Came for this, thanks. I try everything I can not to read the Daily Heil, whose politics haven't really shifted that much since Harold Harmsworth used it to push his propaganda for Hitler.
Quite amusing how every single article is exactly the same rehashed press release with no additional content.
There's not even any maps anywhere.
Wonder how aggressively Egypt are on manoeuvres trying to claw back tourism. Would help if they opened up the desert roads so travelling the western deserts was actually viable as a ring route.
Not singling you out, all the articles do it, but: Strange to call this Byzantine. The coins found are from the reign of Constantius II, who at times ruled the whole empire alone (as did his successor Julian). The idea that the East, even when administered separately, was some foreign/"Byzantine"/not-really-Roman "other" was invented much later.
Yes, invented much later, but the expression of a different power structure that those types of Romans felt was not present. But to our modern eyes it was. Hell, the mere fact the centre of power was in Constantinople and not Rome is proof enough that they were distinct.
Many Western polities have sought the title of the Roman Empire and the legitimacy it endows. Constantine split the empire, and Constantius II did not rule over Rome (or many other parts of the empire). Is it even reasonable to assert it was still the Roman Empire after the fracture?
Is it legitimate for the Eastern Roman Empire to claim the legacy? I think so, and I think they have among the best arguments for it. Conversely it is also legitimate to note the major differences between the two and the fact that discontinuities do exist.
"Constantine split the empire" is just incorrect. There were co-emperors with regional responsibilities both before and after him. They were co-emperors of one empire. If you want a firm split, 395 (death of Theodosius) is the more common date AFAIK.
I'm not denying that gradually, over well more than a thousand years, the empire (only surviving in the East) changed character in many ways. I am denying that a unique Eastern character sprang up (and immediately applied to Egypt) the moment that Constantinople was founded.
You're correct, I'm mistaken that Constantine split the empire. That being said I think there are some semantics as far as "co-emperors with regional responsibilities" being in a single polity or separate polities.
I do agree with you that there was no instantaneous Eastern character that sprang up out of nowhere.
They actually called themselves Ῥωμαῖοι, not Romani, and not every description needs to be emic. There's nothing wrong with the label "Byzantine" except to Byzaboos.
Separately, your facts are wrong, because it was centuries before that the word Byzantine was first used to describe this era of the latter eastern Roman empire. Oops, might want to read a book instead of looking at memes.
I'd love to see that! I can't take credit for the term. There are some people who are extreme fans of the Byzantine empire and defend it at every turn. I can kind of get recent history, but being a fanatic about an ancient polity strikes this trained historian as utterly bizarre.
Because I was too brief while at work before, let me be fuller now: if you were to go back a thousand years and ask about the national characteristic of the emperor of Constantinople, they'd look at you crazy because you spoke English. But your question is laden with several assumptions that are completely foreign to their minds. First, Byzantine is an adjective from Byzantium, the original name of Constantinople. First and foremost, when its used in Classical and Late Antique historiography, it's describing an empire, culture, polity, etc. that centers on Constantinople, rather than other parts of the city. It is not an ethnic marker. The people at the time would have called themselves Greek, Romans, or Syrians. Second, whether "Romaioi" or "Hellenes" is preferred waxes and wanes depending on what's en vogue at the time. Contrary to the meme, the citizens of Athens did not call themselves "Romans" (Romaioi) from the 320s onward. Some were, some weren't. What language did they speak? What ethnos, genos were they of? What does Romaioi even really mean? That will yield better answers, but again, it differs based on fashion. Lastly, the very idea of a defined "empire" would be very confusing for the ancients. What is that word? It looks like imperium, but that means domain of rule. It's not limited to those at the helm, who might call themselves imperatores, but also Augusti. It's not like a kingdom encompassing other kingdoms. It's just a modern term given to an ancient reality, with no difference at all to names like Byzantine or even Roman.
This whole "debate" is a charade provided by people who once complained they had to take a humanities class and thereafter were clueless about what real modern historians and philologists were discussing about this period.
It would be like if the US moved the capital to DC, replaced Christianity with Islam, switched English to French, no longer contained NY, Boston, Pennsylvania, and foreign powers stopped calling it the United States.
Its more complicated than you are making it seem. I dont even have a strong opinion on the conclusion but it’s certainly not how you’ve framed it.
It really isn't more complicated. These are mostly the excuses that 19th century Western European scholars used to deny the Eastern Romans their Romanness, because they wanted to place themselves as the inheritors of Rome.
First, The Roman Empire was always bilingual. Greek always held sway over the eastern half and Latin over the western half. Once the west is gone, of course you'll switch to primarily using the language that most use. The Irish didn't stop being Irish because they primarily speak English now, for example.
Second, the only states that refused to recognize the Eastern Roman Empire as the Roman Empire were the states that were descended from the German invaders and that was because they wanted to claim the Roman mantle for themselves. All of Islam called the East Romans, Rum. As did all of the rest of the world when they had contact with them.
Third, the switch to Christianity had already happened by the time of the split in 395.
Fourth, Rome hadn't been the seat of power for many Emperors since before the Third Century Crisis.
Fifth, states lose and gain territory all the time.
Read The New Roman Empire by Anthony Kaldellis. If you want to read more about this.
>the only states that refused to recognize the Eastern Roman Empire as the Roman Empire were the states that were descended from the German invaders and that was because they wanted to claim the Roman mantle for themselves.
Ironically these guys called themselves Holy Roman Empire, it's neither Holy, nor Roman nor an Empire. They're hallucinating hundred of years before AI/LLM.
> All of Islam called the East Romans, Rum
Fun fact there's entire Chapter on Rome in the Quran namely Surah Ar-Rum [1]. In the New Testament Bible there's a section or book called Epistle to the Romans, or the letter of Paul to Roman originally written in Koine Greek [2]. But there's letter of Paul not the word of God or Jesus hence called espistle.
There's also an authentic direct letter from the Prophet Muhammad to the Roman Emperor at the time of Hercules [1]. Please note that Muhammad cannot read or write hence the letter was written for him as dictated [3].
Philadelphia and DC is basically the same place though. Similar to how Babylon, Ctesiphon, etc liked moving around in lower Mesopotamia in the same geography
I always liked to think of empires as being defined by the people of a specific geography, bound by cultural and ideological tenets, making a development which allowed them to extract wealth from elsewhere.
The Northwestern US coast is the seat of the US empire, and is effectively defined by leveraging inward European culture, tech , and populations, to conquer a continent worth of free resources under manifest destiny, which has then scaled to the world.
If the capital moved to New York, the US empire would still be the same; based on the same history, culture, and geographical roots.
If it moved to California or Texas, however, I would consider it a new power entirely. The reasons underpinning the change would inherently make it an empire fuelled by a different history, geography, context in the world, etc, no matter how often people would claim to be a continuation of America.
One of the articles mentioned inscriptions in Coptic, Latin, and Greek. The elites would have spoken both Greek and Latin, I think? Greek was commonly known and used. Caesar, a Very Latin Roman, as he was being murdered in Rome, is conjectured to have spoken Greek to Brutus, another Very Latin Roman.
The notion that people are mostly monolingual, and that language is very closely tied to a cultural identity, is a modern projection (and far from universally true nowadays as well).
Broadly Latin was the main language in the western Roman Empire but educated people would also have spoken Greek, and in the eastern Mediterranean it was reversed (almost everything was done in Greek but Latin was used for official purposes and by educated people).
Coptic is the interesting one though because it's actually the latest version of ancient Egyptian
There are a lot of people who only learned about history through memes or online talking points, but this is one of those things that is passed around that way.
Again, I'm not criticizing that person specifically. They repeated a word that appears in all the articles.
There are two points I was trying to make: 1. At the relevant time, there were no separate Eastern and Western empires, so this city was just Roman, without qualification. 2. Even later, it could just be called Eastern Roman. Calling it Byzantine instead may be a conscious choice to make the Roman-ness disappear. Again, I'm speaking about the general use of the term in all the articles, not by the OP.
Anyway. Even the person in this thread arguing most vehemently for the use of the term Byzantine says it applies to the "latter eastern Roman empire". So it shouldn't be used for this city, since it's neither form the Eastern empire (which, again, did not exist yet) and especially not from its latter period.
I haven't been to Egypt and I've heard nothing but bad things from multiple sources. This is the only place in the world where I can say this about. It's really disappointing, as I'd love to see some of the history there.
Egypt in Egyptian hands outperforms Roman ruins under European urban development, Native architecture under US expansion, Aboriginal sites under Australian settlement
Egypt is amazing if you have locals to show you around. If you wander up to the pyramids in your shorts with your camera…yeah, you might be swarmed a bit. Weird how economic collapse makes people kinda desperate.
I had one of the most magical meals in a street that had been mostly taken over by one restaurant - all the bread baked in one shop, the meat all butchered there…just amazing.
The people who I saw get scammed were, well, people who would get scammed in a lot of places without a Walmart.
Just like planting trees, the second best time is now. Travel (with sensitivity and understanding) to see cultures and places that are at risk: glaciers, savanna, wildlife parks, minority cultures, and dare I add Western democracies.
Edited to add: maybe the computer history museum as well.
> During this period, from the late fourth to the mid-seventh century AD, Christianity became the dominant religion, towns expanded across the country and Egypt served as one of the empire's richest provinces.
It's easy to forget how different the Middle East looked before the conquest of Islam starting in 600 AD.
Not just Islamic conquest but Arab conquest. Up to this point Arabs lived mainly in, well, Arabia. The indigenous peoples of Egypt, Syria, Iraq, etc..., were all non-Arab. Nowadays those indigenous groups are known as Copts, Syriacs, Chaldeans, etc...
Local populations adopted Arabic. Somewhat like, several centuries earlier, they adopted Greek; and elsewhere and at other times, Latin. The peoples of the regions were not replaced by Greek or Roman colonists.
Legitimate question, in the early days was this a large distinction? Specifically, my understanding was that the earliest raids where this distinction is most accurate, they didn't actually change the local societies much. Mostly were raids for resources and did not stay.
That is, until the Islamic raids started, the indigenous groups took losses, but were not nearly as transformed. Is that not accurate?
Well, the distinction mattered. But because the distinction mattered, the modern labels aren't really accurate.
Arabs were the highest-prestige ethnicity within their empire. But they were numerically insignificant. You have "Arabs" and "Copts" in Egypt today, but most of the "Arabs" are Copts whose ancestors decided they wanted more respect. Same thing is true farther west, where the "Arabs" are Berbers.
That isn't really addressing my question, I don't think? The assertion is that most of the Arab mixing into region came at the same time as the later invasions. Yes, they would have remained fewer in absolute numbers. But they weren't even there after the earlier raids.
And indigenous groups in France (just to use an example) are called Occitans, Bretons, Catalonians, Flemish, Alsatians, Corsicans, etc., etc. This isn't a unique phenomenon.
Flemish, Alsatians and Corsicans are literally Dutch, German and Italian, who are just part of France due to recent history. Occitans and Catalans are near Spain.
Bretons are Celts just like Gauls, whom you missed. You also missed other Celtic groups. And they (Celts) were the majority before invasions, still the majority.
Indigenous doesn't mean minority, it means the original inhabitants.
>It's easy to forget how different the Middle East looked before the conquest of Islam starting in 600 AD.
it naturally looked differently due to different climate. For example there was booming agriculture in Carthage back then - modern Tunisia. The climate warming during the first millennia made Mediterranean Basin less grain-production and animal farming suitable while more suitable for the nomadic Arabs flowing out of Arabia. That warming also made more convenient life in the previously cold and swampy Mid and North Europe where we see the wave of rise of the civilization
Try reading about Kafiristan, where primitive Hinduism (think Rig Veda) survived for 3500 years before being wiped out in the 1890s by a British-appointed Islamic despot.
The Kalash are very similar genetically and culturally and are also facing cultural genocide by Islamists. Truly one of the most fascinating ethnic minorities extant.
Please educate yourself more on this. Step out of your bubble.
Christian nations have created the cultural and technical achievements over the last thousands of years. There is nothing even remotely comparable.
Be fair now, the Catholic Church hasn't always and consistently been a backward medieval deathcult - there have been periods of non Crusading, non Inquisition, not slaughtering Cathars, not trading in babies, etc.
The Roman/Byzantine empire was pretty much destroyed by Muslims, though. Its a but like thanking the Franks/Goths/etc. for preserving Roman cultural identity in Western Europe by preserving some of their texts..
> The Roman/Byzantine empire was pretty much destroyed by Muslims, though
This is hilariously untrue, if one is talking about the Western Roman empire. An islamic state did conquer Constantinople, which I presume is what you mean.
The Roman empire (western) basically fell apart due to infighting more than anything else.
I wouldn't thank Christianity for the scientific advancements of the West, except maybe for protestant work ethic. Science only started to flourish when Catholic church started to lose power, and religion became a bit more separated from law and politics.
Best religion for progress of humanity is the one that embraces work, tells people to treat each other fairly, and otherwise keeps its hands off from irrelevant details of people's lives - things like what consenting adults do in bed, what they eat or drink, what they can or can't say.
Unfortunately Christians have been historically way too focused on the bad parts while ignoring the good parts, leading to madness like wars between Catholics and Protestants and discrimination of minorities. Think of the current conservative elite in America for example - it's hard to find people who are further away from teachings of Jesus Christ than those greedy, hateful idiots.
More like the last 500 years.
Before that the cultural and scientific centers of the world were variously in muslim, indian, chinese, roman and other parts of the world.
Translating the arabic texts of science (either copied and expanded from greek, latin and other places, or new research) and claiming that it was widom of the ancients?
To be fair for the most part Christianity didn’t spread top down through violent conquest (obviously with some huge exceptions) at least in the Middle East and surrounding regions. Also it’s historically better at integrating local cultural practices and languages.
Unlike Islam which which usually wiped out local cultural and linguistic identities (during the periods of Arab conquests, that shifted quite a but later on of course)
Well the crusades, northern crusades and most of imperialism.
For the most part it's enough to conquer a place. People below the timing elite would switch religions as it would be beneficial for them, and eventually trickle down to peasants and such.
Many of the regions they invaded were still (or until quite recently) majority Christian. After all initially it was a defensive relief expedition organized by the pope and the Byzantine emperor to free the territories the empire lost in Anatolia very recently. Of course it was massively more successful than anyone anticipated and they just kept on going and then the whole thing got “slightly” out of hand..
But yes, as I said there were some huge exceptions. However early on the way Christianity spread was fundamentally different to Islam. It was usually not through violent conquest but bottom up.
European imperialism was quite mixed as well. Christianity played a huge part in the Spanish conquests of the Americas. Much less so in British India and other similar places.
Very peaceful when you continently ignore all the violence.
Northern crusades were extremely bloody and defeated people would accept baptism or be executed.
Charlemange was more of the same deal.
Catholic church left pagans to their own devices?
Christian history is littered with these examples, it has not been a peaceful religion since it merged with Roman society. The only real good examples you could have are missionaries and top down conversion as kings and such voluntarily switched religions.
> Catholic church left pagans to their own devices?
It varied, although generally the Catholic church was fairly open at integrating or even occasionally tolerating pagan practices or providing alternative options to people used to more polytheistic religions. Like the whole saint worshipping (“venerating”) thing. Often (with some exceptions) pagans found conversion fairly easy since they could just map their gods to equivalent Christian saints continue worshipping them. Basically every converted pagan society had a multi-generationa transition period.
Then you had stuff lime praying to magical corpses or body parts, so their previous owners could perform miracles. With some exceptions it has generally been a highly flexible religion before the reformation.
Islam is much more rigid about following the rules and stuff like idol worship (as a consequence they brought back visual arts back to the stone ages..)
And when you say “historically better at integrating local cultural practices”, India, China and Australia, would like a word with you. Holy shit you should just delete your account right now
No, why would you say I did that? Also if everyone ever referencing any historical event ever would have to explicitly list and condemn every single thing they think was wrong it would become rather verbose and boring to read. Overall the crusaders were worse than some violent conquerors and better than others.
Christianity was very different, and the evidence for that is undeniable and gigantic. The fruits of diversity within christendom is offered in great treasure heaps within science, music, art, philosophy, theology, lifestyles, ways of worship, mysteries of the faith, and culture in general.
Christianity merged with local cultures, removing some aspects and adding some aspects.
It doesn't absolve those who commit the atrocities, even if there are externalities involved. It's not always the White Man's fault - neither in Africa nor the Middle East. We can and should hold the societies in those places to a certain global standard of conduct.
Hell no, that's ridiculous. Israel is a wholesale violator of human rights at massive scale, along with its criminal 5-eyes cronies, and it is in the midst of an imperialist genocide, murdering children every single day. If a state cannot defend itself against children, it is failed and should be refactored by its citizens, immediately and with haste.
We also strike the USA off the list, which cannot even take care of its peoples' most basic needs.
Switzerland. The answer you're looking for, is Switzerland. /s
There is a certain irony in your comment written in English posted on July 11, the 2026th year of Our Lord (though not mine), according to the Gregorian calender (named after Pope Gregory XIII who issued the papal bull that ordained said calendar) at 03:42:12, Universal Standard Time (the local time in London, United Kingdom). And the fact that i am reading this comment in the weekend (the Christian and Jewish days of Sabbath) and replying in similar fashion, (which is mostly historically rooted in the fact that these customs and culture were originally imposed on my country, India by our conquerors, than because it won out in some nebulous contest in the marketplace of ideas)
> It's easy to forget how different the Middle East looked before the conquest of Islam starting in 600 AD.
It’s easy to forget because it’s a fabricated perspective. Islamic/Arabian conquest of MENA isn’t really that different from what Romans or Persians did. That region is literally the source of human civilization (in the Old World at least) and had seen empires come and go ever since the Bronze Age, and along with them all sorts of cultures and religions. What fundamentally changed the dynamics of the region is not the islamic conquest but the shift of the center of the global trade away from Middle East and the Mediterranean to the Western Europe.
It is somewhat different. Romans or Greeks didn’t really violently impose their culture, religion and language to a comparable degree. Without the Islamic invasions Egyptian would likely still be speaking Coptic these days.
That's not exactly true. Spain, Portugal and France, at least, speak languages derived from Latin, while the original languages went extincted. And Christian religion taken by the Romans annihilated all the rest of religions in Europe.
Well yes it highly varied. However Romans were generally more motivated by plunder and subsequent economic exploitation. To an extent they didn’t really suppress local cultural practices or imposed forced assimilation in cases where it didn’t conflict with that and even often allowed alternative power structures to exist. Assimilation largely happened over time and was mostly voluntary. To be fair gradual voluntary conversion to Islam to enhance your social/economic status was the main mechanism in the Muslim empires as well. However in Rome the transition wasn’t as binary and “multiculturalism” was much more tolerated. Also Romans were way more open to integrating and assimilating foreign cultures and practices (which is why the Roman Empire eventually turned into a “Greek Empire”) what being a “Roman” meant was way more malleable and flexible than being a Muslim.
And if the British hadn't conquered and exploited my country, modern India wouldn't have been an impoverished country that is now a developing nation whose identity and culture has been forever changed due to European imperialism. The Islamophobia (and the general lack of respect for most non-western cultures) in this discussion is based on real ignorance:
1. There are indeed many things to admire about the west. However, for all the cultural and scientific advancement made by the west, westerners choose to ignore that the backbone of the current western "empire" was also built on the knowledge and wealth you looted from other non-western empires. The reason that you are now the most "developed" nation is because you now follow the same political pattern as all the "superpower" empires of their time - you hoard the wealth and knowledge now, and deny it to others. (Please read about the The fate of the Library of Alexandria - https://www.britannica.com/topic/Library-of-Alexandria/The-f... to understand, for one, how much knowledge was created, collated and valued in the eastern cultures - even by the "barbarian" muslim empires.)
(I know there have been books written in the west trying to justify that slavery and imperialism isn't why the west are wealthy. I partially agree with some points in them but disagree that the wealth that you stole was inconsequential. If the west truly believes that the wealth stolen from us wasn't what made your economies rich, but only your own culture and ingenuity, why don't you repatriate that amount that was diverted to your economy and actually test that theory? Mughal India, for example was one of the richest economies that accounted for 24% of the world GDP - https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5724162 - before the British conquered and transferred most of that wealth to enrich itself).
2. Many of you pretend (or rather seek comfort in the idea) that State violence of ancient non-western empires is something cultural to only non-western cultures. That western / Christian nations are more "peaceful" by nature. A study of the history of crusades, and western imperialism, should immediately dismiss that notion. (Shamefully, even today, many western nations sponsor and support the ethnic cleansing and genocide of native populations by your allies in Africa and the middle-east).
3. Some of you resort to selectively applying modern cultural perceptions to criticise such societies. That is not how history is studied. You try and understand history based on the cultural contexts of their period.
E.g. Prophet Muhammad didn't marry a 9 or 10 year old Ayesha because he liked to diddle young girls. During his time, puberty was treated as someone entering adulthood. While marriages may be arranged between pre-pubescent kids, it was only after they had reach puberty that they were allowed to consummate the marriage. Moreover, Muhammad had to marry someone from every tribal leader's family, as that was the diplomatic equivalent of establishing a political alliance with them, to unify them all, during this period. Note that even before Muhammad, Mary, mother of Christ, was considered eligible to be married to Joseph (an old man, past his middle-age) when she turned 12. She was still a teenager when she became pregnant ( https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/12317/is-th... ) - is Christ's father / God a paedophile too? By today's modern stan...
I wonder how many HNers will notice the irony of your comment written in English posted on July 11, the 2026th year of someone else's Lord, according to the Gregorian calender (named after Pope Gregory XIII who issued the papal bull that ordained said calendar) at 08:34:41, Universal Standard Time (the local time in London, United Kingdom). And the fact that i am reading this comment in the weekend (the Christian and Jewish days of Sabbath) and replying in similar fashion, (which is mostly historically rooted in the fact that these customs and culture were originally imposed on my country, India by our conquerors, than because it won out in some nebulous contest in the marketplace of ideas.)
None of the previous empire changes led to the population replacement. Islamic expansion (colonisation, conquest) brought Arabs and their way of life everywhere.
You can see the cultural differences though. One culture has the ability to pool finances and invest its way out of crisis. The other invests it all into exponential humans and conflict. Ideal for spreading in squalid, burned down conditions, non-ideal, when more then spreading is in your definiton of what humanity should strife for.
You're gonna have to be more specific. which religion, and what time are you insinuating for spreading in "spreading in squalid, burned down conditions"
It's true that Islam is a Christian heresy but to be fair, Islam tries to be it's own State Religion only for the Arabs. So in that sense it's not the same God since they don't believe in the Trinity.
Incorrect translation, Allahu Akbar means “the god is the greatest”
Allah is not a name that came with Islam but existed before, it just means deity. the Al prefix is the definite singular form. It just says one thing: god is a singleton and nothing is above it.
Fun fact - not every Christian sect believes in the trinity.
Another fun fact, the Jewish God and the Christian God are the same… it’s just that the Jewish God didn’t have a son who was also himself that killed himself only to resurrect himself negating the sacrifice
Completely wiped out? Christian copts were the majority for more than a century after Egypt became under Islamic rule, the shift took centuries of immigration and fertility rate changes.
Many churches still stands in Egypt where they were before Islamic rule.
The copts themselves welcomed Islamic conquest as Muslims gave them more rights than previous rulers.
I’m not OP but to say Your article is incomplete and washed. It makes no mention of the jizya, of slavery, persecution, or rape. Read a history book written by a copt like Sword & Scimitar and then look at the references. He references the Muslim sources themselves. Determine the truth from that. The west keeps washing the truth
What progress are you referring to? The shiny blinky things that scroll across our screens while the poor stay poor, war rages everywhere and the internet is overwhelmed with fake AI generated content.
The more I look back into history, the more I realise that besides the sparkling blinky-blinky gadgets, we have made no progress at all - on a species level. We’re still living in caves, we’re still believe in God myths that make no sense and let ourselves be blindly led by folks who claim legitimacy because they won voter approval based on the lies they told.
No, for me progress is a fiction invented in hollywood or silicon valley. Real progress would be understanding our place in the universe, understanding that we are one of many species with which we share this planet, that we don’t have the right to strip clear the planet for our sole benefit. And that shiny bits of metal or bits of paper with numbers and faces on them aren’t important and most certainly won’t help us achieve true progress.
Progress is a fiction? What an enraging and awful take. You are living in a world that is so extraordinarily safe, comfortable, populous, peaceful, free and entertaining your ancestors literally would not believe you if you told them. Most of your ancestors worked ten times as hard to access a tiny fraction of the material wealth and health and knowledge most people have today. Touch grass.
> The more I look back into history, the more I realise that besides the sparkling blinky-blinky gadgets, we have made no progress at all - on a species level.
Quite incredible how you can search for this information and it's all just the same article with the same pictures. No maps or anything.
>Lost city discovered beneath Egypt's desert
Sounds incredibly misleading, as if some long lost civ is rising from sand dunes, lol. As far as I'm aware, there have just been ruins uncovered (which look like 6 rooms on the pictures) at Dakhla Oasis, and the site is very obvious on Google Maps.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 92.8 ms ] threadHere: https://archaeologymag.com/2026/07/byzantine-city-with-writt...
and https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/04/archaeologists...
There's not even any maps anywhere.
Wonder how aggressively Egypt are on manoeuvres trying to claw back tourism. Would help if they opened up the desert roads so travelling the western deserts was actually viable as a ring route.
Is it legitimate for the Eastern Roman Empire to claim the legacy? I think so, and I think they have among the best arguments for it. Conversely it is also legitimate to note the major differences between the two and the fact that discontinuities do exist.
I'm not denying that gradually, over well more than a thousand years, the empire (only surviving in the East) changed character in many ways. I am denying that a unique Eastern character sprang up (and immediately applied to Egypt) the moment that Constantinople was founded.
I do agree with you that there was no instantaneous Eastern character that sprang up out of nowhere.
But you can call them Byzantines, an English term invented in the 19th century, because... you say so? Thank you, I have been enlightened.
You're also arguing against a strawman. I never said they weren't Roman. I only said there's nothing wrong with Byzantine.
Maybe if you weren't so smugly self-righteous, you'd have better reading comprehension.
Hey that's fresh. Do they have Hittitomori too?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_Empire#Nomenclature
This whole "debate" is a charade provided by people who once complained they had to take a humanities class and thereafter were clueless about what real modern historians and philologists were discussing about this period.
Its more complicated than you are making it seem. I dont even have a strong opinion on the conclusion but it’s certainly not how you’ve framed it.
First, The Roman Empire was always bilingual. Greek always held sway over the eastern half and Latin over the western half. Once the west is gone, of course you'll switch to primarily using the language that most use. The Irish didn't stop being Irish because they primarily speak English now, for example.
Second, the only states that refused to recognize the Eastern Roman Empire as the Roman Empire were the states that were descended from the German invaders and that was because they wanted to claim the Roman mantle for themselves. All of Islam called the East Romans, Rum. As did all of the rest of the world when they had contact with them.
Third, the switch to Christianity had already happened by the time of the split in 395.
Fourth, Rome hadn't been the seat of power for many Emperors since before the Third Century Crisis.
Fifth, states lose and gain territory all the time.
Read The New Roman Empire by Anthony Kaldellis. If you want to read more about this.
Ironically these guys called themselves Holy Roman Empire, it's neither Holy, nor Roman nor an Empire. They're hallucinating hundred of years before AI/LLM.
> All of Islam called the East Romans, Rum
Fun fact there's entire Chapter on Rome in the Quran namely Surah Ar-Rum [1]. In the New Testament Bible there's a section or book called Epistle to the Romans, or the letter of Paul to Roman originally written in Koine Greek [2]. But there's letter of Paul not the word of God or Jesus hence called espistle.
There's also an authentic direct letter from the Prophet Muhammad to the Roman Emperor at the time of Hercules [1]. Please note that Muhammad cannot read or write hence the letter was written for him as dictated [3].
[1] Ar-Rum:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ar-Rum
[2] Epistle to the Romans:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistle_to_the_Romans
[3] The Holy Prophet’s letter to Heraclius:
https://www.alhakam.org/holy-prophets-letter-to-heraclius
[4] Diplomatic career of Muhammad:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomatic_career_of_Muhammad
I always liked to think of empires as being defined by the people of a specific geography, bound by cultural and ideological tenets, making a development which allowed them to extract wealth from elsewhere.
The Northwestern US coast is the seat of the US empire, and is effectively defined by leveraging inward European culture, tech , and populations, to conquer a continent worth of free resources under manifest destiny, which has then scaled to the world.
If the capital moved to New York, the US empire would still be the same; based on the same history, culture, and geographical roots.
If it moved to California or Texas, however, I would consider it a new power entirely. The reasons underpinning the change would inherently make it an empire fuelled by a different history, geography, context in the world, etc, no matter how often people would claim to be a continuation of America.
The notion that people are mostly monolingual, and that language is very closely tied to a cultural identity, is a modern projection (and far from universally true nowadays as well).
Coptic is the interesting one though because it's actually the latest version of ancient Egyptian
I get that there is controversy about if Byzantium was Roman. But the person you’re replying to doesn’t seem to be making any claims about that.
There are two points I was trying to make: 1. At the relevant time, there were no separate Eastern and Western empires, so this city was just Roman, without qualification. 2. Even later, it could just be called Eastern Roman. Calling it Byzantine instead may be a conscious choice to make the Roman-ness disappear. Again, I'm speaking about the general use of the term in all the articles, not by the OP.
Anyway. Even the person in this thread arguing most vehemently for the use of the term Byzantine says it applies to the "latter eastern Roman empire". So it shouldn't be used for this city, since it's neither form the Eastern empire (which, again, did not exist yet) and especially not from its latter period.
:^)
Edited to add: maybe the computer history museum as well.
what did H.P. know that we did not??
It's easy to forget how different the Middle East looked before the conquest of Islam starting in 600 AD.
That is, until the Islamic raids started, the indigenous groups took losses, but were not nearly as transformed. Is that not accurate?
Arabs were the highest-prestige ethnicity within their empire. But they were numerically insignificant. You have "Arabs" and "Copts" in Egypt today, but most of the "Arabs" are Copts whose ancestors decided they wanted more respect. Same thing is true farther west, where the "Arabs" are Berbers.
Even if the amount of DNA only adds up to 20% of their mix (the average), it's still very significant.
Bretons are Celts just like Gauls, whom you missed. You also missed other Celtic groups. And they (Celts) were the majority before invasions, still the majority.
Indigenous doesn't mean minority, it means the original inhabitants.
it naturally looked differently due to different climate. For example there was booming agriculture in Carthage back then - modern Tunisia. The climate warming during the first millennia made Mediterranean Basin less grain-production and animal farming suitable while more suitable for the nomadic Arabs flowing out of Arabia. That warming also made more convenient life in the previously cold and swampy Mid and North Europe where we see the wave of rise of the civilization
It's such a shame that the various cultural holdouts in the Middle East never get much attention when they're systematically wiped off the map.
The Mandaeans in the marshes near Basra will probably be next to disappear into the sands of time. Not even a whisper in the media.
Oil sure has a way of drowning out 'human rights' in conversation.
I always like to think how the region would've looked if all these remnants of peoples had thriving nations.
eg: https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2021/sep/06...
This is hilariously untrue, if one is talking about the Western Roman empire. An islamic state did conquer Constantinople, which I presume is what you mean.
The Roman empire (western) basically fell apart due to infighting more than anything else.
Best religion for progress of humanity is the one that embraces work, tells people to treat each other fairly, and otherwise keeps its hands off from irrelevant details of people's lives - things like what consenting adults do in bed, what they eat or drink, what they can or can't say.
Unfortunately Christians have been historically way too focused on the bad parts while ignoring the good parts, leading to madness like wars between Catholics and Protestants and discrimination of minorities. Think of the current conservative elite in America for example - it's hard to find people who are further away from teachings of Jesus Christ than those greedy, hateful idiots.
In the current day, I just find it very worrying when you line up a map of global conflicts and where Islam is thriving.
Unlike Islam which which usually wiped out local cultural and linguistic identities (during the periods of Arab conquests, that shifted quite a but later on of course)
For the most part it's enough to conquer a place. People below the timing elite would switch religions as it would be beneficial for them, and eventually trickle down to peasants and such.
Many of the regions they invaded were still (or until quite recently) majority Christian. After all initially it was a defensive relief expedition organized by the pope and the Byzantine emperor to free the territories the empire lost in Anatolia very recently. Of course it was massively more successful than anyone anticipated and they just kept on going and then the whole thing got “slightly” out of hand..
But yes, as I said there were some huge exceptions. However early on the way Christianity spread was fundamentally different to Islam. It was usually not through violent conquest but bottom up.
European imperialism was quite mixed as well. Christianity played a huge part in the Spanish conquests of the Americas. Much less so in British India and other similar places.
Northern crusades were extremely bloody and defeated people would accept baptism or be executed.
Charlemange was more of the same deal.
Catholic church left pagans to their own devices?
Christian history is littered with these examples, it has not been a peaceful religion since it merged with Roman society. The only real good examples you could have are missionaries and top down conversion as kings and such voluntarily switched religions.
> Catholic church left pagans to their own devices?
It varied, although generally the Catholic church was fairly open at integrating or even occasionally tolerating pagan practices or providing alternative options to people used to more polytheistic religions. Like the whole saint worshipping (“venerating”) thing. Often (with some exceptions) pagans found conversion fairly easy since they could just map their gods to equivalent Christian saints continue worshipping them. Basically every converted pagan society had a multi-generationa transition period.
Then you had stuff lime praying to magical corpses or body parts, so their previous owners could perform miracles. With some exceptions it has generally been a highly flexible religion before the reformation.
Islam is much more rigid about following the rules and stuff like idol worship (as a consequence they brought back visual arts back to the stone ages..)
thats why all the signs in downtown Manhattan are in Munsee....
And when you say “historically better at integrating local cultural practices”, India, China and Australia, would like a word with you. Holy shit you should just delete your account right now
Christianity merged with local cultures, removing some aspects and adding some aspects.
We also strike the USA off the list, which cannot even take care of its peoples' most basic needs.
Switzerland. The answer you're looking for, is Switzerland. /s
So has Christianity and Capitalism.
It’s easy to forget because it’s a fabricated perspective. Islamic/Arabian conquest of MENA isn’t really that different from what Romans or Persians did. That region is literally the source of human civilization (in the Old World at least) and had seen empires come and go ever since the Bronze Age, and along with them all sorts of cultures and religions. What fundamentally changed the dynamics of the region is not the islamic conquest but the shift of the center of the global trade away from Middle East and the Mediterranean to the Western Europe.
It was not taken by the Romans. It was persecuted by the Romans for nearly 300 years.
1. There are indeed many things to admire about the west. However, for all the cultural and scientific advancement made by the west, westerners choose to ignore that the backbone of the current western "empire" was also built on the knowledge and wealth you looted from other non-western empires. The reason that you are now the most "developed" nation is because you now follow the same political pattern as all the "superpower" empires of their time - you hoard the wealth and knowledge now, and deny it to others. (Please read about the The fate of the Library of Alexandria - https://www.britannica.com/topic/Library-of-Alexandria/The-f... to understand, for one, how much knowledge was created, collated and valued in the eastern cultures - even by the "barbarian" muslim empires.)
(I know there have been books written in the west trying to justify that slavery and imperialism isn't why the west are wealthy. I partially agree with some points in them but disagree that the wealth that you stole was inconsequential. If the west truly believes that the wealth stolen from us wasn't what made your economies rich, but only your own culture and ingenuity, why don't you repatriate that amount that was diverted to your economy and actually test that theory? Mughal India, for example was one of the richest economies that accounted for 24% of the world GDP - https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5724162 - before the British conquered and transferred most of that wealth to enrich itself).
2. Many of you pretend (or rather seek comfort in the idea) that State violence of ancient non-western empires is something cultural to only non-western cultures. That western / Christian nations are more "peaceful" by nature. A study of the history of crusades, and western imperialism, should immediately dismiss that notion. (Shamefully, even today, many western nations sponsor and support the ethnic cleansing and genocide of native populations by your allies in Africa and the middle-east).
3. Some of you resort to selectively applying modern cultural perceptions to criticise such societies. That is not how history is studied. You try and understand history based on the cultural contexts of their period.
E.g. Prophet Muhammad didn't marry a 9 or 10 year old Ayesha because he liked to diddle young girls. During his time, puberty was treated as someone entering adulthood. While marriages may be arranged between pre-pubescent kids, it was only after they had reach puberty that they were allowed to consummate the marriage. Moreover, Muhammad had to marry someone from every tribal leader's family, as that was the diplomatic equivalent of establishing a political alliance with them, to unify them all, during this period. Note that even before Muhammad, Mary, mother of Christ, was considered eligible to be married to Joseph (an old man, past his middle-age) when she turned 12. She was still a teenager when she became pregnant ( https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/12317/is-th... ) - is Christ's father / God a paedophile too? By today's modern stan...
As an American, I am left wondering which side is us.
It's true that Islam is a Christian heresy but to be fair, Islam tries to be it's own State Religion only for the Arabs. So in that sense it's not the same God since they don't believe in the Trinity.
Allah is not a name that came with Islam but existed before, it just means deity. the Al prefix is the definite singular form. It just says one thing: god is a singleton and nothing is above it.
Another fun fact, the Jewish God and the Christian God are the same… it’s just that the Jewish God didn’t have a son who was also himself that killed himself only to resurrect himself negating the sacrifice
The copts themselves welcomed Islamic conquest as Muslims gave them more rights than previous rulers.
https://www.britannica.com/place/Egypt/From-the-Islamic-conq...
You are attempt to disguise your hate as history is a failure.
So yes.
It's stunning the progress humans have made since then.
The more I look back into history, the more I realise that besides the sparkling blinky-blinky gadgets, we have made no progress at all - on a species level. We’re still living in caves, we’re still believe in God myths that make no sense and let ourselves be blindly led by folks who claim legitimacy because they won voter approval based on the lies they told.
No, for me progress is a fiction invented in hollywood or silicon valley. Real progress would be understanding our place in the universe, understanding that we are one of many species with which we share this planet, that we don’t have the right to strip clear the planet for our sole benefit. And that shiny bits of metal or bits of paper with numbers and faces on them aren’t important and most certainly won’t help us achieve true progress.
> while the poor stay poor
America's poor are the wealthiest poor people in history.
2019–2020 world average life expectancy at birth was 72.6–73.2 years. In 1950 it was 45.7–48. In 1900 it was 31–32. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy
>Lost city discovered beneath Egypt's desert Sounds incredibly misleading, as if some long lost civ is rising from sand dunes, lol. As far as I'm aware, there have just been ruins uncovered (which look like 6 rooms on the pictures) at Dakhla Oasis, and the site is very obvious on Google Maps.
Are they speaking about Kellis? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kellis https://maps.app.goo.gl/65daKj9K8qJ35x1c9