Unit Reflection

The Byzantine Empire was very important and it affected the modern society in a big way. Since it took aspects from both the Greek and Roman Empire, it combined them into one strong empire. However, both of them fell so the Byzantine empire saved all of their great achievements that we still use today. The people of the Byzantine Empire mainly spoke Greek, adapting many aspects from the Greek culture. They rewrote a lot of Greek and Roman literature, that without them, we would not have today. They saved many discoveries in math, science, philosophy, as well as many inventions. If they hadn't have done that, today we wouldn't be so advanced since all of those things would be lost forever. The Byzantine Empire was also very advanced in art and architecture. They had adopted many aspects of art into mosaics that decorated churches. The mosaics were made of small pieces of glass or rocks that formed large pictures of saints or other holy people. Icons were also an important aspect of the Byzantine art as they were images of saints, Jesus Christ, or Mary. The Hagia Sophia is a great example of how advanced the Byzantine architecture was. It was a very large Christian church that was built during the reign of Emperor Justinian. It was a symbol of how powerful the empire was at that time, and how advance it was. The Byzantine Empire is very important even though it existed a long time ago, since it saved much of the information and achievements from the past so we still have them today. Thanks to them, we can learn and study about our past.