1. By William Bray

2. In the 8th century BC, Greece began to emerge which followed the fall of the Mycenaean civilization. Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet modifying it to create the Greek alphabet. 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 the ground.

3.  Greek mythology consists of stories belonging to the ancient Greeks concerning their gods and heroes. The main Greek gods were the twelve Olympians, Zeus, his wife Hera, Poseidon, Ares, Hermes, Hephaestus, Aphrodite, Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Demeter, and Hades. Other important gods included Hebe, Helios, Dionysus, Persephone and Heracles.

4.  The civilization of ancient Greece has language, politics, education, science, and art. Greek culture came to be foundation to Western culture. Greece has an enormous influence on the culture of many countries from ancient times, particularly in the areas of sculpture and architecture.  The Greeks developed astronomy, which they treated as a branch of mathematics. The first geometrical, three-dimensional models to explain the apparent motion of the planets were developed in the 4th century BC by Eudoxus of Cnidus and Callippus of Cyzicus.