warning

Content guidance

Depiction or discussion of discriminatory behaviour

Depiction or discussion of violence or suffering

Adult supervision recommended

video

Lesson video

In progress...

Loading...

Hello there, and welcome to today's history lesson.

I'm Mr. Moss.

I'm really passionate about history and I'm also really looking forward to teaching you.

With you today, you need to bring your looking eyes, your listening ears, and your thinking brains.

As well as that having something to write with and write on and someone or something to talk to would also be really helpful.

Alright then, let's get straight into today's history lesson.

In this history lesson, we're going to be looking at seafaring in the early Mediterranean world.

So we're going to be looking at a region called the Mediterranean.

And in particular we're going to be looking at how people transported themselves around on the water, on the sea.

The outcome will be, I can describe the galleys of the early Mediterranean, and we're going to be looking at a specific type of boat today called a galley.

Here are the key words for today's learning, my turn, your turn.

Make sure I can hear you saying these back to me.

The first word is galley.

Then we have oar.

Oarsmen.

And warship.

So let's talk about what these mean then.

A galley is a large low ship with a sail and many oars.

An oar is a long pole with a flat end used for moving a boat.

And an oarsmen then are the people who push and pull the oars on a boat in order to propel the boat forwards.

And finally, a warship is a ship used for fighting.

Keep an eye and ear out for these words today, they're going to be really important.

Remember, our outcome is to learn about the galley of the early Mediterranean.

So we are looking at seafaring, so transport on the sea, on the water in the early Mediterranean world.

We're going to first look at who lived in the early Mediterranean world and where that region was.

Then we're going to consider how did people travel in the Mediterranean world.

And we are then going to look at whether it was peaceful or not in the early Mediterranean world.

And that links to our key word warships.

So let's get on with our first learning cycle.

Who lived in the early Mediterranean world? This here is a map of the Mediterranean.

Can you say that for me? Mediterranean.

The Mediterranean is the area around the Mediterranean Sea.

If you look in the centre of our map here, the large blue area, you can see a number of labels that say Mediterranean Sea.

This area here and the surrounding countries are known as the Mediterranean Basin.

There are many countries within this Mediterranean Basin.

And so the region surrounding the sea is called the Mediterranean.

What countries can you see on the map that are next to the Mediterranean Sea? Look carefully now.

You can see the land masses in yellow and the countries are labelled.

Have a look carefully now.

How many countries can you see that are next to the Mediterranean Sea? Off you go.

Brilliant job.

Some of the countries I can see are Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Greece, Italy, and even France.

I wonder if you managed to spot any others.

Let's have a quick check for understanding them.

The Mediterranean is the area around the hmm sea.

the Baltic, the Mediterranean, or the Red.

Complete that sentence for me now, off you go.

Okay, let's see how you've done there then.

The Mediterranean is the area around the Mediterranean Sea.

They're linked in name.

The area gets its name from being next to or around that sea, the Mediterranean.

In ancient times, the countries in the Mediterranean and the groups of people living there often had different names to today.

We looked at the names of some of the countries earlier, but in ancient times, many of these countries weren't yet formed and the people living in the area had different names.

Let's look at some of these names then.

Ancient peoples called the, my turn your turn, Minoans, Phoenicians, and Ancient Greeks lived in the early Mediterranean world.

I wonder if you've heard of any of these ancient peoples before.

Perhaps you've heard of the Ancient Greeks.

The Minoans and Phoenicians may be new to you.

Today we're going to be looking at these groups of ancient people and how they transported and travelled around the Mediterranean Sea.

The earliest seafarers, and seafarers are people who travel by the sea, in the Mediterranean world were the Minoan, Phoenician, and Ancient Greek people.

Those people that lived around the Mediterranean, they explored the Mediterranean sea by boat.

So they went to new places and unfamiliar places by boat.

And you can see here an artist illustration of an early Mediterranean city and a boat.

And we today are going to be looking at these boats in detail and considering how these early Mediterranean people travelled around.

What do you notice about this boat? Do you notice anything interesting about it? Pause the video now, have a look.

So on their journeys they would swap items with people they met in other places and sometimes build new towns for people to live in.

This is one of the reasons why early Mediterranean people explored the Mediterranean.

It was in order to find the things that they needed in order for their people to survive and thrive.

They were able to trade with each other, the Minoans, Phoenicians and Ancient Greeks.

You can imagine this boat here being used to transport goods for trade and also people.

So true or false, the earliest seafarers, so people who travel by sea, explored the Mediterranean world in their boats.

True or false? Brilliant job.

Absolutely, this is true.

I'm wondering if you can think of a reason as to why this is true.

Pause the video now and tell your learning partner.

Great, some brilliant reasoning there.

Perhaps you may have said they explored by boats to swap items with people they met in other places and sometimes build new towns for people to live in.

So we know that the earliest seafarers explored the Mediterranean in boats in order to swap and trade goods that they needed, like food, and water and other items. And also to settle and build new towns for their people to live in.

So for our practise task now, what I'd like us to do is decide if each statement below is true or if it's false.

Put a tick for true, and a cross for false.

Read the statements carefully.

Let's read them together first.

Seafarers explored the Mediterranean to swap items they needed and build new towns.

The Mediterranean is an area surrounding the Mediterranean Sea.

The groups of people living in the Mediterranean often had the same names as today.

Early explorers travelled around the Mediterranean by train.

Remember, a tick for true, a across for false.

Pause the video, off you go.

Brilliant job team, I'm super impressed.

You've clearly been paying a lot of attention during this learning cycle and learned a lot about the early Mediterranean seafarers.

So your answers should look like this.

Check as we go along.

Seafarers explored the Mediterranean to swap items they needed and build new towns.

This is absolutely true.

This is why the early Mediterranean explored the Mediterranean Sea.

The Mediterranean is the area surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, well we've looked at this, this is absolutely true.

We know that they share that name Mediterranean.

The groups of people living in the Mediterranean often had the same names as today.

This is false.

The Ancient Greeks, Minoans and Phoenicians are not people that we would find in the Mediterranean today.

And early explorers travelled around the Mediterranean by train.

This is false.

We know they were seafarers, they travelled around by boat.

And we're gonna be looking at these boats in more detail.

Great job, check and see how you did, make any corrections.

Onto our next learning cycle then, which is how did people travel in the Mediterranean world? So we've looked at which people lived in the Mediterranean, we've looked at why these early Mediterranean people explored.

Now we're going to concentrate and look in more detail at how they travelled, and specifically looking at those galley ships.

So early seafarers travelled around the Mediterranean in ships called, one of our keywords here, my turn, your turn, galleys.

Brilliant.

Here we have an illustration of an early Mediterranean galley.

I wonder what you notice about it.

Can you see any particularly interesting parts? Pause the video now and just take some time to look at this galley.

So let's look in a bit more detail at these early Mediterranean galleys.

Galleys could carry many people and we can see this from this illustration.

You can see the little figures on the ship.

And as well as this, they could also carry lots of items for trading all around the Mediterranean.

And remember, this is one of the key reasons as to why the early Mediterranean peoples like the Minoans, Phoenicians, and Ancient Greeks were travelling around, in order to trade goods.

So choose two things that were transported in galley ships, houses, people, items to trade.

Pause the video now and select the two things, off you go.

Great job, not houses they were ships.

They would transport people and also items to trade.

So let's look in a bit more detail at galley ships.

You can notice that galley ships are long and low with a point at the front.

And you can see that almost sharp point down towards the front of the ship.

They have at least one large sail, and you can see that sail, that piece of cloth in the centre of this galley in our illustration here of an early Mediterranean galley.

The sail is important for catching the wind, allowing speedier transport across the water.

You'll notice as well that we have many oars that are pulled by oarsmen.

So people that would pull those oars in order to transport the ship more rapidly too.

And you can see those oars sticking out either side of the galley ship here.

So my turn, your turn, oars.

Let's look at these oars.

Oars are long wooden poles with one flat wide end.

And you can see an illustration of a pair of oars here.

When oarsmen, so the people that would pull the oars, when they pulled the oars, the boat would move through the water.

This was extremely hard and tiring work.

You have to imagine being sat there and pulling this oar, pushing and pulling it through the water.

This would've been very exhausting.

So which two of these are features of a galley ship? We have an oar, sail, and a small hull.

A hull being that hard outer body of the boat.

Which two are features of a galley ship that I've taught you about today? Select them now.

Okay, let's see how you've done then, team.

Well an oar was absolutely a part of a galley ship.

These would be pulled and pushed by oarsmen from either side of the galley ship in order to propel and move the boat forward.

A sail, at least one sail was also a part of an early Mediterranean galley ship.

This would be used to catch the wind and also move the ship forward.

A small hull though, a hull being that outer shell of the ship.

No galleys actually had quite large hulls in order to transport many people and many items for trade.

So they did not have small hulls, they had quite large hulls.

So what I'd like you to do now is to work with a partner.

Imagine an oarsmen on a galley, so that person pushing and pulling those oars in the early Mediterranean world.

They've been pulling their oars for three hours, the winds have died down, the sails aren't catching much wind.

They're needing to pull that oar in order to move the ship.

And they've not had a break so far for three whole hours.

How do you think that these oarsmen might feel, and what do you think they might be thinking? Work with your partner, They might feel, hmm, they might be thinking, hmm.

Talk to your partner, off you go.

Wow, I loved hearing some of your thoughts there.

You really put yourself into the position of the oarsmen on an early Mediterranean galley.

That's a really long time not to eat or drink, isn't it? And I've heard loads of your ideas considering this.

So you might have included in your conversations, and I think I heard some of these points being made, so well done.

Their arms might be aching and they might have no energy.

They've been doing it for three hours after all.

They could be worried about getting really exhausted 'cause they've not had a break or eaten anything.

They would be so hungry and thirsty.

Rowing a boat for hours is really hard work, especially without stopping for food.

They might be wondering when they could stop for a rest.

Did you include any of these ideas? Great job if you did.

It must have been such hard work being an oarsmen on an early Mediterranean galley.

So we've looked at which early people lived in the Mediterranean.

We've also now considered how they travelled around the Mediterranean world and explored.

Now we're going to consider how else these galley might have been used by thinking about the question, was it peaceful in the early Mediterranean world? Sam and Izzy are talking about what it means for a place to be peaceful.

What do you think it means for a place to be peaceful? Pause the video, have a think.

Have a chat with someone around you.

What does it mean for a place to be peaceful? And then we'll have a think about what Sam and Izzy have said.

Off you go.

Brilliant, some lovely conversations there.

Well, Sam says, "I think people are happy in peaceful places." "In peaceful places, there is no fighting," says Izzy.

I'm sure that you included some of these ideas in your thoughts about what it means to be peaceful too.

So happy, and peaceful, and no fighting because they're at peace.

So in the early Mediterranean world it was not always peaceful.

Sometimes groups of people or different countries argued or even battled against each other.

But when these groups of people battled against each other, this is called war.

So we know that the names of some of these early Mediterranean civilizations were the Minoans, the Phoenicians, and the Ancient Greeks.

And often these people were at war, they were fighting each other.

So there was not always peace.

War is the opposite of peace.

True or false.

It was always peaceful in the early Mediterranean world.

Off you go.

Great, I love seeing some thumbs up and thumbs down there.

This is false.

And the reason we know this is because groups of people battled against each other.

They were at war.

It was not always peaceful in the early Mediterranean world.

So galley ships were sometimes used as warships.

Can you say that word for me, warships.

During these times of fighting warships then were ships for fighting.

We could see here from our illustration of an early me Mediterranean galley ship, how it might have been used for fighting.

The groups fighting each other would ram their galley ships into each other using the pointy end.

You could imagine groups of oarsmen pushing and pulling very hard to ram that sharp end of the galley into another galley in order to create a hole so that it might sink.

So galleys could be used as warships.

They weren't just used for transporting people and items for trade and exploring.

They could also be used for fighting because the early Mediterranean period was not one that was always peaceful.

So what I'd like us to do now is to check your understanding of some of the keywords that we've looked at so far in this lesson.

First off, let's say these keywords again, galley, think about what that is.

Oar, oarsmen, warship.

And we have our definitions.

A ship used for fighting, a long pole with one long flat end used for moving a boat, a long low ship with a sail and many oars, and the people who push and pull the oars on a ship.

Match our keywords to their definition now.

Off you go.

Great job team, you've clearly learn and understand what these words mean.

A galley is a long low ship with a sail and many oars.

These were commonly used in the early Mediterranean period to transport goods, people, and even as warships.

An oar is a long pole with one long flat end used for moving the boat perhaps forwards and backwards.

Oarsmen, the people who push and pull the oars on a ship in order to move it.

And finally a warship, which is how a galley might sometimes be used, a ship used for fighting.

Did you manage to get all of those definitions correct? Check now.

So for our practise task now, what I'd like you to do is draw a galley ship, then I'd like you to describe the galley ship and what it was used for to your learning partner.

You might add labels and detail, or you could just describe using sentences to your partner.

You might want to use these words to help you, people, trade, oars, warships, sails, pointed end.

Pause the video now, draw your galley, and then describe your galley.

Off you go.

Fantastic, I love seeing some of the galleys that you've drawn.

So detailed some of them, brilliant.

So I've got my illustration here of an early Mediterranean galley.

Here are some of the bits of information that you might also have used to describe your galley.

My galley ship is long and has sails, oars and appointed end.

Galley ships were used to trade items and also to transport people, but they were also used as warships.

because there was fighting that was going on during this early Mediterranean period.

Groups fighting each other would run their galley ship into each other using the pointy end.

I can see so many pointy ends on your galleys.

And oarsmen would pull the oars to move the galley ship through the water.

Do you have any detail you want to add to your galley ship? Do you have any labels you want to add? Take the time to do that now.

Great job, in history today team, we've been looking at seafaring in the early Mediterranean world.

Early seafarers, so people who travelled by sea, explored the Mediterranean in ships called galleys.

Galley ships had a large sail and many oars pulled by oarsmen.

People use galley ships for journeys to trade and find new places to live.

Sometimes during times of war, galleys were used as warships.

Keep up the great history, and I'll see you again soon.