in the country comprising of 16 teams. The most successful of them are Olympiacos, Panathinaikos, AEK Athens, PAOK and Aris. The Greek national basketball team has a decades-long tradition of excellence in the sport. As of August 2008 it is ranked 4th in the world.They have won the European Championship twice in 1987 and 2005,and have reached the final four in three of the last four FIBA World Championships, taking the second place in 2006. The domestic top basketball league, A1 Ethniki, is composed of fourteen teams. The most successful Greek teams are Panathinaikos, Olympiacos, Aris, AEK Athens and PAOK. Water polo and volleyball are also practiced widely in Greece while cricket, handball are relatively popular in Corfu and Veroia respectively.As the birth place of the Olympic Games, Greece was most recently host of 2004 Summer Olympics and the first modern Olympics in 1896.




Inside the Athens Olympic Stadium

[ Last edited by  lizz_7777 at 9-3-2009 02:47 ]

lizz_7777

Armed forces

The Hellenic Armed Forces are overseen by the Hellenic National Defense General Staff (Γενικό Επιτελείο Εθνικής Άμυνας - ΓΕΕΘΑ) and consists of three branches:

• Hellenic Army
• Hellenic Navy
• Hellenic Air Force

The civilian authority for the Greek military is the Ministry of National Defence. Furthermore, Greece maintains the Hellenic Coast Guard for law enforcement in the sea and search and rescue.
Greece currently has universal compulsory military service for males while females (who may serve in the military) are exempted from conscription. As of 2006, Greece has mandatory military service of 12 months for male citizens between the ages of 19 and 45. However, as the Armed forces had been gearing towards a complete professional army system, the government had promised that the mandatory military service would be cut or even abolished completely. Greek males between the age of 18 and 60 who live in strategically sensitive areas may be required to serve part-time in the National Guard, service in the Guard is paid. As a member of NATO, the Greek military participates in exercises and deployments under the auspices of the alliance. Greece is an EU and NATO member country and participates in many peacekeeping operations around the world such as ISAF- in Afghanistan, EUFOR in Bosnia and Chad, KFOR in Kosovo, etc.

Component forces and their organization

Hellenic National Defence General Staff
The Hellenic National Defense General Staff, carries out the operational commanding of the Joint Headquarters and the units that come under them, as well as the rest forces, when it comes to the issues of operation plans implementation and the Crises management System implementation, conduction of operations outside the national territory and participation of the Armed Forces in the confrontation of special situations during peace time.

Hellenic Army
The basic components of the Hellenic Army are Arms and Corps, the first responsible for combat missions and the latter for logistical support. It is organized in Commands, formations, and units with the basic being brigade, division and corps. Its main mission is to guarantee the territorial integrity and independence of the state.




The various uniforms of the Presidential Guard.
Left to right: Islander, Macedonian, traditional mainland, modernized mainland, Pontic

Hellenic Navy
Hellenic Navy disposes a powerful fleet, consisted of strike units (frigates, submarines and Fast Attack Guided Missile Vessels) and support vessels in order to conduct naval operations that insure the protection of Hellenic territories.



Frigate Psara, MEKO-200 HN type of the Hellenic Navy branch.

Hellenic Air Force
Hellenic Air Force incorporates a modern air fleet (combative, transportational and training), the congruent structure, as well as a modern system of air control, which cooperates effectively with a widespread net of anti aircraft defense. The structure of its forces includes the General Staff of Air Force, the Command Post of Regular Army, the Air Support Command, the Air Training Command and a number of units and services.



AH-64A+ Apache of the Hellenic Army Air Branch.

[ Last edited by  lizz_7777 at 9-3-2009 02:45 ]

lizz_7777

Ancient Greece

The term Ancient Greece refers to the period of Greek history lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth. It is generally considered to be the seminal culture which provided the foundation of Western civilization. Greek culture had a powerful influence on the Roman Empire, which carried a version of it to many parts of Europe. The civilization of the ancient Greeks has been immensely influential on language, politics, educational systems, philosophy, science, and the arts, giving rise to the Renaissance in Western Europe and again resurgent during various neo-Classical revivals in 18th and 19th century Europe and the Americas.

Greek Dark Ages
Archaic Greece
Classical Greece
Hellenistic Greece
Roman Greece



The Parthenon is one of the most representative symbols of the culture and sophistication of the ancient Greeks.

[ Last edited by  lizz_7777 at 9-3-2009 11:12 ]

lizz_7777

Chronology


There are no fixed or universally agreed upon dates for the beginning or the end of the Ancient Greek period. In common usage it can refer to all Greek history before the Roman conquest, but historians use the term more precisely. The Greek-speaking Mycenaean civilization that collapsed about 1150 BC and which preceded the classical Greek culture is generally excluded from the ancient Greek era. Some historians took the date of the first recorded Olympic Games in 776 BC as the beginning of the ancient Greek period. Between the end of the Mycenaean period and the first Olympics, there is a period known as the Greek Dark Ages, because there are no written records, and few archaeological remnants. This period is now often included in the term Ancient Greece.
The end of the ancient Greek period was traditionally seen as the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC, which was seen to begin the Hellenistic period. However, ancient Greece is often taken to include the following period, until to the Roman conquest of 146 BC. Some writers treat the ancient Greek civilization as a continuum running until the advent of Christianity in the 3rd century; this, however, is unconventional.

The ancient Greek period is subdivided into four periods on a pragmatic basis of pottery styles and political events:

• The Greek Dark Ages (c.1100-c.750 BC) feature the use of geometric designs on pottery.
• The Archaic period (c.750-c.480 BC) follows, in which artists made larger free-standing sculptures in stiff, hieratic poses with the dreamlike 'archaic smile'. The Archaic period is often taken to end with the overthrow of the last tyrant of Athens in 510 BC.
• The Classical period (c.500-323 BC) is characterised by a style which was considered by later observers to be exemplary (i.e. 'classical')梖or instance the Parthenon.
• The Hellenistic period (323-146 BC) is when Greek culture and power expanded into the near and middle east. This period begins with the death of Alexander and ends with the Roman conquest.

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lizz_7777

Sources


Any history of ancient Greece requires a cautionary note on sources. Those Greek historians and political writers whose works have survived, notably Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Demosthenes, Plato and Aristotle, were mostly either Athenians or pro-Athenians. That is why far more is known about the history and politics of Athens than of many other cities. These writers, furthermore, concentrate almost wholly on political, military and diplomatic history, ignoring economic and social history. All histories of ancient Greece have to contend with these limits in their sources.

[ Last edited by  lizz_7777 at 9-3-2009 11:14 ]

lizz_7777

History


Prehistoric and Bronze Age civilization
The tribes which became the Greeks are believed to have migrated southward into the Balkan peninsula in several waves beginning in the Middle Bronze Age (roughly 2000 BC). The Proto-Greek language dates to the period just preceding these migrations, either to the late 3rd millennium BC, or to the 17th century BC at the latest. The Bronze Age civilization of the proto-Greeks is generally referred to as Helladic and preceded what is known as "Ancient Greece".
The so-called Mycenaean civilization culminated in this period, which features in the famous epics of Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey. For reasons which are unknown, this culture collapsed spectacularly around 1150 BC, with cities being sacked and a massive depopulation. This Bronze Age collapse approximately coincides with the apparent arrival of the last group of proto-Greeks into Greece proper, the Dorians. The two events have traditionally been causally linked, but this is by no means certain. With the Bronze Age collapse, Greece entered into a period of obscurity or 'dark age'.

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lizz_7777

Greek Dark Ages


The period from 1100 BC to the 8th century BC is known as the Greek Dark Ages following the Bronze Age collapse from which no primary texts survive and only scant archaeological evidence remains. Secondary and tertiary texts such as Herodotus' Histories, Pausanias' Description of Greece, Diodorus Siculus' Bibliotheca historica, and Jerome's Chronicon contain brief chronologies and king lists for this period

[ Last edited by  lizz_7777 at 9-3-2009 11:18 ]

lizz_7777

Archaic period


In the 8th century BC, Greece began to emerge from the Dark Ages which followed the fall of the Mycenaean civilization. Literacy had been lost and Mycenaean script forgotten, but the Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet, modifying it to create the Greek alphabet. From about the 9th century BC written records begin to appear. Greece was divided into many small self-governing communities, a pattern largely dictated by Greek geography, where every island, valley and plain is cut off from its neighbours by the sea or mountain ranges.
The Lelantine War (c.710-c.650 BC) was an ongoing conflict with the distinction of being the earliest documented war of the ancient Greek period. Fought between the important poleis (city-states) of Chalcis and Eretria over the fertile Lelantine plain of Euboea, both cities seem to have suffered a decline as result of the long war, though Chalcis was the nominal victor.
A mercantile class rose in the first half of the 7th century, shown by the introduction of coinage in about 680 BC.This seems to have introduced tension to many city states. The aristocratic regimes which generally governed the poleis were threatened by the new-found wealth of merchants, who in turn desired political power. From 650 BC onwards, the aristocracies had to fight not to be overthrown and replaced by populist tyrants. The word derives from the non-pejorative Greek τύραννος tyrannos, meaning 'illegitimate ruler', although this was applicable to both good and bad leaders alike.
growing population and shortage of land also seems to have created internal strife between the poor and the rich in many city states. In Sparta, the Messenian Wars resulted in the conquest of Messenia and enserfment of the Messenians, beginning in the latter half of the 8th century BC, an act without precedent or antecedent in ancient Greece. This practice allowed a social revolution to occur. The subjugated population, thenceforth known as helots, farmed and laboured for Sparta, whilst every Spartan male citizen became a soldier of the Spartan Army in a permanently militarized state. Even the elite were obliged to live and train as soldiers; this equality between rich and poor served to diffuse the social conflict. These reforms, attributed to the shadowy Lycurgus of Sparta, were probably complete by 650 BC.
Athens suffered a land and agrarian crisis in the late 7th century, again resulting in civil strife. The Archon (chief magistrate) Draco made severe reforms to the law code in 621 BC (hence Draconian), but these failed to quell the conflict. Eventually the moderate reforms of Solon (594 BC), improving the lot of the poor but firmly entrenching the aristocracy in power, gave Athens some stability.

[ Last edited by  lizz_7777 at 9-3-2009 11:21 ]

lizz_7777

By the 6th century BC several cities had emerged as dominant in Greek affairs: Athens, Sparta, Corinth, and Thebes. Each of them had brought the surrounding rural areas and smaller towns under their control, and Athens and Corinth had become major maritime and mercantile powers as well.

Rapidly increasing population in the 8th and 7th centuries had resulted in emigration of many Greeks to form colonies in Magna Graecia (Southern Italy and Sicily), Asia Minor and further afield. The emigration effectively ceased in the 6th century by which time the Greek world had, culturally and linguistically, become much larger than the area of present-day Greece. Greek colonies were not politically controlled by their founding cities, although they often retained religious and commercial links with them.

In this period, huge economic development occurred in Greece and also her overseas colonies which experienced a growth in commerce and manufacturing. There was a large improvement in the living standards of the population. Some studies estimate that the average size of the Greek household, in the period from 800 BC to 300 BC, increased five times, which indicates a large increase in the average income of the population.

In the second half of the 6th century, Athens fell under the tyranny of Peisistratos and then his sons Hippias and Hipparchos. However, in 510 BC, at the instigation of the Athenian aristocrat Cleisthenes, the Spartan king Cleomenes I helped the Athenians overthrow the tyranny. Afterwards, Sparta and Athens promptly turned on each other, at which point Cleomenes I installed Isagoras as a pro-Spartan archon. Eager to prevent Athens from becoming a Spartan puppet, Cleisthenes responded by proposing to his fellow citizens that Athens undergo a revolution; that all citizens shared in the power, regardless of status; that Athens become a 'democracy'. So enthusiastically did the Athenians take to this idea, that, having overthrown Isagoras and implemented Cleisthenes's reforms, they were easily able to repel a Spartan-led three-pronged invasion aimed at restoring Isagoras.[5] The advent of the democracy cured many of the ills of Athens and led to a 'golden age' for the Athenians.