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Category: History
How did the “Swastika”, which is said to be the symbol of the Aryan race, get its place in Hinduism?
As always, good outline in Wikipedia: Swastika To summarise: Lots of ancient civilisations used the swastika as a symbol, because it’s an easy shape to draw. Because lots of ancient Indo-European civilisations used it (including Indians, Greeks, Celts, and Armenians), German archaeologists assumed it was a symbol of the original Indo-European people. OTOH the Chinese […]
What is Tutankhamun’s greek name?
King Tut is famous now, but his memory had been quite effectively erased by his successors. Manetho wrote a Greek history of Egypt listing pharaohs, whose names only kinda sorta line up with the names we find in Egyptian documents. The pharaoh he lists corresponding to King Tut is Rathotis. See the paper Manetho’s Eighteenth […]
How widely were German, French and English each used as languages of science in the Europe of the 19th and early 20th centuries?
Greek linguists at the time mostly did German, and some did French. Of the main antagonists, Psichari only wrote in French—but then again, he lived in France. Hatzidakis mostly wrote in German, though he could write in French if he had to. When I was studying in Greece, I heard distant echoes of a “German […]
Is Spain the only place which has ever been de-islamized? How did they do that?
Crete and Greek Macedonia in 1923, by the Population exchange between Greece and Turkey. Done by expulsions of the kind currently frowned upon (Ethnic cleansing), but which happened quite a bit after both WWI and WWII. On the Greek side, at least, the process appears to have been relatively orderly. Well, as orderly as that […]
What is the historical significance of Thessaloniki, Greece?
Up and coming city in the Roman Empire. Was the base of the Emperor Galerius. Very important city during Byzantium, to the extent of being termed the Co-Queen of Cities (συμβασιλεύουσα—the Queen of Cities being Constantinople). Main trading town for much of the Balkans. Major centre of Sephardic settlement after their expulsion from Spain—to the […]
Why are Greeks so leftist?
Good question! I trust someone more knowledgable will reply (who actually lives there now). Of course, not all Greeks are leftist, and as with much of the West, the nominal left-wing parties have drifted further and further to the centre (Panhellenic Socialist Movement, PASOK). There are two related questions here: why has the Left been […]
Was the Byzantine Empire in the Greek medieval state?
Yes and no, but in a different way from Andrew Baird’s answer. The lingua franca and administrative language was Greek. The Empire called itself Roman, but its scholars knew a lot about Ancient Greek and very little about Rome. The core of the Empire was Asia Minor, much of which was Greek-speaking until the Turkish […]
What are the origins of the inhabitants of Mani in Greece – are they Spartan?
Agree with George Bekas, and one should always be wary of claims of genetic purity. But we do know anecdotally that: Its major town Gythium was a Spartan port They were very late converts to Christianity (10th century: Nikon the Metanoeite) Mani was a no-go area for certainly the Ottomans, and likely earlier invaders—so it’s […]
Why are Greeks called Greek in English, Yunan in Turkish and Arabic, Ellines in Greek?
Thx for A2A. The Wikipedia treatment of the topic, Names of the Greeks, is pretty damn good. Basic story: The Classical Greek term for Greeks, Hellenes, had not generalised until early Classical times. Before then, Greek tribes used local terms for themselves, and any peoples that came in touch with them would pick up those […]
“Neighbouring Bulgaria” project
In a previous blog post, I went through Shishmanov’s listing of erstwhile Bulgarian villages in Asia Minor, and tried to map their location—to get a sense of how isolated Kızderbent was, and whether that would account for the heavy Turkicisation that Trakatroukika reportedly underwent. Stoyan Shivarov, of the Ottoman Archive in the Bulgarian National Library, […]