Posted on 11/24/2008 3:55:54 PM PST by SunkenCiv
Lasting some 11 centuries from the foundation of the city of Constantinople, today's Istanbul, on the site of the Greek city of Byzantium by the Roman emperor Constantine in 330 CE to its final defeat at the hands of the Ottomans in 1453, at its height the Byzantine Empire took in the whole of the eastern Mediterranean and stretched from Anatolia and the Balkans to Egypt and north Africa. It always styled itself the heir of the Roman Empire and of classical civilisation as a whole.
Examples of Byzantine architecture can still be seen in Istanbul in the shape of the Hagia Sophia, the church of the holy wisdom, built by the emperor Justinian in the 6th century CE, and in the ruins of the Byzantine city walls. Memories of the empire are scattered across the Mediterranean, from the mosaics of the Byzantine emperors in the churches of the Italian coastal city of Ravenna to the traditions continued by the monks of St. Catherine's Monastery in the Egyptian Sinai.
However, Byzantium has sometimes suffered from a bad press, at least in western Europe, and this is summed up in views expressed by the 18th- century English historian Edward Gibbon in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. "In the revolution of ten centuries" of Byzantine history, Gibbon wrote, "not a single discovery was made to exalt the dignity or promote the happiness of mankind."
...Anyone interested in the history of the eastern Mediterranean, of Christianity, or of relations between Byzantine, Arab and Ottoman Turkish civilisations can not fail to learn from visiting this exhibition.
(Excerpt) Read more at weekly.ahram.org.eg ...
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See the photos and marvel at the source of this story. |
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Hagia Sophia / Byzantium ping to read later
Constantinople fell in 1453 and Columbus sailed for America in 1492. That's only 39 years between the trailing edge of the Roman Empire and the leading edge of the American era. I usually think of Rome and America as being totally separated by a huge gulf of history but they actually came pretty close to overlapping.
That’s a good point. Only some 330 years between the two.
Good point. One historian remarked, about the Roman Empire, that any entity capable of unifying lowland Scotland with Arabia must have had it goin’ on. (I’m paraphrasing)
mark
(Well, somebody had to post it...)
Istanbul was Constantinople
Now it’s Istanbul not Constantinople
Been a long time gone
Old Constantinople’s still has Turkish delight
On a moonlight night
Evr’y gal in Constantinople
Is a Miss-stanbul, not Constantinople
So if you’ve date in Constantinople
She’ll be waiting in Istanbul
Even old New York was once New Amsterdam
Why they changed it, I can’t say
(People just liked it better that way)
[ Four Lads Lyrics are found on www.songlyrics.com ]
Take me back to Constantinople
No, you can’t go back to Constantinople
Now it’s Istanbul, not Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works?
That’s nobody’s business but the Turks’
Istanbul!!
Istanbul!!
Even old New York was once New Amsterdam
Why they changed it, I can’t say
(People just liked it better that way)
Take me back to Constantinople
No, you can’t go back to Constantinople
Now it’s Istanbul, not Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works?
That’s nobody’s business but the Turks’
‘stanbul!!
Yeah, and just think — in 1492 there easily would have been people alive who had lived in Constantinople before it fell and who would’ve thought of themselves as Romans, or at least who had lived part of their lives as Romans. It’s poignant to think them hearing for the first time of the new world that had been discovered and named America.
Woohah! ‘Stambool BTT! (Sound of serious chair-dancing in background...)
Do the Russian Tsars count as continuations of the Russians?
Well they were Roman... descended from the Empire, they really were the real deal.. unlike the so called holy roman empire which was really kinda .. meh
Thanks Civ. The photos are gorgeous. The Icon of Saint George is magnificent, and a keeper.
bump
Well they thought of themselves as such,,, a lot of their culture was from contact with the Empire.
I read a great book, entitled, “Byzantium,” by Stephen Lawhead. If you enjoy historical fiction, I would recommend it.
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