Homer’s Iliad

• An eight week course covering “Homer’s Iliad” (School Term 4, 2010)
• Open to students from Year 5 to Year 9.

ILIAD: Myth or History?

Nearly three thousand years after it was composed, The Iliad remains one of the most celebrated and widely read story ever told, yet next to nothing is known about its composer. He was certainly an accomplished Greek bard, and he probably lived in the late eighth and early seventh centuries B.C.

For centuries, many scholars believed that the Trojan War and its participants were entirely the creation of the Greek imagination. But in the late nineteenth century, an archaeologist named Heinrich Schliemann declared that he had discovered the remnants of Troy. The ruins that he uncovered sit a few dozen miles off of the Aegean coast in north-western Turkey, a site that indeed fits the geographical descriptions of Homer’s Troy.

The course

Aims

A. To enable students to acquire knowledge and appreciation of an ancient civilisation through study of the art, archaeology, mythology and the social and political life of the ancient world, approx. 3000 years old.

B. To assist students to acquire the skills and the approach required when exploring an ancient civilisation at a level appropriate to their age.

Objectives

• Pupils will acquire:

• Pupils will develop the ability to appreciate the general differences and similarities between the ancient civilisations of Greece and Troy.

• Finally, pupils should develop an appreciation of the uniqueness of each age and their respective civilisations.  Ultimately pupils should understand the importance of preserving man’s historical heritage for future generations.

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