Miletus

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clyde E. Fant ◽  
Mitchell G. Reddish
Keyword(s):  
Black Sea ◽  
West Coast ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
The West ◽  
Major Player ◽  
Strategic Location ◽  
Peace And War ◽  
The City

Originally famed for its philosophers of nature, Miletus became one of the great cities of commerce of the ancient world. Its four harbors and strategic location on the west coast of Asia Minor gave the city unique advantages as a vital port in both peace and war. Yet these factors also were the cause of repeated periods of invasion and destruction. Eventually Miletus ceased to be a major player in world affairs, not because of the fortunes of war, but because of the slower but deadlier effects of the gentle Meander River, which silted its harbors and created malaria-ridden marshes. Miletus is easily reached from Izmir by taking E87 south to Selçuk, then proceeding on highway 525 through Söke to Akköy, then north through Balat to the site of Miletus. Today it is difficult to imagine that Miletus once was situated on a narrow peninsula and boasted of four harbors, three on the west and one on the east. Due to the continual silting effects of the Meander River, the ruins of Miletus now are situated in a broad plain some 5 miles from the sea. The island of Lade, where the Persian armada burned and destroyed the Ionian fleet in 494 B.C.E., was once to the west of the coast of Miletus. Now it is merely a hill 4 miles west of Miletus. A Mycenaean colony that had cultural contacts with Crete and Greece existed in this location from 1400 B.C.E. Greeks settled in the area by at least the 10th century B.C.E. The city prospered and grew wealthy from its colonies on the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, and even in Egypt. It was one of the first cities in the ancient world to mint coins. Soon Miletus became the most important of the twelve cities of the region of Ionia. The city came under Persian control in 546 B.C.E. and later opposed them in the Battle of Lade, but the result was the loss of their fleet and the complete destruction of their city in 494 B.C.E. Herodotus, in fact, said that Miletus was reduced to slavery. Subsequently, Ephesus surpassed Miletus as the first city of the region.

The Arrival of the Romans

2020 ◽  
pp. 50-73
Author(s):  
Duane W. Roller
Keyword(s):  
Black Sea ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
Peace Treaty ◽  
Western Coast ◽  
The West ◽  
Black Sea Coast ◽  
Hellenistic World ◽  
Sea Coast

Mithridates II was succeeded by his ephemeral son, Mithridates III, and then by 220 BC his son, Pharnakes I, was on the throne. He was a powerful and aggressive monarch who ruled for over thirty years and greatly expanded the territorial extent of the kingdom. He lived in an era of great change in the Hellenistic world, as the Romans began to become involved in the destinies of the eastern Mediterranean states: Pharnakes reached out to the Romans in the 180s BC concerning territorial disputes in Asia Minor. He engaged in war with his powerful neighbor to the west, Pergamon, but was forced to sign a peace treaty not to his advantage. Yet he expanded Pontic territory along the Black Sea coast and made several alliances with the Greek cities on the northern and western coast of the sea, especially in the kingdom of Bosporos (modern Crimea).

The First Season of Rescue Excavation at Çiftlik (Sinop)

1995 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 219-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Hill
Keyword(s):  
Black Sea ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
The West ◽  
Valley Bottom ◽  
Collaborative Project ◽  
Long Period ◽  
British Institute ◽  
The University ◽  
The City ◽  
The Church

Work commenced in August 1994 on a new archaeological rescue project to survey, excavate and protect the remains of a Classical and Byzantine site at Çiftlik, near Sinop on the Turkish coast of the Black Sea (Pl. XXIX (a)). The work was a collaborative project including staff from the Sinop Museum and the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, and staff and students from the University of Warwick. The British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara has adopted this as a new “in-house” project, run in collaboration with Mr. İsmail Tatlıcan, Director of the Sinop Museum.The remains at Çiftlik lie at the mouth of a valley on the west side of the great bay in the Black Sea which runs south of the peninsula on the isthmus on which the city of Sinop stands. The remains of two buildings were studied in 1994. These buildings were originally constructed on silty soil consisting of winter wash material which was deposited at the valley bottom over a long period of time prior to the Classical occupation of the site. The project is very much concerned with rescue, since the coastline in this area is being seriously eroded by the sea. At least 1·5 metres of the church (the south building) has been eroded since 1990, and the low shelf in the water beside what survives has underwater remains from various Classical and Byzantine buildings.

scholarly journals The return of the ancient papyrus: the discovery and fate of the ancient Greek papyrus from Mangalia (Romania)

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 232-236
Author(s):  
Evgeny Vasilyevich Yarovoy
Keyword(s):  
Black Sea ◽  
West Coast ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
Burial Ground ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
The West ◽  
Special Place ◽  
Good Will

On the west coast of the Black sea excavations of ancient cities have been conducted for more than a century and a half. Among them, a special place is considered to be the Dorian colony of Kallatis, founded by immigrants from Heraclea of Pontius, most likely in the VI century BC. Currently on its territory there is a Romanian city of Mangalia. In 1959, during the excavations of the ancient mound on the Hellenistic burial ground, an ungraded burial in a stone sarcophagus was discovered. It was a backbone of an adult with a gilded bronze wreath. Near his hands there was an ancient Greek papyrus. For his conservation a Soviet restorer M. Alexander was invited, he managed to preserve the rarity. At the request of the Romanian side, he took the papyrus for restoration to Moscow, where his traces were lost. In 2001, Romanian archaeologists began searching for the papyrus. After three years of work in museums and libraries, they were able to locate the rest of the scroll. It turned out that they are stored in the Center of restoration Grabar in Moscow. As a result of the negotiations, thanks to the good will of the Russian side, it was possible to reach an agreement on the return of a unique discovery for Romania to its historical homeland.

scholarly journals Holocene fluctuations of the Black Sea level and human activities along the south Black Sea coast

2021 ◽  
Vol 82 (3) ◽  
pp. 259-261
Author(s):  
Dimitar Sinnyovsky
Keyword(s):  
Sea Level ◽  
Black Sea ◽  
West Coast ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
The West ◽  
Black Sea Coast ◽  
Holocene Sediments ◽  
Roman Age ◽  
Sea Coast

Holocene fluctuations of the Black Sea level have played a significant role in the existence of the Black Sea polis-cities. The high sea-level during the Novochernomorian transgression is followed by the Phanagorian regression when the sea level reached its minimum of 3 m below the modern sea level during the antiquity (Roman Age). Then, on the west coast of Mandra Lake the Roman polis Deultum was founded which became a flourishing port. The discrepancy between the low sea level and ancient navigation activity in Mandra Lake is a challenge for further investigations of the Holocene sediments.

scholarly journals The Black Sea in Ptolemy’s Geography: from measuring latitudes and distances to creating a map

2019 ◽  
pp. 125-136
Author(s):  
D. A. Shcheglov
Keyword(s):  
Black Sea ◽  
West Coast ◽  
High Accuracy ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
The West ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Contradictory Information ◽  
Key Points

The configuration of the Black Sea in Ptolemy’s Geography is compared with the information of other ancient geographers. It is demonstrated that their data on the length of the coastlines between the key points match with high accuracy, implying that they drew on similar sources. A possible explanation of numerous disagreements between their data on distances between neighbouring coastal points is suggested. It is shown that the shortening of the west coast of the Black Sea in Ptolemy’s Geography relative to the reports of other geographers was due to his erroneous value of the circumference of the Earth. In general, Ptolemy’s configuration of the Black Sea is explained as a result of merging together contradictory information on the length of coastlines and the latitudes of the key points provided by his sources. These findings contribute to a better understanding of Ptolemy’s method of map-making.

A new cave-dwelling species of the genus Cimmerites Jeannel, 1928 (Coleoptera: Carabidae: Trechini) from the West Caucasus

2011 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-53
Author(s):  
I.A. Belousov ◽  
A.G. Koval
Keyword(s):  
New Species ◽  
Black Sea ◽  
Life Form ◽  
Intermediate Position ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
The West ◽  
Black Sea Coast ◽  
A New Species ◽  
Sea Coast

A new species of the genus Cimmerites Jeannel, 1928, C. maximovitchi sp. nov., is described from the Akhunskaya Cave and Labirintovaya Cave, both located in the Akhun Karst Massif on the Black Sea Coast of the West Caucasus (Krasnodar Territory, Russia). The new species is rather isolated within the genus Cimmerites and occupies an intermediate position between species related to C. kryzhanovskii Belousov, 1998 and species close to C. vagabundus Belousov, 1998. Though both C. maximovitchi sp. nov. and C. kryzhanovskii are still known only from caves, these species are quite similar in their life form to other members of the genus which are all true endogean species.

Trapezountian Pontic Greek in Etoloakarnania

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Spyros Armostis ◽  
Louiza Voniati ◽  
Konstantinos Drosos ◽  
Dionysios Tafiadis
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Black Sea ◽  
Second Generation ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
Historical Reconstruction ◽  
Standard Term ◽  
The One

The variety described here is Pontic Greek (ISO 639 name: pnt), and specifically the variety that originates from Trapezounta in Asia Minor (present-day Trabzon in Turkey) as spoken today in Etoloakarnania, Greece by second-generation refugees. The term ‘Pontic Greek’ (in Greek: ) was originally an etic term, while Pontians called their language by other names, mainly [ɾoˈmeika] ‘Romeika’ (Sitaridou 2016) but also [laziˈka] ‘Laz language’ (Drettas 1997: 19, 620), even though Pontians and Laz people do not share the same language, the latter being Caucasian. Nowadays, is the standard term used not only by researchers, but also by native speakers of Pontic Greek born in Greece to refer to their variety (but see Sitaridou 2013 for Romeyka in the Black Sea). Pontic Greek belongs to the Asia Minor Greek group along with other varieties, such as Cappadocian Greek (e.g. Horrocks 2010: 398–404; Sitaridou 2014: 31). According to Sitaridou (2014, 2016), on the basis of historical reconstruction, the Pontic branch of Asia Minor Greek is claimed to have been divided into two major dialectal groups: Pontic Greek as spoken by Christians until the 20th century in Turkey and Romeyka as spoken by Muslims to date in Turkey. Triantafyllidis (1938/1981: 288) divides Pontic varieties, as were spoken in Asia Minor, into three dialectal groups, namely Oinountian, Chaldiot, and Trapezountian, the latter consisting of the varieties that were spoken at Trapezounta, Kerasounta, Rizounta, Sourmena, Ofis, Livera, Tripolis, and Matsouka in Asia Minor (Trabzon, Giresun, Sürmene, Of, Yazlık, Tirebolu, and Maçka respectively in present-day Turkey). However, Triantafyllidis does not explain his criteria for this classification (Chatzissavidis 2012). According to one other classification (Papadopoulos 1955: 17–18; Papadopoulos 1958: $\upzeta$ ), the variety that was used in Trapezounta belongs to the dialectal group in which post-stressed /i/ and /u/ delete along other varieties, such as e.g. the ones that were spoken in Chaldia (present-day Gümüşhane), Sourmena, and Ofis (as opposed to the rest of Pontic varieties, such as the one of Kerasounta, in which those vowels are retained). Trapezountian Pontic Greek can also be classified with the group of varieties that retain word-final /n/, such as the varieties of Kerasounta and Chaldia, as opposed to the varieties that do not retain it, such as the ones of Oinoe (present-day Ünye) and (partially) Ofis (Papadopoulos 1958: θ).

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