Church of Christ Pantocrator, Nesebar
The Church of Christ Pantocrator is a medieval Eastern Orthodox church in the eastern Bulgarian town of Nesebar, on the Black Sea coast of Burgas Province. Part of the Ancient Nesebar UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Church of Christ Pantocrator was constructed in the 13th–14th century and is best known for its exterior decoration. The church, today an art gallery, survives intact and is among Bulgarias best preserved churches of the Middle Ages. The Church of Christ Pantocrator is usually dated to the late 13th or early 14th century, university of Pennsylvania scholar Robert G. Ousterhout places its construction in the mid-14th century. The church is dedicated to Christ Pantocrator, a name of God which hails him as the Ruler of All in Greek, the church is located on Mesembria Street, near the entrance to Nesebars old town. Nowadays, it houses an art gallery exhibits works by Bulgarian artists. As it belongs to the old town of Nesebar, the Church of Christ Pantocrator forms part of the Ancient City of Nesebar UNESCO World Heritage Site and the 100 Tourist Sites of Bulgaria.
Since 1927, it has been under protection as a national antiquity. The church is designed in late Byzantine cross-in-square style. It was constructed from stones and brickwork, a technique known as opus mixtum. The walls of the church are 0.80 metres thick, the colour of the bricks gives the church a ruddy appearance. The church features a narthex and a cella with an essentially rectangular elongated plan, the narthex is small, but has a medieval tomb underneath it. There are four entrances to the church, two accessing the cella from the south and west, and another two for the narthex from the west and north, the apse of the church has three small parts which overlap each other to form a single, larger unit. The prothesis and diaconicon of the church are located by the apse, the dome, octagonal in shape, stands prominently on top of the centre of the cella. It was supported by four now-destroyed columns which were located directly beneath it, the integrated bell tower has been built on top of the narthex, as was customary in contemporary Byzantine church architecture, and extends from the rectangular main structure.
The bell tower was rectangular, though it is now partially ruined. It was reached from the south by means of a stone staircase, the best-known feature of the Church of Christ Pantocrator is the rich and colourful decoration of its exterior walls. The most lavishly decorated part of the church is the east side with the apse, interchanging strips of three or four rows of bricks and carved stones, which create an optical pattern, are the most basic type of decoration used
Acropolis
An acropolis is a settlement, especially a citadel, built upon an area of elevated ground—frequently a hill with precipitous sides, chosen for purposes of defense. An example in Ireland is the Rock of Cashel, Acropolis is the term used by archaeologists and historians for the urban Castro culture settlements located in Northwestern Iberian hilltops. The most famous example is the Acropolis of Athens, which, by reason of its historical associations, although originating in the mainland of Greece, use of the acropolis model quickly spread to Greek colonies such as the Dorian Lato on Crete during the Archaic Period. Because of its classical Hellenistic style, the ruins of Mission San Juan Capistranos Great Stone Church in California, other parts of the world developed other names for the high citadel or alcázar, which often reinforced a naturally strong site. In Central Italy, many small rural communes still cluster at the base of a fortified habitation known as La Rocca of the commune. The term acropolis is used to describe the complex of overlapping structures, such as plazas and pyramids, in many Maya cities, including Tikal
Second Bulgarian Empire
The Second Bulgarian Empire was a medieval Bulgarian state that existed between 1185 and 1396. It was succeeded by the Principality and Kingdom of Bulgaria in 1878, until 1256, the Second Bulgarian Empire was the dominant power in the Balkans, defeating the Byzantine Empire in several major battles. In 1205 Emperor Kaloyan defeated the newly established Latin Empire in the Battle of Adrianople and his nephew Ivan Asen II defeated the Despotate of Epiros and made Bulgaria a regional power again. During his reign, Bulgaria spread from the Adriatic to the Black Sea, in the late 13th century, the Empire declined under constant invasions by Mongols, Byzantines and Serbs, as well as internal unrest and revolts. The 14th century saw a recovery and stability, but the peak of Balkan feudalism as central authorities gradually lost power in many regions. Bulgaria was divided into three parts on the eve of the Ottoman invasion, despite strong Byzantine influence, Bulgarian artists and architects created their own distinctive style.
In the 14th century, during the known as the Second Golden Age of Bulgarian culture, literature. The capital city Tarnovo, which was considered a New Constantinople, became the main cultural hub. The name most frequently used for the empire by contemporaries was Bulgaria, during Kaloyans reign, the state was sometimes known as being of both Bulgarians and Vlachs. Pope Innocent III and other such as the Latin Emperor Henry mentioned the state as Bulgaria. In modern historiography, the state is called the Second Bulgarian Empire, Second Bulgarian Tsardom, the existing tax system and the power of low-ranking nobility remained unchanged until his death in 1025. The autocephalous Bulgarian Patriarchate was subordinated to the Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople and downgraded to an archbishopric centred in Ohrid, while retaining its autonomy, Basil appointed the Bulgarian John I Debranin as its first archbishop, but his successors were Byzantines. The Bulgarian aristocracy and tsars relatives were given various Byzantine titles, despite hardships, the Bulgarian language and culture survived, surviving period texts refer to and idealize the Bulgarian Empire.
Most of the conquered territories were included in the themes Bulgaria, Sirmium. The initial centre of the resistance was the theme of Bulgaria, in what is now Macedonia, where the massive Uprising of Peter Delyan, both were quelled with great difficulty by Byzantine authorities. These were followed by rebellions in Paristrion and Thrace, the disastrous rule of the last Comnenian emperor Andronikos I worsened the situation of the Bulgarian peasantry and nobility. The first act of his successor Isaac II Angelos was to impose a tax to finance his wedding. In 1185, two brothers from Tarnovo and Asen, asked the emperor to enlist them into the army and grant them land
Ancient Rome
In its many centuries of existence, the Roman state evolved from a monarchy to a classical republic and to an increasingly autocratic empire. Through conquest and assimilation, it came to dominate the Mediterranean region and Western Europe, Asia Minor, North Africa and it is often grouped into classical antiquity together with ancient Greece, and their similar cultures and societies are known as the Greco-Roman world. Ancient Roman civilisation has contributed to modern government, politics, art, architecture, warfare, religion and society. Rome professionalised and expanded its military and created a system of government called res publica, the inspiration for modern republics such as the United States and France. By the end of the Republic, Rome had conquered the lands around the Mediterranean and beyond, its domain extended from the Atlantic to Arabia, the Roman Empire emerged with the end of the Republic and the dictatorship of Augustus Caesar. 721 years of Roman-Persian Wars started in 92 BC with their first war against Parthia and it would become the longest conflict in human history, and have major lasting effects and consequences for both empires.
Under Trajan, the Empire reached its territorial peak, Republican mores and traditions started to decline during the imperial period, with civil wars becoming a prelude common to the rise of a new emperor. Splinter states, such as the Palmyrene Empire, would divide the Empire during the crisis of the 3rd century. Plagued by internal instability and attacked by various migrating peoples, the part of the empire broke up into independent kingdoms in the 5th century. This splintering is a landmark historians use to divide the ancient period of history from the pre-medieval Dark Ages of Europe. King Numitor was deposed from his throne by his brother, while Numitors daughter, Rhea Silvia, because Rhea Silvia was raped and impregnated by Mars, the Roman god of war, the twins were considered half-divine. The new king, feared Romulus and Remus would take back the throne, a she-wolf saved and raised them, and when they were old enough, they returned the throne of Alba Longa to Numitor. Romulus became the source of the citys name, in order to attract people to the city, Rome became a sanctuary for the indigent and unwanted.
This caused a problem for Rome, which had a large workforce but was bereft of women, Romulus traveled to the neighboring towns and tribes and attempted to secure marriage rights, but as Rome was so full of undesirables they all refused. Legend says that the Latins invited the Sabines to a festival and stole their unmarried maidens, leading to the integration of the Latins, after a long time in rough seas, they landed at the banks of the Tiber River. Not long after they landed, the men wanted to take to the sea again, one woman, named Roma, suggested that the women burn the ships out at sea to prevent them from leaving. At first, the men were angry with Roma, but they realized that they were in the ideal place to settle. They named the settlement after the woman who torched their ships, the Roman poet Virgil recounted this legend in his classical epic poem the Aeneid
Church of St John Aliturgetos
The Church of St John Aliturgetos is located in Nesebar, Bulgaria. The church was not consecrated, hence the name - aliturgetos is the Greek for not consecrated, the legend says that one of the builders fell down and was killed. The church canon did not allow a place where a man had killed to be used for worship. The church was damaged during the 1913 earthquake. Its ruins in the part of the peninsula show that it must have been one of the most beautiful medieval churches in Nesebar. It is a cruciform church with three altar apses and a narthex. It is 18.5 m long and 10 m wide, the base of the cruciform part of the church is almost quadrangular, shaped by four columns. It has mixed masonry and brick, the walls are segmented by blind two-step niches decorated with various geometrical patterns from bricks. The church was built in the 14th century, it has two entrances, from the north and south, which is rare in the architecture of church buildings
Dorians
The Dorians were one of the four major ethnic groups among which the Hellenes of Classical Greece considered themselves divided. They are almost always referred to as just the Dorians, as they are called in the earliest literary mention of them in the Odyssey, and yet, all Hellenes knew which localities were Dorian, and which were not. Dorian states at war could more likely, but not always, Dorians were distinguished by the Doric Greek dialect and by characteristic social and historical traditions. In the 5th century BC, Dorians and Ionians were the two most politically important Greek ethne, whose ultimate clash resulted in the Peloponnesian War, the degree to which fifth-century Hellenes self-identified as Ionian or Dorian has itself been disputed. At one extreme Édouard Will concludes that there was no true ethnic component in fifth-century Greek culture, at the other extreme John Alty reinterprets the sources to conclude that ethnicity did motivate fifth-century actions. Moderns viewing these ethnic identifications through the fifth- and fourth-century BC literary tradition have been influenced by their own social politics.
Accounts vary as to the Dorians’ place of origin, mythology gave them a Greek origin and eponymous founder, Dorus son of Hellen, the mythological patriarch of the Hellenes. The origin of the Dorians is a multi-faceted concept, in modern scholarship the term often has meant the location of the population disseminating the Doric Greek dialect within a hypothetical Proto-Greek speaking population. This dialect is known from records of classical northwest Greece, the Peloponnesus and Crete, a historical event is associated with the overthrow, called anciently the Return of the Heracleidai and by moderns the Dorian Invasion. This theory of a return or invasion presupposes that West Greek speakers resided in northwest Greece, no other records than Mycenaean are known to have existed in the Bronze Age, so a West Greek of that time and place cannot be proved or disproved. West Greek speakers were in western Greece in classical times, unlike the East Greeks, they are not associated with any evidence of displacement events.
This provides circumstantial evidence that the Doric dialect disseminated among the Hellenes of northwest Greece, most scholars doubt that the Dorian invasion was the main cause of the collapse of the Mycenean civilization. The source of the West Greek speakers in the Peloponnesus remains unattested by any solid evidence, though most of the Doric invaders settled in the Peloponnese, they settled on Rhodes and Sicily, in what is now southern Italy. In Asia Minor existed the Dorian Hexapolis and Knidos in Asia Minor and Lindos, Kameiros and these six cities would become rivals with the Ionian cities of Asia Minor. Other such Dorian colonies, originally from Corinth, Megara, a mans name, Dōrieus, occurs in the Linear B tablets at Pylos, one of the regions invaded and subjugated by the Dorians. Pylos tablet Fn867 records it in the case as do-ri-je-we, *Dōriēwei. An unattested nominative plural, *Dōriēwes, would have become Dōrieis by loss of the w, the tablet records the grain rations issued to the servants of religious dignitaries celebrating a religious festival of Potnia, the mother goddess.
The nominative singular, Dōrieus, remained the same in the classical period, many Linear B names of servants were formed from their home territory or the places where they came into Mycenaean ownership
Crusades
The First Crusade arose after a call to arms in a 1095 sermon by Pope Urban II. Urban urged military support for the Byzantine Empire and its Emperor, Alexios I, the response to Urbans preaching by people of many different classes across Western Europe established the precedent for Crusades. Volunteers became Crusaders by taking a vow and receiving plenary indulgences from the church. Some were hoping for apotheosis at Jerusalem, or forgiveness from God for all their sins, others participated to satisfy feudal obligations, gain glory and honour, or find opportunities for economic and political gain. Many modern Historians have polarised opinions of the Crusaders behaviour under Papal sanction, to some it was incongruous with the stated aims and implied moral authority of the papacy and the Crusades, to the extent that on occasions that the Pope excommunicated Crusaders. Crusaders often pillaged as they travelled, while their leaders retained control of captured territory rather than returning it to the Byzantines.
During the Peoples Crusade thousands of Jews were murdered in what is now called the Rhineland massacres, Constantinople was sacked during the Fourth Crusade rendering the reunification of Christendom impossible. These tales consequently galvanised medieval romance and literature, but the Crusades reinforced the connection between Western Christendom and militarism. Crusade is not a term, instead the terms iter for journey or peregrinatio for pilgrimage were used. Not until the word crucesignatus for one who was signed with the cross was adopted at the close of the century was specific terminology developed. The Middle English equivalents were derived from old French, croiserie in the 13th–15th centuries, croisade appeared in English c1575, and continued to be the leading form till c1760. By convention historians adopt the term for the Christian holy wars from 1095, the Crusades in the Holy Land are traditionally counted as nine distinct campaigns, numbered from the First Crusade of 1095–99 to the Ninth Crusade of 1271/2.
Usage of the term Crusade may differ depending on the author, pluralists use the term Crusade of any campaign explicitly sanctioned by the reigning Pope. This reflects the view of the Roman Catholic Church that every military campaign given Papal sanction is equally valid as a Crusade, regardless of its cause, generalists see Crusades as any and all holy wars connected with the Latin Church and fought in defence of their faith. Popularists limit the Crusades to only those that were characterised by popular groundswells of religious fervour – that is, only the First Crusade, Medieval Muslim historiographers such as Ali ibn al-Athir refer to the Crusades as the Frankish Wars. The term used in modern Arabic, ḥamalāt ṣalībiyya حملات صليبية, campaigns of the cross, is a loan translation of the term Crusade as used in Western historiography. The Islamic prophet Muhammad founded Islam in the Arabian Peninsula, the resulting unified polity in the seventh and eighth centuries led to a rapid expansion of Arab power.
This influence stretched from the northwest Indian subcontinent, across Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, southern Italy, tolerance and political relationships between the Arabs and the Christian states of Europe waxed and waned
Metropolitan area
As social and political institutions have changed, metropolitan areas have become key economic and political regions. The Greater São Paulo is a term for one of the multiple definitions the large metropolitan area located in the São Paulo state in Brazil. A metropolitan area combines an urban agglomeration with zones not necessarily urban in character and these outlying zones are sometimes known as a commuter belt, and may extend well beyond the urban zone, to other political entities. For example, El Monte, California is considered part of the Los Angeles metro area in the United States, in practice, the parameters of metropolitan areas, in both official and unofficial usage, are not consistent. Population figures given for one area can vary by millions. A polycentric metropolitan area is one not connected by continuous development or conurbation, in defining a metropolitan area, it is sufficient that a city or cities form a nucleus that other areas have a high degree of integration with.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics defines statistical divisions as areas under the influence of one or more major towns or a major city. However, this definition has become obsolete with the conurbation of several statistical divisions into a larger metropolitan areas. In Brazil, metropolitan areas are called metropolitan regions, each State defines its own legislation for the creation and organization of a metropolitan region. The creation of a region is not intended for any statistical purpose, although the Brazilian Institute of Geography. Their main purpose is to allow for a management of public policies of common interest to all cities involved. They dont have political, electoral or jurisdictional power whatsoever, so living in a metropolitan region do not elect representatives for them. Statistics Canada defines a metropolitan area as an area consisting of one or more adjacent municipalities situated around a major urban core. To form a CMA, the area must have a population of at least 100,000.
To be included in the CMA, adjacent municipalities must have a degree of integration with the core. As of the Canada 2011 Census, there were 33 CMAs in Canada, including six with a population over one million—Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa and Edmonton. In Denmark the only area is Greater Copenhagen, consisting of the Capital Region of Denmark along with the neighboring regions Region Zealand. Greater Copenhagen has an population of 1.25 million people
Ottoman Empire
After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe, and with the conquest of the Balkans the Ottoman Beylik was transformed into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the 1453 conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed the Conqueror, at the beginning of the 17th century the empire contained 32 provinces and numerous vassal states. Some of these were absorbed into the Ottoman Empire, while others were granted various types of autonomy during the course of centuries. With Constantinople as its capital and control of lands around the Mediterranean basin, while the empire was once thought to have entered a period of decline following the death of Suleiman the Magnificent, this view is no longer supported by the majority of academic historians. The empire continued to maintain a flexible and strong economy, however, during a long period of peace from 1740 to 1768, the Ottoman military system fell behind that of their European rivals, the Habsburg and Russian Empires. While the Empire was able to hold its own during the conflict, it was struggling with internal dissent.
Starting before World War I, but growing increasingly common and violent during it, major atrocities were committed by the Ottoman government against the Armenians and Pontic Greeks. The word Ottoman is an anglicisation of the name of Osman I. Osmans name in turn was the Turkish form of the Arabic name ʿUthmān, in Ottoman Turkish, the empire was referred to as Devlet-i ʿAlīye-yi ʿOsmānīye, or alternatively ʿOsmānlı Devleti. In Modern Turkish, it is known as Osmanlı İmparatorluğu or Osmanlı Devleti, the Turkish word for Ottoman originally referred to the tribal followers of Osman in the fourteenth century, and subsequently came to be used to refer to the empires military-administrative elite. In contrast, the term Turk was used to refer to the Anatolian peasant and tribal population, the term Rūmī was used to refer to Turkish-speakers by the other Muslim peoples of the empire and beyond. In Western Europe, the two names Ottoman Empire and Turkey were often used interchangeably, with Turkey being increasingly favored both in formal and informal situations and this dichotomy was officially ended in 1920–23, when the newly established Ankara-based Turkish government chose Turkey as the sole official name.
Most scholarly historians avoid the terms Turkey and Turkish when referring to the Ottomans, as the power of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum declined in the 13th century, Anatolia was divided into a patchwork of independent Turkish principalities known as the Anatolian Beyliks. One of these beyliks, in the region of Bithynia on the frontier of the Byzantine Empire, was led by the Turkish tribal leader Osman, osmans early followers consisted both of Turkish tribal groups and Byzantine renegades, many but not all converts to Islam. Osman extended the control of his principality by conquering Byzantine towns along the Sakarya River and it is not well understood how the early Ottomans came to dominate their neighbours, due to the scarcity of the sources which survive from this period. One school of thought which was popular during the twentieth century argued that the Ottomans achieved success by rallying religious warriors to fight for them in the name of Islam, in the century after the death of Osman I, Ottoman rule began to extend over Anatolia and the Balkans.
Osmans son, captured the northwestern Anatolian city of Bursa in 1326 and this conquest meant the loss of Byzantine control over northwestern Anatolia. The important city of Thessaloniki was captured from the Venetians in 1387, the Ottoman victory at Kosovo in 1389 effectively marked the end of Serbian power in the region, paving the way for Ottoman expansion into Europe
Simeon I of Bulgaria
Simeon I the Great ruled over Bulgaria from 893 to 927, during the First Bulgarian Empire. Simeons successful campaigns against the Byzantines and Serbs led Bulgaria to its greatest territorial expansion ever and his reign was a period of unmatched cultural prosperity and enlightenment deemed the Golden Age of Bulgarian culture. During Simeons rule, Bulgaria spread over a territory between the Aegean, the Adriatic and the Black Sea, and the new Bulgarian capital Preslav was said to rival Constantinople and it was at the Preslav Literary School in the 890s that the Cyrillic alphabet was developed. Halfway through his reign, Simeon assumed the title of Emperor, Simeon was born in 864 or 865, as the third son of Knyaz Boris I of Krums dynasty. As Boris was the ruler who Christianized Bulgaria in 865, Simeon was a Christian all his life and he took the name Simeon as a novice in a monastery in Constantinople. During the decade he spent in the Byzantine capital, he received excellent education and studied the rhetoric of Demosthenes and he learned fluent Greek, to the extent that he was referred to as the half-Greek in Byzantine chronicles.
He is speculated to have been tutored by Patriarch Photios I of Constantinople, Vladimir had succeeded Boris, who had retreated to a monastery, as ruler of Bulgaria. Vladimir attempted to reintroduce paganism in the empire and possibly signed a pact with Arnulf of Carinthia. Boris had Vladimir imprisoned and blinded, and appointed Simeon as the new ruler and it is not known why Boris did not place his second son, Gavril, on the throne, but instead preferred Simeon. With Simeon on the throne, the peace with the Byzantine Empire established by his father was about to end. The Bulgarians sought protection by Simeon, who in turn complained to Leo, the Byzantine emperor ignored his embassy. The Bulgarians took most of the Khazar mercenary guardsmen prisoners and killed many archons, instead of continuing his advance to the Byzantine capital, Simeon quickly withdrew his troops to face a Magyar invasion from the north. These events were called the first trade war in medieval Europe by Bulgarian historians.
Leo VI may have concluded an agreement with Arnulf to make sure that the Franks did not support Simeon against the Magyars. In addition, the talented commander Nikephoros Phokas was called back from southern Italy to lead an army against Bulgaria in 895 with the mere intention to overawe the Bulgarians. Simeon, unaware of the threat from the north, rushed to meet Phokas forces, the Byzantines offered peace, informing him of both the Byzantine foot and maritime campaign, but intentionally did not notify him of the planned Magyar attack. Once notified of the invasion, Simeon headed north to stop the Magyars. Simeons two encounters with the enemy in Northern Dobruja resulted in Magyar victories, forcing him to retreat to Drǎstǎr
.JPG)
.jpg)
.jpg)
