American Journal of Physical Anthropology doi:10.1002/ajpa.21152
The harsh life on the 15th century Croatia-Ottoman Empire military border: Analyzing and identifying the reasons for the massacre in
epinMario 
laus et al.
Abstract
laus et al.Abstract
Excavation of the historic period cemetery in 
epin, Croatia revealed the presence of a large number of perimortem injuries distributed among males, females, and subadults. Archaeological and historical data suggest these individuals were victims of a raid carried out by Turkish akinji light cavalry in 1441. Comparisons with the frequencies of perimortem trauma in 12 other, temporally congruent skeletal series from the Balkans (n = 2,123 skeletons) support this assumption. The role of the akinji in the Ottoman army was twofold: to supply war captives, and to terrorize and disperse local populations before the advance of regular troops. This article tests the hypothesis that the purpose of the 1441 raid was the latter. To accomplish this, perimortem trauma in the series were analyzed by sex, age, location, and depth of the injury. A total of 82 perimortem injuries were recorded in 12 males, 7 females, and 3 subadults. The demographic profile of the victims suggests that young adults were specifically targeted in the attack. Significant sex differences are noted in the number, distribution, and pattern of perimortem trauma. Females exhibit significantly more perimortem injuries per individual, and per bone affected, than males. The morphology and pattern of perimortem trauma in females is suggestive of gratuitous violence. Cumulatively, analysis of the osteological data suggest that the objective of the 1441 akinji raid was to spread terror and panic in the epin area, either as revenge for recent military setbacks, or as part of a long-term strategy intended to depopulate the area around Osijek.
epin, Croatia revealed the presence of a large number of perimortem injuries distributed among males, females, and subadults. Archaeological and historical data suggest these individuals were victims of a raid carried out by Turkish akinji light cavalry in 1441. Comparisons with the frequencies of perimortem trauma in 12 other, temporally congruent skeletal series from the Balkans (n = 2,123 skeletons) support this assumption. The role of the akinji in the Ottoman army was twofold: to supply war captives, and to terrorize and disperse local populations before the advance of regular troops. This article tests the hypothesis that the purpose of the 1441 raid was the latter. To accomplish this, perimortem trauma in the series were analyzed by sex, age, location, and depth of the injury. A total of 82 perimortem injuries were recorded in 12 males, 7 females, and 3 subadults. The demographic profile of the victims suggests that young adults were specifically targeted in the attack. Significant sex differences are noted in the number, distribution, and pattern of perimortem trauma. Females exhibit significantly more perimortem injuries per individual, and per bone affected, than males. The morphology and pattern of perimortem trauma in females is suggestive of gratuitous violence. Cumulatively, analysis of the osteological data suggest that the objective of the 1441 akinji raid was to spread terror and panic in the epin area, either as revenge for recent military setbacks, or as part of a long-term strategy intended to depopulate the area around Osijek.
There is too much Balkan historical jingoism in the subtext of this post. We do not know if these soldiers were ethnic Turks or from elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire, or if they were Christian mercenaries and not Muslim. And, unfortunately contemporary 15th century Christian military campaigns were not averse to following similar tactics. Drawing a straight line from incidents from the 15th century to suppossedly support a broad generalization in the 21st century amounts to an abuse of historiagraphy.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Dienekes' point, between the lines, seems odd and eristic. Rough tactics, often playing on, or perhaps even creating ethnic division, were the norm in the history of the Balkans and Anatolia over millenia. The Turks saw themselves as continuing the Roman empire in the area and in many ways they were. I often sense a strong tendency to straw man arguments in Dienekes approach to the parts of history he sometimes mentions on his blog. Does anyone argue that the Ottoman Turks were a modern liberal democracy? And recently: Did anyone argue that West Europeans ONLY received knowledge of Greek authors from Arabs?
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone argue that the Ottoman Turks were a modern liberal democracy?
ReplyDeleteNo, but they do argue that the Ottoman Empire was a model of tolerant Islam and of peaceful co-existence, which is false. They also argue that as "part of European history", Turkey should be admitted to the European Union. They also argue (as Turkish foreign secretary Ahmet Davutoglu does), that since the Ottoman Empire was so great for the Balkan peoples, they should be included in a neo-Ottoman scheme of concentric circles of power emanating from Turkey.
"We do not know if these soldiers were ethnic Turks or from elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire, or if they were Christian mercenaries and not Muslim"
ReplyDeleteThy were in the Ottoman army and this is the only important thing.
>No, but they do argue that the Ottoman Empire was a model of tolerant Islam and of peaceful co-existence, which is false.
ReplyDeleteI have never heard anyone argue this. I am sure you can find an example, but is it a significant one? I put it to you that this is an insignificant argument that is not playing any major role in public debate anywhere.
>They also argue that as "part of European history", Turkey should be admitted to the European Union. They also argue (as Turkish foreign secretary Ahmet Davutoglu does), that since the Ottoman Empire was so great for the Balkan peoples, they should be included in a neo-Ottoman scheme of concentric circles of power emanating from Turkey.
I get your logic here, as one isolated piece of logic, but one simple conclusion you can come to from it is that none of the former Byzantine lands are really part of the area where the mainstream European Union culture developed. Greece, like the Turks a modern country coming from the old empires, is not mainstream Europe by any means for example and has (decreasingly) been a square peg in a round hole for a long time. I say that with no disrespect to Greece.
While I say I can understand this logic however, I think that actually to choose this approach to what European or Western means, or can mean, is extremely naive, and is simply ignoring the debates which have really made all the difference. Ignorance is never good.
What the greater politicians of the west in the 20th century realized was that they could and should try to develop the Balkan and Anatolian area as their old siblings and neighbours, and as partners who themselves want to develop in this direction.
This later strategy was also chosen under a pressure to stave off future problems from the Russian empire, communists, or whatever - but not in a negative or cynical way. It has been a win-win.
If I may say so your perspective is not very European and not very long term on this. The records of the debates and thoughts of people brought Greece into Europe are in the public domain.
That logic concerning Greece becoming mainstream European, something it is still doing, is not different than the logic applied to Turkey amongst the politically thoughtful classes in Western Europe in more recent times, and indeed to former Yugoslavia.
Best Regards
Andrew
"No, but they do argue that the Ottoman Empire was a model of tolerant Islam and of peaceful co-existence, which is false"
ReplyDeleteIn the late ottoman periods christians made as high as 30% of Anatolia population,whereas pratically all muslims were expelled out of spain.
Only with the apparition of european nationalistic chauvinistic ideas(foreign to muslims)encouraged mostly by Russia&England and the consequent rise of young turks that the things worsened.
But during ottoman period,the christians controlled the economy and many christian intellectuals were sponsorized by ottomans.
The religion based nationalism is absurd islam is a renewed version of christianity.
If you want that greeks return back to izmir...then you should do the same thing for muslims expelled out of spain.
I hope my comment will not be deleted as occured in the other thread.
I hope my comment will not be deleted as occured in the other thread.
ReplyDeleteYour totally irrelevant linguistic rants were deleted in the other thread.
If you want that greeks return back to izmir...then you should do the same thing for muslims expelled out of spain.
Greeks settled in Asia Minor peacefully, and long before there were any Turks or Muslims there and were expelled forcefully by Muslim thugs.
Muslims settled in Spain forcefully , when there were already Spaniards and Christians there, and were expelled forcefully, as was becoming to foreign invaders.
>Greeks settled in Asia Minor peacefully...Muslims settled in Spain forcefully.
ReplyDeleteDienekes, your logic is broken here. The context of the discussion means that by "Greeks" and "Muslims" above you should be referring to the people who were expelled in both cases, but you clearly are not. You are apparently conflating distantly connected people who are centuries apart - people who are not necessarily any more connected to each other genetically, linguistically, or in any other way, than anyone else in these places.
Centuries before these expulsions, some of the ancestors of the people expelled took up languages and religions from outside. (Proponents of Christianity and Islam both using degrees of force). Some of the ancestors even came from outside, as did some of the ancestors of the people who got to stay. That's a very weak connection.
I have enjoyed a lot of the articulate postings on this blog, including the references to genetic studies. This is why the sudden u-turns into Islamophobia and the homages to nationalistic jingoism are perplexing and surprising. I would chalk it up to emotion taking the place of a more rational discussion.
ReplyDeleteYou are apparently conflating distantly connected people who are centuries apart - people who are not necessarily any more connected to each other genetically, linguistically, or in any other way, than anyone else in these places.
ReplyDelete"than anyone else"? Greeks of Asia Minor spoke Greek for 3,000 years, so yes, they are more "connected" to the ancient Greek colonists than Turks are.
Centuries before these expulsions, some of the ancestors of the people expelled took up languages and religions from outside.
Greeks in Asia Minor did not "take languages from outside", their language is a direct descendant of the language of the Greeks who founded Miletus.
Also, while there was pagan-Christian violence in late antiquity, there was no invasion by Christians: Christianity did not arrive in Asia Minor with a FOREIGN population, it was ADOPTED by the native population which continued speaking GREEK. Islam in Spain arrived violently by CONQUEST by FOREIGNERS who spoke foreign ARABIC and BERBER languages, and Islam in Anatolia arrived violently by CONQUEST by FOREIGNERS who spoke TURKISH.
Keep posting Dienekes! Of course you have your in-house leftists perched in your forums waiting to comment on anything that conflicts with their world view. They would pardon the devil so long as he wears a red star!
ReplyDeleteThere are the rest of us though who realize history is a very real chain of human action connecting the past to our present.
Leftists seem to take history in the abstract and paint hypothetical scenarios in their favor. When that doesn't work they simply lie.
Strangely,linguistic stuff are deleted even if linguistic is one of the fields of anthropology.
ReplyDeleteLong lists of Arabic words are not related to Y-chromosome haplogroup R-M458.
The clue,is that Europeans do not consider christianity(=2.nd version of the semitic ibrahamic monotheist faith,which was "imposed" upon them "by ruse")a stranger faith but they see islam(=3.rd and final version of the semitic ibrahamic religion that did not manage to "use the ruse"for expanding islam)as a foreign one.
Christianity did not arrive to Europe with a foreign army. It arrived with missionaries. Even the violence associated with its eventual success in some parts was an intra-European affair.
Islam arrived in Europe with foreign armies as an occupation force, and was expelled by Christian Europeans.
>"than anyone else"? Greeks of Asia Minor spoke Greek for 3,000 years, so yes, they are more "connected" to the ancient Greek colonists than Turks are.
ReplyDeleteSo are you saying that Greeks and Turks living last century were 3000 years old, or are you perhaps saying that the population of Asia Minor was divided for thousands of years into racially pure groups who never changed language or inter-married?
Either way this is nonsense.
>Greeks in Asia Minor did not "take languages from outside", their language is a direct descendant of the language of the Greeks who founded Miletus.
And these Greeks who founded Miletus arrived from outside, right? And much later, many of their descendants learnt Turkish right?
So which gene is guilt carried upon, and why do some descendants of the people living in Asia Minor thousands of years ago end up being called guilty of invasion, thousands of years later, while others are not?
I would think it is a primary rule of justice that it is never fair to blame anyone for something they did not do.
Best Regards
Andrew
>Christianity did not arrive to Europe with a foreign army. It arrived with missionaries. Even the violence associated with its eventual success in some parts was an intra-European affair.
ReplyDeleteChristianity might have "arrived" peacefully, but it did not become the universal religion of the old Byzantine world except by brutal force. (You slip past this key moment in the history of Christianity as if it were not important.)
In the same way, I guess there might have been muslims inside the Byzantine empire who lived there peacefully before it was invaded, and did not arrive by force. If this were true, could we then say that Islam only became universal by force, but arrived peacefully, passing the periods of more forceful action off as a footnote?
>Even the violence associated with its eventual success in some parts was an intra-European affair
ReplyDeleteThis is interesting. Turks attacking Greeks is hereby transformed by a wave of a magic wand into something totally different from from Swedes attacking Austrians.
This is an anachromism. The Greeks of Constantinople had lived in the same larger community with the people of Syria, Anatolia, the Levant, and yes with Arabs, for thousands of years. There was no EU subsidies so the Greeks had no reason to feel themselves more closely related to Germans or Frenchman than to their old friends and cousins to the south. Furthermore, BOTH SIDES of the religious war in that part of the world originally saw it as a war between two versions of the same religion, both claiming to be the correct version. (Whats more there were many other versions.) Many of the concerns of Islam, which saw itself as the next step in Christianity, and which developed on the edges of the empire, were also concerns amongst Christians around the empire at the time, and they found a lot of people ready to listen. Consider iconoclasm.
Anyway, I do not see how you can distinguish "intra European" attacks from any other kind of attack.
This is an anachromism. The Greeks of Constantinople had lived in the same larger community with the people of Syria, Anatolia, the Levant, and yes with Arabs, for thousands of years. There was no EU subsidies so the Greeks had no reason to feel themselves more closely related to Germans or Frenchman than to their old friends and cousins to the south.
ReplyDeleteThat is incorrect. The Greeks felt closer to Europeans even at the height of their imperial power when they had no "need" of them. Constantine Porphyrogenitus, for example, who advised his son not to marry non-Christian, or even a Christian barbarian, excluded the "Franks" from this prohibition, by which he meant Western Europeans.
Also, "Arabs" are certainly no cousins or relatives of Greeks, they were foes who conquered the old Hellenistic east, replaced its culture with their own, and threatened the Roman Empire itself.
The only exception is the Orthodox Christians of the Near East who are descended to a large extent from the mixed Greco-Syrian pre-Muslim, pre-Arab population of the region. They are the sole remnant of the world destroyed by the Muslims.
"The only exception is the Orthodox Christians of the Near East who are descended to a large extent from the mixed Greco-Syrian pre-Muslim, pre-Arab population of the region. They are the sole remnant of the world destroyed by the Muslims."
ReplyDeleteThey are not greco-syrians but rather (according to you logic)greeks are syrio-europeans.
Because it's the Greeks who took:
1/the J2 haplotype from semitic syrians and iraqis
2/the semitic alpahebt(canaanite itself taken from proto-arab sinaitic)
3/the semitic faith of christianity
Whereas Syrians dont took greek myhologies nor european haplotypes nor european language.
Also you took element from our clothes(assyian hat)dishes(baklawa,arab coffee,kebab...)and music(oriental luth,buzuki...)and even dances(the zeybekiko caming from semite dabke)
What hurts the hearts is that Armenians and Greeks escaping Anatolia took refuge in semit arab countries like Lebaon and Syria but still tis is not enough.
ReplyDeleteThey bein to live their peacefly and brotherly but this is still not enough for someones.
I was briefly amused by the comment about "in-house leftists," I guess that includes me also. But, what I really wanted to say was to ask Diekenes how he reconciles his superb review of genetics, anthropology, and archaelogy, with a political philosophy that is radically conservative and somewhat reactionary.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in a Spanish-speaking society, and in school I spent hours hearing about the "Reconquista," the advance of Christian kingdoms against the Islamic society in Andalusia. My black and white world view was shattered by the war in Bosnia in the 90's, and I found myself part of a group staging demonstrations in front of the UN building and in front of the Yugoslav consulate in New York city, protesting the massacre of Mulsim boys and men at Srebrenica. I have forever left behind the simple duality of Christian=good and Muslim=bad. Does that make me a "leftist?"
Dienekes, three things:
ReplyDelete1) Let us say frankly that we hate Arabians and Semite and we consider them a danger for Europe and for what is European. But one thing are desires another thing are facts: politics, strategies, etc. About Turks I understand which is the feeling of a Greek, but I think they couldn’t be considered “Arabs” or “Semite”. They are genetically “Europeans”, with a 10% or less of Asiatic, which is the origin of we Europeans ourselves. They have a religion akin to Arabs, but I think that religion has born with the History and with the History it will fall down.
2) All the discussions about linguistics not only are akin the anthropology but are very serious things that merit to be discussed, both the Nostratic theory and the Trombetti’s monogenesis of the language and I don’t justify your deletions. If the hypotheses of Ashraf were absurd, we would have demonstrated by linguistic arguments.
3) I don’t understand why you are defending the Christian faith as something of Greek: the true Greek greatness was philosophy, that Christianity destroyed by closing the philosophic schools, by killing its scientists like Ipazia and destroying the totality of Epicurus’ works and infinite others. I feel a Greek for this and not for its four cents version which is Christianity.
And buzuki come from the pandouris, like all the similar instruments. The world is more ancient than the Arabs think, it was not born in the 622 AD
ReplyDeleteThe relationships between the UE and Turkeyis a political problem, but nobody can deny that the Turkish adhesion to the union is a big problem.
ReplyDeleteThis take the question on the same nature of the UE, on thing it is, on thing it is founded, where it begins and where it ends and what its objectives are.
What we can see in this moment is that UE rulers are more and more estrange from their people.
J2 spread in a time when semites were present(but indo-europeans not yet)
ReplyDeletehomeland of J2 is fertile crescent and its pick is in semite people
semites are at least 10-12 k years old,long before ie exist(we even dont speak about their much late arrival to europe and the assimilation[ie'nisation]of europeans)
zeybekiko come from the arabic word zimbak long before the arriving of turks
I think you know that music instruments like luth,harp,ud,besanterin were developped by semite akkadians
please look here
http://www.visualbiblealive.com/image-bin/Public/045/03/045_03_0047_VOT2_prev.jpg
"zeybekiko come from the arabic word zimbak long before the arriving of turks"
ReplyDeleteThanks. You could be right, since the Turks went through the Arabic world to get to Anatolia.
"They are genetically “Europeans”, with a 10% or less of Asiatic"
ReplyDeleteGioiello you must be kidding. You must be in love with Anatolia. I understand you feel you have been... Greek..., but Anatolians ain't Euros in more ways than one. Besides, 10% is no joke, it's more like hybridization.
I agree with Ashraf: Greek cuisine does look Middle Eastern as does Anatolian food, I suppose. One of the two things out of many he said about history and peoples that have reasonable veridicity.
I think you know that music instruments like luth,harp,ud,besanterin were developped by semite akkadians
ReplyDeleteWell, those are very ancient instruments, maybe akkadians took them from sumerians, but they haven't nothing to do with the liuts family.
This is th pandouris, the father of all the liuts.
http://homoecumenicus.com/pandouris.jpg
Pesanterin(santur,dulcimer)is a semite made music instrument with semitic etymology.
ReplyDeleteI know that well since I'am very interested about it(also perform it a little bit)
You could look here
http://www.turksanturu.com/tarihce_clip_image002_0004.jpg
http://www.turksanturu.com/tarihce_clip_image002_0002.jpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJZH71IZdOw
The 4th Bc pandouris cant be the father of all lutes.
A look to wiki will show this depiction of egyptian lute dating as old as 1350 BC
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4e/Egyptianluteplayers.jpg
...and BOTH were different from the original Roman empire. BOTH saw themselves as the better successor.
ReplyDeleteArab Muslims did not see themselves as a "successor" of the Roman Empire.
But this does not mean that the islamic empire did not start as an "intra imperial" affair
Arabia was not part of the Roman Empire when Islam started.
Being a Greek speaking Christian did not make a person a Greek UNTIL AFTER the empire was falling.
Being Greek speaking did not make a person Greek? What kind of stunted logic is this? Using that mode of reasoning all nations that had adopted Christianity in historical time ceased to exist.
These people moved around within a multinational empire where Greek was a major international language, and Christianity was the State religion.
Greek was a lingua franca in Hellenistic times. In Byzantine times it was the mother tongue of the great majority of the population of the Empire, especially after the Arabs conquered the southern provinces where non-Greek languages were more prominent.
While I can understand that some people read Dienekes' comments as ultra-conservative-European, I am not even close to that conviction and still widely agree. Everyone else better study history (and prehistory) more carefully, and should contemplate about human rights.
ReplyDeleteThe world can be viewed as either this prosperous place that gives opportunities and expansion to many, or as a place of oppression and violation. Often it is both, but there is more and longer family/historic/linguistic/genetic/religious continuity than most admit or would like to realize. This gives a profound, valid, and inherent right to peoples to defend and re-occupy their terretories - even many centuries after expulsion. Often painful compromises are needed to come to a conclusion, often these blatantly do not weigh the past, properly - but they serve peace if there is promise of a wide-spread future acceptance of the new status-quo.
Such is needed in the Balkans and partially progressing fruitfully, while Anatolia, the Levant, and surroundings are still laboring. To call the entire Levant "Semitic or Arabian in nature" is as useless and blatantly false as ignoring the plight of many, many people and religions that now - but only now, after centuries of persecution and killings - make up minorities in Anatolia and surroundings.
I was ridiculed here when I suggested Hallstadt and early historic Greek connections, but I am sure it's a fact, and there have been strong cultural and linguistic links between the Danube area and the Balkans for more than 9 millennia - not even mentioning the later Mediterranean Greak connections to Italy, Southern France, and Spain and beyond.
All of the Balkans, including Muslim regions, are intensely European, as is Greece, and as Turkey could have been and was almost on track to follow up upon again until ~70 years ago. Many Muslim emigrants from the Balkans in Germany and other European countries feel very much at home in their new-found societies, and have nothing but utter disgust and disrespect for the literal Muslim extremists of the Balkans or Turkey or the wider Islam world - the same way that most US Americans (and almost all Eurpeans) have no respect or understanding for evangelical extremists.
Both Christianity and Islam have been invoked to conquer new lands and suppress indigenous people and their rights, and to take their power and resources. The main difference is that for the past half a millennium or so or so, new forces have enlightened intellectuals as well as political leaders in the Christian and Agnostic world to reflect on this, to change and to aim for a more equitable world.
Meanwhile, extremist Islam is still expansionist, oppressive, and not mindful of human rights nor the dignity and validity of every single life. And that, in a very big way, spanning large and increasing areas of the world, thus destabilizing them and bringing cultural, intellectual, and economic devastation to them.
>Arab Muslims did not see themselves as a "successor" of the Roman Empire.
ReplyDeleteReally? The Turks, who we were originally discussing, certainly did, but I guess you could more accurately say that the original Islamic conquests saw their goals as higher than just the old empire, but still including it.
What's more they certainly did see their driving inspiration, their religion, as the successor to Christianity, the state religion of Rome. And initially all parties saw this as a fight between two visions of Christianity (or actually more, because there were lots of schisms).
>Arabia was not part of the Roman Empire when Islam started.
Parts of it were, and other parts of it were effectively satellite regions.
>Being Greek speaking did not make a person Greek? What kind of stunted logic is this?
So all people who ever spoke Greek have the same ethnicity? Even if you mean "as a mother tongue" this is obviously nonsense. The populations of many big Eastern Mediterranean cities were not all Greek, but they were often Greek speaking. The family of Jesus came from Alexandria, where the Jews translated their own Bible into Greek, for themselves. Was Jesus Greek?
>Using that mode of reasoning all nations that had adopted Christianity in historical time ceased to exist.
Not all of them, but this would be a more correct description than what you are describing. Romanization, and Christianization completely changed how people self-identified. Some ethnic groups surely in more remote areas must surely have remained fairly continuous within those areas though. (Pelopennese?) Your surprise that someone could propose this is telling. What is so surprising? I think it is because you keep seeing ethnicity as fixed and pure and un-changing when clearly it is not.
>Greek was a lingua franca in Hellenistic times. In Byzantine times it was the mother tongue of the great majority of the population of the Empire,
And so looking at what you wrote above, the majority of the whole empire down to Egypt was ethnically Greek??
So their descendants are also ethnically Greek?
>Arabia was not part of the Roman Empire when Islam started.
ReplyDeleteParts of it were, and other parts of it were effectively satellite regions.
Right, and by that kind of "argument" Irishmen are English.
And so looking at what you wrote above, the majority of the whole empire down to Egypt was ethnically Greek??
So their descendants are also ethnically Greek?
You are mixing your tenses. The fact that there were ethnic Greeks down to Egypt does not mean that their descendants are Greeks.
The family of Jesus came from Alexandria, where the Jews translated their own Bible into Greek, for themselves. Was Jesus Greek?
First, the family of Jesus did not come from Alexandria. Second, even if they had come from a Greek-speaking land, does not mean they were Greeks, as Greeks lived together with barbarians in Egypt.
Romanization, and Christianization completely changed how people self-identified.
I don't care how people "self-identify". If I say that a cat is a dog, it doesn't make it one. Names are transient, ethnic realities are persistent. By your "argument", there were no Greeks in the time of Homer.
@ashraf
ReplyDeleteThe history of music is very ancient, it' began in the paleolitic. All the people built instruments, but those in your image can't be called luths. The first true luth is the pandouris.
I know something about the C lanuage but don't know about The role of the akinji in the Ottoman army was twofold: to supply war captives, and to terrorize and disperse local populations before the advance of regular troops.
ReplyDeleteIs there any more information about it ? If yes, post here.!
autism
Arab Orthodox Christians played an imported role in the Byzantine Empire. Particular the Ghassanids and other nomadic Arabs were used as a military brute force against other Arab Christians, Arab Pagans, Sasssadins and in general the population of the fertile crescent. It was the Byzantine-Sasssadin war that broke the back of the Arab Christians Ghassanids and Lakhmids alike. Ultimately weakening Persia and Byzantine itself.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghassanids
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakhmids
“Culture and customs of Jordan” John A. Shoup
Christianity became the religion of the Roman Empire when in 313 the Emperor Constantine gave it official recognition. The Bani Ghassan became Christians and held the region an behalf of the Roman Emperors in Byzantium. Vassal Arab states such as the Bani Ghassan, allied to Byzantium, and the Lakhamids, allied to Persia, served as important buffers between the Byzantines and the Sassanids. Both kingdoms formed alliances with other Arab tribes bringing, mach of Arabia into the contest between the Byzantines and the Sassanids. Initially the advantage was with the Bani Ghassanids who defeated the Lakhamids in a number of small wars, but in 611 the Sassanids and their Arab allies launched an Invasion of Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Jordan, which they occupied until 629 when the Byzantines and their Arab allies were able to finally push them back. As a reward for their help, the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius awarded the Bani Ghassan chief, Mundhir Ibn Harith, the title "King of the Arabs." In the same year the Prophet Muhammad established treaties with the Christian and Jewish Leaders of al-Aqabah, Magnah, Udhrah, and al-Jarbah in southern Jordan. A new era in Jordanian and Arab history was beginning.
"The history of music is very ancient, it' began in the paleolitic. All the people built instruments, but those in your image can't be called luths. The first true luth is the pandouris.
ReplyDelete"
Why they can not be called luths?
And what about the Hittite luth here below
http://www.guitarteachingbooks.co.uk/Images/hittite-guitar-player.gif
Thank you Dienekes for this interesting information. In France we have the same problem with multiculti supporters. For example, they describe muslim-ruled Spain as a tolerant paradise compared to the christian Spain.
ReplyDeleteAbout Turkey, they forget to talk about forced conversions, Janissaries, anti-Greek and anti-christian pogroms, ottoman support for piracy and white slavery. In Corsica, we built watchtowers all along the coast and lived in the mountains because of the threat of muslim pirates. The expression "piglia pè i Turchi" means "kidnapped by the Turks" and was used when someone was attacked by surprise in the night.
@ Gioiello: "I don’t understand why you are defending the Christian faith"
ReplyDeleteBecause this is thanks to their christian faith that Greeks remained Greeks during Ottoman rule. A pagan Greece would have converted much more easily and absorbed, like millions of Hindus converted to islam in India which lead to the creation of Pakistan and Bangladesh...
>Right, and by that kind of "argument" Irishmen are English.
ReplyDeleteNo, but they would be part of the English speaking world which shares a common heritage of having been in the British Commonwealth. Who would deny that? That you miss this is once more very telling. You miss it because for you "Byzantine" means "Greek" whereas it in fact refers to a multinational empire that referred to itself as Roman. Many patriotic Irish people are very proud to be part of the community they share with the English, while happy that they are not ruled by them.
>Second, even if they had come from a Greek-speaking land, does not mean they were Greeks, as Greeks lived together with barbarians in Egypt.
And in Constantinople. Which part of the Roman empire did they not mix in? And by the way, didn't you just make a very strong claim that it was obvious that language defines ethnicity?
>Names are transient, ethnic realities are persistent.
In what way are they persistent? Languages, self-identification, technologies, religions, political structures are all transient, as is of course also the human life itself.
>By your "argument", there were no Greeks in the time of Homer.
That you misunderstand me so badly is again surprising and telling. There were Greeks in the time of Homer and there are Greeks today, and there is a connection. But we were specifically talking about a sense of the word "Greek" (or Turk) which would be strong enough that you could say that a person deserves expulsion from his home, and his ancestor's home on the basis of a military act centuries earlier. This stretching of the concept is where simple appeals to common sense are not going to make the case for you.
To me it looks like you are cherry picking your facts and arguments.
"Why they can not be called luths?
ReplyDeleteAnd what about the Hittite luth here below"
Because the construction of the box of resonance is built in very different way.
No, but they would be part of the English speaking world which shares a common heritage of having been in the British Commonwealth
ReplyDeleteThe British Commonwealth is neither a nation nor an ethnic group.
You miss it because for you "Byzantine" means "Greek" whereas it in fact refers to a multinational empire that referred to itself as Roman
Byzantine does not mean Greek, but Greeks were the dominant nation (both in terms of numbers and in terms of cultural influence) within the Byzantine Empire.
And in Constantinople. Which part of the Roman empire did they not mix in?
Co-existing or mixing with either nations does not, of course, mean that nations do not exist. There is hardly a country or major city in Europe that doesn't have a polyethnic population today, but clearly this does not mean that ethnic groups have ceased to exist.
But we were specifically talking about a sense of the word "Greek" (or Turk) which would be strong enough that you could say that a person deserves expulsion from his home, and his ancestor's home on the basis of a military act centuries earlier.
"Military acts" establish relationships based on unequal power. The military act of Muslims conquering Spaniards established a society in which Christians were subservient to Muslims, and Christians were justified in wanting to undo this act by expelling Muslims and restoring the status quo ante.
"Because the construction of the box of resonance is built in very different way."
ReplyDeletesource?
"Because the construction of the box of resonance is built in very different way".
ReplyDeleteThe difference is based on the way the note can be altered. In the harp family each note is fixed in pitch, obtained from a single string attached to the soundboard. In the lute family the strings run across a fingerboard from a bridge on the sounboard, so the note can be altered by altering the string's length. Although the santur has a bridge the individual strings cannot be altered in pitch during the performance, so it is a kind of harp, not a lute.
"those in your image can't be called luths".
True for most of them, but this link does show lutes, similar to modern day African Halam:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4e/Egyptianluteplayers.jpg
The instruments shown at most of the other links Ashraf provided are in the harp family, such as:
http://www.visualbiblealive.com/image-bin/Public/045/03/045_03_0047_VOT2_prev.jpg
But I agree that the instrument shown at the following link appears to be in the lute family. It seems to have a bridge and fingerboard:
http://www.guitarteachingbooks.co.uk/Images/hittite-guitar-player.gif
Being Hittite they are not Semitic. I've no idea how old the halam-like Egyptian instruments in the wiki link are, but they could well be a product of instruments postdating the Hittite expansion. So the comment, 'The first true luth is the pandouris' cannot be correct, unless the instrument the Hittites are pictured playing is a pandouris.
The conclusion can only be that musical instruments, ethnic groups, languages, religions and genes have been zipping around the world for a very long time. To regard any of them as being, or belonging to, distinct entities of long standing is to completely miss the boat.
Thank you for the explanation.
ReplyDeleteit's possible that the pandouris was develpoed from a more ancient instrument, sumerian maybe, but for sure it's the only fretted instrument we know from the ancient age.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't the great artists instrument, they prefered the Lyra. In all the greek-roman age it was the instrument of the low class people.
>The British Commonwealth is neither a nation nor an ethnic group.
ReplyDeleteAnd neither was the Roman empire, nor even the Eastern Roman empire, nor even the Turkish version. Of course empires or parts of empires can come to be ethnic groups, for example today's Turks certainly derive some of what defines their ethnic group from the history of their part of the Roman empire. (And I would say many Irish people are comfortable with the concept of there being an "Anglo-Celtic" (a term common in Australia) or "English speaking" people (a more common term).
Going back to where this came from, a fight between the Irish and the occupying English was "intra" a certain community, although not one we'd call an ethnos, just like the case of Protestants and Catholics fighting each other which you mentioned yourself, who were also not necessarily in the same ethnic groups. Correct?
So the question was, were the religious wars within and around the Eastern Roman empire not the same type of intra-communal fight when they first began?
(Yes, of course these factions eventually did become completely different empires, and peoples. But once again anachronism is a danger here.)
>Greeks were the dominant nation (both in terms of numbers and in terms of cultural influence) within the Byzantine Empire
Do you have any sources for that claim? Was it really seen this way? From what I have read it always seems to me that the main name citizens gave to themselves collectively was Roman.
>"Military acts" establish relationships based on unequal power. The military act of Muslims conquering Spaniards established a society in which Christians were subservient to Muslims, and Christians were justified in wanting to undo this act by expelling Muslims and restoring the status quo ante.
So an Frenchman who hates Italians because of what Ceasar did in France would not be insane according to you?
Aner Lan-castrum says: "So a Frenchman who hates Italians because of what Ceasar did in France would not be insane according to you?"
ReplyDeleteThat it is what happens usually. The prejudice against Romans is very frequent on this forum and on others, without thinking to what is really Celt or Roman in today's Europeans. The friend Faux' thinking about R-U152 as a Celt haplogroup is clearly not true, being overall present in Italy also in places which never had a Celt presence. And also to link R-L21 to the Celt people is very problematic.
About Frenchmen, thinking to the role they had from Charlemagne in protecting the Church and the pope then against the unity of Italy, Italians could in the same way to regret that Ceasar hasn't been more ferocious.
So the question was, were the religious wars within and around the Eastern Roman empire not the same type of intra-communal fight when they first began?
ReplyDeleteLet's not be vague. We were not discussing "religious wars", but the Muslim conquest and occupation of parts of the Roman Empire and of Spain. And, no, the fact that Muslim Arabs took over Roman lands and annexed them to the khalifate is not "intra-communal" warfare, but foreign invasion.
Do you have any sources for that claim? Was it really seen this way? From what I have read it always seems to me that the main name citizens gave to themselves collectively was Roman.
You confuse a civic with an ethnic identity. The fact that people started calling themselves Romans does not mean that ethnic groups within the Empire disappeared.
So an Frenchman who hates Italians because of what Ceasar did in France would not be insane according to you?
Caesar was a Roman, he was ethnically neither French nor Italian. Moreover, the French are ethnically related to the Romans, so, such a Frenchman would be doubly insane.
Arab,Roman,and Ottoman empires were cosmopolitan.
ReplyDeleteIt's the european idea of nation-state that ruined all.
If we are to make a parallel with lute,let's dont forget that lute came from arabic al ud(=the wood,note the similarity of arabic and english word=lislakh?)but this dont mean that the arabic ud(ie the characteristic lute used by arabs)was necessarly made by an arab(cosmopolitan society).
The same is for pandouri(pandora's box)wich is said to came from arabic tunbur which could came form sumerian pantur(pan=small,tur=bow)or egyptian nbr(=playin a music instrument)or even from arabic nabara(=producing sounds)or akkadien tanburu(=sound instrument,similar to talpushu=clothing from semitic lbs)
If the sumerian hypothesis is the most plausible one(than the egyptian and semitic hypothesis) one could think that pantur appeared in the very period after semite akkadian migrations to south mesopotamia and their symbiosis with sumerians(k haplogroup?)so it could have benn brought by akkadians or that the symbiosis between akkadians and sumerians triggered "its invention"
or that it was built by a sumerian ethnic
or by a semite akkadian ethnic and named with one of the 2 languages of the "dual" sumero-akkadian mixed society(in this case sumerian).
bouzouki came from bozuq(saz)[bozuq is turkish for broken and saz is persian for built]but it could have been first made by a greek or persian or armenian or assyrian or arab...person.
greek kementses come from the persian word kementshe but it's the arab rebab which is considered according to wikipedia the father of all bowed instruments(such as lira,rebbec,fiddle)
so the culture(or at least for its musical component)show clearly the extraordinary and friendly symbiosis between ancient world peoples.
so
sumerians(and sumero-akkadians)=>afrasians(semites and egyptians)=>indo-iranians(and iranians)=>greeks=>arabs=>latins=>germans..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tambur
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kemenche
>You confuse a civic with an ethnic identity. The fact that people started calling themselves Romans does not mean that ethnic groups within the Empire disappeared.
ReplyDeleteNo, I am not confused. I am saying this is not how it was. Romans who spoke Greek and were left in the rump of the empire started to use the word Greek again to refer to their communities.
>Caesar was a Roman, he was ethnically neither French nor Italian. Moreover, the French are ethnically related to the Romans, so, such a Frenchman would be doubly insane.
So I am trying to work out the two way this person would be insane. It seems at first sight...
1. They would be insane to suggest that Romans saw themselves as Italians and that Italians, a modern people see themselves (and are) related to the Romans? So this would mean that modern Greeks would be insane to equate modern Turks to the ones who invaded what is Turkey long ago, and whose ancestry is only a tiny part of Anatolian ancestry more generally?
2. They would be insane to hate a people who descend from a people who invaded them anciently if they know that they are also related to that modern people? So of course given the contact you must say that modern Greeks are not related to modern Turks?
Best Regards
Andrew
>If you change the label on a bottle of wine, you don't change its content. You limit yourself to the label, and don't see the wine. Greeks called themselves Graikoi, Hellenes, Romaioi, but that does not mean that every time they change a label, they become a new people.
ReplyDeleteI agree to some extent. What about the Greek speaking Romans whose descendants came to be called Turks?
>Romans saw themselves as Italians in the sense that they lived in Italy, and not in the sense of being part of an Italian nation, like modern Italians do
I disagree. Read Vergil or Roman historians like Livy. There was a sense of being Italian long before the empire. In any case Rome united one Italy and made all Italians Romans qite early in their history.
>Modern French and modern Italians alike, have the same relationship to the ancient Romans, i.e., they speak a Romance language
That is surely not the only relationship these two peoples have to the Romans, and your description is highly unusual - quite different from how French or Italians see it for example.
Once again you are seemingly equating language to ethnicity in a very simplistic way. When I asked you about this before you seemed to get stuck and loose track. Remember:- are the Irish a kind of English? Were Hellenophones in ancient Alexandria all Greek?
>modern French are not ancient Gauls
Yes of course, but they have a "relationship" and I would say that the French and Italians have different relationships to different ancient peoples.
Anyway, how is it that you say that the modern Turks ARE the ancient Turks, and can justifiably be blamed as such?
>Are you suggesting that we should love or hate people based on their degree of genetic relatedness?
I am certainly not saying this, but I was wondering whether you are. Perhaps what you are saying is that we should love and hate people on the basis of linguistic relatedness? For example: "the modern French would be irrational to blame the modern Italians for what the ancient Romans did to the ancient Gauls, since (a) both French and Italians have the same relationship to the ancient Romans, so they could just as well blame themselves, and (b) the modern French are not ancient Gauls."
By the way, yes of course a brother remains a brother even if you hate him or he hates you.
The vision of italian, or italics better (this is the term used to distingue ancient people from modern italians), is clearly exposed in the greek source.
ReplyDeleteGreeks clearly distinguished the numerous italic tribes from the etruschans and from the celts, because they clearly saw they were related among them.
Only after the concession of the Roman citizenship etruscans and cisalpin celts were considered italics, on the geographical base.
"They left the Greek nation and over a few generations became assimilated with other Muslims in all respects".
ReplyDeleteSo the main difference between Turk and Greek is their respective religions, even though they are genetically very similar?
I would have thought that the boundary between Greece and Anatolia has most often been artificial, political and temporary rather than cultural and genetic. From the moment boats were first introduced to the Aegean Islands that cultural and genetic unit would most often have connected, rather than separated, Greece and Anatolia.
The division certainly developed after the Persian wars but just before then the biggest cultural division had been within Greece, between Dorian and Ionian. We can also discern a more ancient troublesome boundary that developed between Mycenaeans and Minoans. The Trojan War seems to be associated in some way with the Mycenaean takeover of the Aegean from a Minoan, or Crete-centred, cultural and genetic collective. This collective had extended its influence right through the Mediterranean, and even into the Atlantic.
The Aegean returned to being a connecting cultural and genetic unit over the long period between Alexander's and the Turkish empires.
Greeks had certainly lived along the Anatolian Aegean coast from the time of the Trojan War, and presumably long before then. Southern Italy and Sicily were also part of this cultural and genetic collective. So all these people cease to be Greek once they adopt another religion?
So the main difference between Turk and Greek is their respective religions, even though they are genetically very similar?
ReplyDeleteThe Greeks who changed their religion to Islam were cut off from the Greek nation and thus the process of their de-Hellenization and Turkification began. Something very similar happened to the Greeks who became members of the Latin church, they were cut off from the Greek nation and were largely de-Hellenized.
I would have thought that the boundary between Greece and Anatolia has most often been artificial, political and temporary rather than cultural and genetic
1,000 years of conflict cannot be be ascribed to some temporary political passion or historical circumstance. They are the result of a fundamental difference in worldview and culture.
"They are the result of a fundamental difference in worldview and culture".
ReplyDeleteTo me there is very little difference between Islam and Christianity, or Judaism. They're all based on the same falsehoods, so the differences are hardly 'fundamental'. The differences are just used by those with a particular political agenda. The beliefs have been able to survive for so long only for that reason. So, in fact '1,000 years of conflict' CAN 'be be ascribed to some temporary political passion or historical circumstance'. And 1000 years is not very long at all in geological terms, or even in terms of a wider view of prehistory.
>>I would have thought that the boundary between Greece and Anatolia has most often been artificial
ReplyDeleteAnatolia is a very vast region. In the course of history the Greek world was far more connected to Western Anatolia rather than with central and especially eastern Anatolia. I suspect that Western Anatolians were and are genetically and culturally much more similar to the people in what is today Greece than are eastern Anatolians.
So when comparing modern Turks and Greeks genetically keep in mind that Turks descend of ALL Anatolians and not just Greeks/Romioi.
>> And not all Greeks descend from the Aegean island population. Western and mainland Greeks are presumably as different from Aegean Greeks as are the inland Anatolians. The Aegean islands provide continuity along the Greek/Anatolian cline.
ReplyDeleteThat may be true, but keep in mind that these differences may have been present since ancient times. I doubt that the ancient Greek Cypriots were genetically identical to the mainland Greeks. All things considered though, evidence shows that Greeks from different localities show genetic similarities. Most Greeks cluster with other Greeks, South Italians and/or Western Turks. It's fair to say that they are an 'Aegean people'. Anatolians on the other hand show mutch more diversity. And whereas the Aegean islanders provide continuity along the aegean line, you can't argue that they are closer to Western Anatolians than to mainland Greeks. On the other hand you can easlily argue that Western Anatolians are closer to Greeks than to Eastern Anatolians. In fact, I wonder whether Western Anatolians are closer to South Italians (aegean influence) than to Eastern Anatolians.
"I doubt that the ancient Greek Cypriots were genetically identical to the mainland Greeks".
ReplyDeleteSo Greeks are different from Turks but they're also different from today's Greek Cypriots?
"On the other hand you can easlily argue that Western Anatolians are closer to Greeks than to Eastern Anatolians. In fact, I wonder whether Western Anatolians are closer to South Italians (aegean influence) than to Eastern Anatolians".
Almost certainly would be. But that raises the question of where would you draw the line between Eastern and Western Anatolians? They too would no doubt basically form a cline, just like the one across the Aegean.
But Dienekes sees no problem. Anyone who is not an Orthodox Christian and speaks Greek cannot be Greek, even if his or her parents were Greek.
Unfortunately that attitude is precisely the attitude that encouraged the 'Ottoman terror in 15th c. Croatia', and continues to encourage similar problems today.
But Dienekes sees no problem. Anyone who is not an Orthodox Christian and speaks Greek cannot be Greek, even if his or her parents were Greek.
ReplyDeleteThat is incorrect. Any Greek who converted to Islam was set on his way of de-Hellenization, as he stopped going to church (where he heard Greek and congregated with other Greeks) and started going to the mosque (where he heard Arabic and congregated with Turks). His choice made it likely that he (or his children) would intermarry with Turks, and thus his children could very well speak Turkish. And so on.
The point isn't that Islam makes one not Greek. The point is that a Greek's conversion to Islam, especially in the historical context that we are talking about, set him on a path of inevitable de-Hellenization.
>>Almost certainly would be. But that raises the question of where would you draw the line between Eastern and Western Anatolians? They too would no doubt basically form a cline, just like the one across the Aegean.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't put a line between East and West Anatolians. I would put the central Anatolians in the middle. Point of the matter is that Anatolians are genetically much more diverse than Greeks are.
>>But Dienekes sees no problem. Anyone who is not an Orthodox Christian and speaks Greek cannot be Greek, even if his or her parents were Greek.
Unfortunately Dienekes is right. In politics genes have no say in the matter. The conflict between Greeks and Turks today is mostly a clash between ideologies,cultures,religion and nationalisms.
Genetically it may be a conflict between mostly Greeks vs mostly Anatolians (incl. Greeks), but that is of no matter. What matters is that since medieval times, a new culture has infiltrated Anatolia and the Balkans which in general lines has been hostile to the prosperity of the Greek people and their culture.
The genes of the first Ottomans died out, but their memes are very well present in the modern Turkish population.
"The conflict between Greeks and Turks today is mostly a clash between ideologies,cultures,religion and nationalisms".
ReplyDeleteAs is almost every other conflict today, not just that between Greek and Turk. That's the problem. To me ideologies,cultures,religion and nationalisms are unimportant, but to most people they are what defines their own existence.
@formerjerseyboy, who kindly wrote
ReplyDelete"I found myself part of a group staging demonstrations in front of the UN building and in front of the Yugoslav consulate in New York city, protesting the massacre of Mulsim boys and men at Srebrenica. I have forever left behind the simple duality of Christian=good and Muslim=bad. Does that make me a "leftist?""
It makes you one more victim of propaganda and probably hypocrite. Have you protested against ethnic cleansing in Krajina, or destruction of Serbian villages near the Srebrenica by muslims?
Thanks for blog :)
ReplyDelete"Have you protested against ethnic cleansing in Krajina" No, because that ethnic cleansing never happened. As everyone old enough can remember Krajina Serbs moved in no more than 3-4 days. It's impossible to cleans a region in such a short time. Their leaders asked them to leave and they followed their orders.
ReplyDelete