Western Humanaties

 
Please choose one of the following questions, and post your response of a minimum of 150 words. Be sure that your comments are original, thoughtful, and well developed. This discussion will be open for the whole course, so check back frequently:

1) Most films and popular scholars would say that New Kingdom Egypt is the height of their civilization, but all the “Great Pyramids” and other culturally defining ideas are from the Old Kingdom. Which do you believe is the best period which shows the height of the Egyptians, the Old or New Kingdom Egypt? Or do you think the Middle Kingdom is the height of the Egyptians? To answer this question, choose one building, site, city, or artifact which supports your belief from either the Old, Middle, or New Kingdom. For this topic, you may use an example from the textbook, but you must find supportive information that is not mentioned in the textbook about your example from an external source (website, book, or article) to support your response. Your example could also be something not mentioned in the textbook at all. Please cite your sources for this submission.
Or
2) Discuss which of the Early Greek cultures you would like to have lived in. You may choose from the Cycladic, Minoan, Mycenaean, Athenian, or Spartan. In answering this question, please give reasons why you chose the one you did, and also give one reason for each of the other cultures as to why you would NOT want to live in that culture.
Or
3) Early archaeologists went searching for physical evidence of the myths they studied, which was due to Heinrich Schliemann’s finding of Troy. Was this method of searching for mythology a good idea for searching for artifacts and physical cities? This question is asked because the stories of the myths lasted for about 2600 years before someone went looking for and found the myths of the Greeks. Why didn’t someone do this before Schliemann? This idea of “myth-chasing” still goes on, so what kind of modern “myth” do people search for in our present time?