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A sundial is a device that uses the position of the Sun to tell time. Several different forms of sundials exist. The simplest model consists of a flattened surface (often in a circular or semicircular shape) with a marker placed at a ninety-degree angle from the surface of the dial. This marker is called the gnomon, and during the day, it casts a shadow from the Sun onto the base of the sundial. Marks on the sundial indicate the time based upon where the shadow lands on the base. Other types of sundials include equatorial sundials, horizontal sundials, hemispheric sundials, and vertical sundials—all of which use different angles of the gnomon to tell time. Precision sundial By Hoffmann Albin, www.precisionsundials.eu (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons Sun Dial: The placement of shadow on a sundial will show the time of day. © EBSCO

The Greek Dark Ages refers to the period between the collapse of the Mycenaean Greek civilization and the rise of Archaic Greece. Historians differ on the exact time frame, but the period is generally considered to have lasted from about 1200 to 800 BCE. Prior to this time, the Mycenaeans had built a wealthy civilization that dominated the Greek mainland and the islands of the Aegean Sea. However, a series of cataclysmic events that occurred about 1200 BCE led to the downfall of the Mycenaeans, along with the other major civilizations of the Mediterranean region. Large population centers were destroyed, writing and literacy were lost, and the number of human settlements in Greece plummeted. Though Greek civilization rebounded to reach even greater heights, the Dark Ages left behind several societal changes that helped to shape the modern world.Migrations, invasions and destructions during the end of the Bronze Age (c. 1200 BC).Alexikoua [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)] The Lion Gate at Mycenae, the center of the last phase of the Bronze Age in Ancient Greece.Andreas Trepte [CC BY-SA 2.5 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)]

Aithiopia, was a name applied by Greeks to any region in the far south, including (according to Aeschylus) even India

In classical antiquity there were many secret cults or “mysteries,” each of which characteristically required initiatory rites before full knowledge of its beliefs and liturgy would be revealed. Demeter and Dionysos were the deities with whom the most famous ancient Greek mysteries were associated, and the Eleusinian Mysteries, celebrated in honor of Demeter and her daughter Persephone, were perhaps the most renowned of all. The name is derived from Eleusis, a town some fourteen miles northwest of Athens, its acropolis facing the Bay of Salamis and dominating the rich Thriasian plain. It is with this city that one of the principal myths of antiquity became associated some time in the latter half of the second millennium b.c.e.; as a result, Eleusis became famous and wealthy as the site of a major sanctuary.