1.
Vathy, Samos
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Vathy is a town and a former municipality on the island of Samos, North Aegean, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Samos and it is the capital and main town of the island. The municipal unit has an area of 125.153 km2, the municipal unit comprises numerous towns, villages, and settlements, but its two largest are Samos, and Vathy. The town of Samos is the largest on the island, Vathy is a sister city of Kuşadası, Turkey since October 28,1999
2.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
3.
Greece
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Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, historically also known as Hellas, is a country in southeastern Europe, with a population of approximately 11 million as of 2015. Athens is the capital and largest city, followed by Thessaloniki. Greece is strategically located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, situated on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to the northeast. Greece consists of nine regions, Macedonia, Central Greece, the Peloponnese, Thessaly, Epirus, the Aegean Islands, Thrace, Crete. The Aegean Sea lies to the east of the mainland, the Ionian Sea to the west, the Cretan Sea and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Greece has the longest coastline on the Mediterranean Basin and the 11th longest coastline in the world at 13,676 km in length, featuring a vast number of islands, eighty percent of Greece is mountainous, with Mount Olympus being the highest peak at 2,918 metres. From the eighth century BC, the Greeks were organised into various independent city-states, known as polis, which spanned the entire Mediterranean region and the Black Sea. Greece was annexed by Rome in the second century BC, becoming a part of the Roman Empire and its successor. The Greek Orthodox Church also shaped modern Greek identity and transmitted Greek traditions to the wider Orthodox World, falling under Ottoman dominion in the mid-15th century, the modern nation state of Greece emerged in 1830 following a war of independence. Greeces rich historical legacy is reflected by its 18 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, among the most in Europe, Greece is a democratic and developed country with an advanced high-income economy, a high quality of life, and a very high standard of living. A founding member of the United Nations, Greece was the member to join the European Communities and has been part of the Eurozone since 2001. Greeces unique cultural heritage, large industry, prominent shipping sector. It is the largest economy in the Balkans, where it is an important regional investor, the names for the nation of Greece and the Greek people differ from the names used in other languages, locations and cultures. The earliest evidence of the presence of human ancestors in the southern Balkans, dated to 270,000 BC, is to be found in the Petralona cave, all three stages of the stone age are represented in Greece, for example in the Franchthi Cave. Neolithic settlements in Greece, dating from the 7th millennium BC, are the oldest in Europe by several centuries and these civilizations possessed writing, the Minoans writing in an undeciphered script known as Linear A, and the Mycenaeans in Linear B, an early form of Greek. The Mycenaeans gradually absorbed the Minoans, but collapsed violently around 1200 BC and this ushered in a period known as the Greek Dark Ages, from which written records are absent. The end of the Dark Ages is traditionally dated to 776 BC, the Iliad and the Odyssey, the foundational texts of Western literature, are believed to have been composed by Homer in the 7th or 8th centuries BC. With the end of the Dark Ages, there emerged various kingdoms and city-states across the Greek peninsula, in 508 BC, Cleisthenes instituted the worlds first democratic system of government in Athens
4.
Administrative regions of Greece
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The administrative regions of Greece are the countrys thirteen first-level administrative entities, each comprising several second-level units, originally prefectures and, since 2011, regional units. The current regions were established in July 1986, by decision of then-Interior Minister Menios Koutsogiorgas as a second-level administrative entities, as part of a decentralization process inspired by then-Interior Minister Alekos Papadopoulos, they were accorded more powers in the 1997 Kapodistrias reform of local and regional government. They were transformed into separate entities by the 2010 Kallikratis Plan. In the 2011 changes, the general secretary was replaced with a popularly elected regional governor. Many powers of the prefectures, which were abolished or reformed into regional units, were transferred to the region level. The regional organs of the government were in turn replaced by seven decentralized administrations. Bordering the region of Central Macedonia there is one region, Mount Athos. It is located on the easternmost of the three large peninsulas jutting into the Aegean from the Chalcidice Peninsula, ISO 3166-2, GR Administrative divisions of Greece
5.
North Aegean
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The North Aegean is one of the thirteen regions of Greece. It comprises the islands of the north-eastern Aegean Sea, except for Samothrace, the North Aegean region was established in the 1987 administrative reform. With the 2010 Kallikratis plan, its powers and authority were redefined and extended, along with the Southern Aegean region, it is supervised by the Decentralized Administration of the Aegean based at Piraeus. The capital of the region is situated in Mytilene on the island of Lesbos, until the Kallikratis reform, the region consisted of the three prefectures of Samos, Chios and Lesbos. Since 1 January 2011 it is divided into five units, formed around, Chios, Ikaria. The total number of islands in the North Aegean region are nine, Lesbos, Chios, Psara, Oinousses, Ikaria, Fournoi Korseon, the regions governor is Christiana Kalogirou who on 2 October 2014 succeeded Athanasios Giakalis following the 2014 local elections. Chíos Kalloní Karlóvasi Mýrina Mytilíni Omiroúpoli Pythagóreio Vathý Official website
6.
Samos (town)
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Samos is a port town on the island of Samos in Greece. It is also known as Kato Vathy, referring to its location below Vathy, in 2011 it had a population of 6,251. The Town of Samos was built in the middle of 18th century as the port of Vathy, at first there were only depots for the necessities of the trade. Samos town was initially named Kato Vathy or Limenas Vatheos, current name was given it in 1958. During 19th became the centre of the island. At that time, its population increased, after the union of Samos with Greece, Samos town remained the administration centre of the island, as well as it became the capital of the Samos Prefecture and the seat of the local municipality. Samos town is on the coast, very close to Vathy and its houses are built to amphitheatrically formation, around the bay. In front of the settlement is the port of Samos with wharf of more than 150 meters length, notable buildings in Samos are the old churches of Agios Nikolaos and Agios Spiridon, the town hall and the two statues
7.
Eastern European Time
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Eastern European Time is one of the names of UTC+02,00 time zone,2 hours ahead of Coordinated Universal Time. The zone uses daylight saving time, so that it uses UTC+03,00 during the summer, a number of African countries use UTC+02,00 all year long, where it is called Central Africa Time, although Egypt and Libya also use the term Eastern European Time. The following countries, parts of countries, and territories use Eastern European Time all year round, Egypt, since 21 April 2015, used EEST from 1988–2010, Kaliningrad Oblast, since 26 October 2014, also used EET in years 1945 and 1991–2011. Libya, since 27 October 2013, switched from Central European Time, used year-round EET from 1980–1981, 1990–1996 and 1998–2012. Belarus, in years 1922–30 and 1990–2011 In Poland this time was used in years 1918–22, in time of World War II, Germany implemented MET in east occupied territories. Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol used EET as part of Ukraine in years 1991-94 and 1996-2014 Turkey, used EET in years 1910-1978, now uses year round DST timezone called Further-eastern European Time or Turkey Time. The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus also uses FET, sometimes, due to its use on Microsoft Windows, FLE Standard Time or GTB Standard Time are used to refer to Eastern European Time. Since political, in addition to geographical, criteria are used in the drawing of time zones. The EET time zone, were it drawn by purely geographical terms, the easternmost part of the Republic of Macedonia, including the city of Strumica. The absolutely easternmost part of Serbia, in the Pirot District, the easternmost town in Norway, Vardø, lies at 30°51 E, which is located east of even of the central meridian of UTC+2, i. e. east of Istanbul and Alexandria. The Norwegian-Russian border is the place where CET borders Moscow time. There is a point at the Norway-Finland-Russia tripoint, near the town of Rayakoski. Belarus is located between 23°11′E and 32°47′E and is fully located with the physical UTC+2 area, but it uses UTC+3 year around. This also includes the city of Anapa, at the westernmost tip of the Krasnodar Krai near the entrance to the Sea of Azov, the Norway–Russia–Finland tri-zone point at Muotkavaara is surrounded by three different times in winter, two in summer. It had three time zones year-around before 2014, two of the four tripoints of Belarus and the tripoint of the Kaliningrad Region are surrounded by three different times in winter
8.
Daylight saving time
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Daylight saving time is the practice of advancing clocks during summer months by one hour so that evening daylight lasts an hour longer, while sacrificing normal sunrise times. Typically, regions that use Daylight Savings Time adjust clocks forward one hour close to the start of spring, American inventor and politician Benjamin Franklin proposed a form of daylight time in 1784. New Zealander George Hudson proposed the idea of saving in 1895. The German Empire and Austria-Hungary organized the first nationwide implementation, starting on April 30,1916, many countries have used it at various times since then, particularly since the energy crisis of the 1970s. The practice has both advocates and critics, DST clock shifts sometimes complicate timekeeping and can disrupt travel, billing, record keeping, medical devices, heavy equipment, and sleep patterns. Computer software often adjusts clocks automatically, but policy changes by various jurisdictions of DST dates, industrialized societies generally follow a clock-based schedule for daily activities that do not change throughout the course of the year. The time of day that individuals begin and end work or school, North and south of the tropics daylight lasts longer in summer and shorter in winter, with the effect becoming greater as one moves away from the tropics. However, they will have one hour of daylight at the start of each day. Supporters have also argued that DST decreases energy consumption by reducing the need for lighting and heating, DST is also of little use for locations near the equator, because these regions see only a small variation in daylight in the course of the year. After ancient times, equal-length civil hours eventually supplanted unequal, so civil time no longer varies by season, unequal hours are still used in a few traditional settings, such as some monasteries of Mount Athos and all Jewish ceremonies. This 1784 satire proposed taxing window shutters, rationing candles, and waking the public by ringing church bells, despite common misconception, Franklin did not actually propose DST, 18th-century Europe did not even keep precise schedules. However, this changed as rail transport and communication networks came to require a standardization of time unknown in Franklins day. Modern DST was first proposed by the New Zealand entomologist George Hudson, whose shift work job gave him time to collect insects. An avid golfer, he also disliked cutting short his round at dusk and his solution was to advance the clock during the summer months, a proposal he published two years later. The proposal was taken up by the Liberal Member of Parliament Robert Pearce, a select committee was set up to examine the issue, but Pearces bill did not become law, and several other bills failed in the following years. Willett lobbied for the proposal in the UK until his death in 1915, william Sword Frost, mayor of Orillia, Ontario, introduced daylight saving time in the municipality during his tenure from 1911 to 1912. Starting on April 30,1916, the German Empire and its World War I ally Austria-Hungary were the first to use DST as a way to conserve coal during wartime, Britain, most of its allies, and many European neutrals soon followed suit. Russia and a few other countries waited until the year
9.
Vehicle registration plates of Greece
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Greek vehicle registration plates are composed of three letters and four digits per plate. The letters represent the district that issues the plates while the numbers begin from 1000 to 9999, similar plates with digits beginning from 1 to 999 are issued for motorcycles which exceed 50 cc. With the exception of Athens and Thessaloniki, all districts are represented by the first 2 letters, the final letter in the sequence changes in Greek alphabetical order after 9,000 issued plates. For example, Patras plates are ΑΧΑ-1000, where ΑΧ represents the Achaia prefecture of which Patras is the capital, when ΑΧΑ-9999 is reached the plates turn to ΑΧΒ-1000 and this continues until ΑΧΧ is finished. Only the letters from the intersection between the Latin and Greek alphabets by glyph appearance are used, namely Α, Β, Ε, Ζ, Η, Ι, Κ, Μ, Ν, Ο, Ρ, Τ, Υ, Χ. This is because Greece is a party to the Vienna Convention on Road Traffic. The rule applies in a way in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Combinations used for residents are L-NNNN and are limited. Until 2003, taxis used L-NNNN, the plate was aligned with the prefecture, when number plates were introduced to Greece, they were numbered and in the late 1950s the system was L-NNN and LL-NNN. The letters were Greek letters and Latin letters, respectively, in 1956, the system was NNNNNN. In 1972, they became lettered and the system was LL-NNNN while trucks used L-NNNN, in 1983, the system was LLL-NNNN and the first two letters are prefecture letters. In 2004, the euroband was added, the first 2 of 3 letters of a licence plate usually represent the prefecture where the car was registered. Π. — Disabled in war ΔΟΚ — Test plates ΔΣ — Corps Diplomatique or foreign delegation Ε. Α. or ΕΛ. ΑΣ. — Hellenic Police ΛΣ — Coast Guard ΞΑ — Foreign missions ΕΣ — Hellenic Army ΠΑ — Hellenic Air Force ΠΝ — Hellenic Navy ΠΣ — Fire Guard ΠΚ — President of the Government, i. e
10.
Greek language
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Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any living language, spanning 34 centuries of written records and its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history, other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were used previously. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic and many other writing systems. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world, during antiquity, Greek was a widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world and many places beyond. It would eventually become the official parlance of the Byzantine Empire, the language is spoken by at least 13.2 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey, and the Greek diaspora. Greek roots are used to coin new words for other languages, Greek. Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, the earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the worlds oldest recorded living language. Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now extinct Anatolian languages, the Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods, Proto-Greek, the unrecorded but assumed last ancestor of all known varieties of Greek. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic migrants entered the Greek peninsula sometime in the Neolithic era or the Bronze Age, Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Mycenaean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 15th century BC onwards, Ancient Greek, in its various dialects, the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of the ancient Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the Roman Empire, after the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial bilingualism of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. The origin of Christianity can also be traced through Koine Greek, Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, the continuation of Koine Greek in Byzantine Greece, up to the demise of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century. Much of the written Greek that was used as the language of the Byzantine Empire was an eclectic middle-ground variety based on the tradition of written Koine. Modern Greek, Stemming from Medieval Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the Byzantine period and it is the language used by the modern Greeks, and, apart from Standard Modern Greek, there are several dialects of it. In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia, the historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language is often emphasised. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language and it is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, Homeric Greek is probably closer to demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English, Greek is spoken by about 13 million people, mainly in Greece, Albania and Cyprus, but also worldwide by the large Greek diaspora. Greek is the language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population
11.
Aegean Sea
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The Aegean Sea is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the Greek and Anatolian peninsulas, i. e. between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles, the Aegean Islands are within the sea and some bound it on its southern periphery, including Crete and Rhodes. The sea was known as Archipelago, but in English this words meaning has changed to refer to the Aegean Islands and, generally. In ancient times, there were various explanations for the name Aegean, a possible etymology is a derivation from the Greek word αἶγες – aiges = waves, hence wavy sea, cf. also αἰγιαλός, hence meaning sea-shore. The Venetians, who ruled many Greek islands in the High and Late Middle Ages, popularized the name Archipelago, in some South Slavic languages the Aegean is often called White Sea. The Aegean Sea covers about 214,000 square kilometres in area, the seas maximum depth is 3,543 metres, east of Crete. The Aegean Islands are found within its waters, with the following islands delimiting the sea on the south, Kythera, Antikythera, Crete, Kasos, Karpathos, many of the Aegean Islands, or chains of islands, are actually extensions of the mountains on the mainland. One chain extends across the sea to Chios, another extends across Euboea to Samos, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Aegean Sea as follows, On the South. In the Dardanelles. A line joining Kum Kale and Cape Helles, the dense Mediterranean water sinks below the Black Sea inflow to a depth of 23–30 metres, then flows through the Dardanelles Strait and into the Sea of Marmara at velocities of 5–15 cm/s. The Black Sea outflow moves westward along the northern Aegean Sea, Aegean Sea Intermediate Water – Aegean Sea Intermediate Water extends from 40–50 m to 200–300 metres with temperatures ranging from 11–18 °C. Aegean Sea Bottom Water – occurring at depths below 500–1000 m with a uniform temperature. The current coastline dates back to about 4000 BC, before that time, at the peak of the last ice age sea levels everywhere were 130 metres lower, and there were large well-watered coastal plains instead of much of the northern Aegean. When they were first occupied, the islands including Milos with its important obsidian production were probably still connected to the mainland. The present coastal arrangement appeared c.7000 BC, with post-ice age sea levels continuing to rise for another 3,000 years after that, the subsequent Bronze Age civilizations of Greece and the Aegean Sea have given rise to the general term Aegean civilization. In ancient times, the sea was the birthplace of two ancient civilizations – the Minoans of Crete and the Mycenean Civilization of the Peloponnese, later arose the city-states of Athens and Sparta among many others that constituted the Athenian Empire and Hellenic Civilization. Plato described the Greeks living round the Aegean like frogs around a pond, the Aegean Sea was later invaded by the Persians and the Romans, and inhabited by the Byzantine Empire, the Bulgarians, the Venetians, the Genoese, the Seljuq Turks, and the Ottoman Empire. The Aegean was the site of the democracies, and its seaways were the means of contact among several diverse civilizations of the Eastern Mediterranean. Many of the islands in the Aegean have safe harbours and bays, in ancient times, navigation through the sea was easier than travelling across the rough terrain of the Greek mainland
12.
Chios
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Chios is the fifth largest of the Greek islands, situated in the Aegean Sea,7 kilometres off the Anatolian coast. The island is separated from Turkey by the Çeşme Strait, Chios is notable for its exports of mastic gum and its nickname is the Mastic Island. Tourist attractions include its medieval villages and the 11th-century monastery of Nea Moni, administratively, the island forms a separate municipality within the Chios regional unit, which is part of the North Aegean region. The principal town of the island and seat of the municipality is Chios town, locals refer to Chios town as Chora. Chios island is crescent or kidney shaped,50 kilometres long north to south,29 kilometres at its widest. The terrain is mountainous and arid, with a ridge of mountains running the length of the island, the two largest of these mountains, Pelineon and Epos, are situated in the north of the island. The center of the island is divided between east and west by a range of peaks, known as Provatas. Chios can be divided into five regions, Midway up the east coast lie the main centers, the main town of Chios. Chios Town, with a population of 32,400, is built around the main harbour. The town was damaged by an earthquake in 1881. North of Chios Town lies the suburb of Vrontados, which claims to be the birthplace of Homer. The suburb lies in the Omiroupoli municipality, and its connection to the poet is supported by a site known traditionally as Teachers Rock. The villages, built between the 14th and 16th centuries, have a carefully designed layout with fortified gates and narrow streets to protect against the frequent raids by marauding pirates. Between Chios Town and the Mastichochoria lie a number of historic villages including Armolia, Myrmighi. Along the east coast are the villages of Kataraktis and to the south Nenita. Directly in the centre of the island, between the villages of Avgonyma to the west and Karyes to the east, is the 11th century monastery of Nea Moni, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The monastery was built with funds given by the Byzantine Emperor Constantine IX, the monastery had substantial estates attached, with a thriving community until the massacre of 1822. It was further damaged during the 1881 earthquake, in 1952, due to the shortage of monks, Nea Moni was converted to a convent
13.
Patmos
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Patmos is a small Greek island in the Aegean Sea, most famous for being the location of both the vision of and the writing of the Christian Bibles Book of Revelation. One of the northernmost islands of the Dodecanese complex, it has a population of 2,998, the highest point is Profitis Ilias,269 metres above sea level. It is part of the Kalymnos regional unit, Patmos main communities are Chora, and Skala, the only commercial port. Other settlements are Grikou and Kampos, the churches and communities on Patmos are of the Eastern Orthodox tradition. The mayor of Patmos is Gregory Stoikos, Patmos is mentioned in the Book of Revelation. The books introduction states that its author, John, was on Patmos when he was given a vision from Jesus, Early Christian tradition identified this writer as John the Apostle, though some modern scholars are uncertain, and thus call him the less specific John of Patmos. Because of the Book of Revelation, Patmos has a history as a destination for Christian pilgrimage. Visitors can see the cave where John is said to have received his Revelation, in 1999, the islands historic center Chora, along with the Monastery of Saint John the Theologian and the Cave of the Apocalypse, were declared World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. The monastery was founded by Saint Christodulos, Patmos is also home to the Patmian School, a notable Greek seminary. Patmos is seldom mentioned by ancient writers, therefore, very little can be conjectured about the earliest inhabitants. In the Classical period, the Patmians prefer to identify themselves as Dorians descending from the families of Argos, Sparta and Epidaurus, further mingling with people of Ionian ancestry. During the 3rd century BC, in the Hellenistic period, the settlement of Patmos acquired the form of an acropolis with an improved defence through a fortification wall, Patmos is mentioned in the Christian scriptural Bible Book of Revelation. The books introduction states that its author, John, was on Patmos when he was given a vision from Jesus, Early Christian tradition identified this writer John of Patmos as John the Apostle. As such, Patmos is a destination for Christian pilgrimage, visitors can see the cave where John is said to have received his Revelation, and several monasteries on the island are dedicated to Saint John. After the death of John of Patmos, possibly around 100, among these was a Grand Royal Basilica in honour of Saint John, built c. 300–350 at the location where the Monastery of Saint John the Theologian stands today, Early Christian life on Patmos, however, barely survived Muslim raids from the 7th to the 9th century. During this period, the Grand Basilica was destroyed, in the 11th century, the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos gave Christodoulos the complete authority over the island of Patmos, as well as the permission to build a monastery on the island. The construction of the started in 1101
14.
Dodecanese
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The Dodecanese are a group of 15 larger plus 150 smaller Greek islands in the southeastern Aegean Sea, off the coast of Asia Minor, of which 26 are inhabited. Τhis island group generally defines the limit of the Sea of Crete. They belong to the wider Southern Sporades island group, the most historically important and well-known is Rhodes, which has been the areas dominant island since Antiquity. Of the others, Kos and Patmos are historically the more important, the nine are Agathonisi, Astypalaia, Kalymnos, Karpathos, Kasos, Leipsoi, Leros, Nisyros, Symi, Tilos. Other islands in the chain include Alimia, Arkoi, Chalki, Farmakonisi, Gyali, Kinaros, Levitha, Marathos, Nimos, Pserimos, Saria, Strongyli, Syrna, since Antiquity, these islands formed part of the group known as the Southern Sporades. The name Dōdekanēsos first appears in Byzantine sources in the 8th century, however it was not applied to the current island group, but to the twelve Cyclades islands clustered around Delos. The name may indeed be of far earlier date, and modern historians suggest that a list of 12 islands given by Strabo was the origin of the term. The term remained in use throughout the period and was still used for the Cyclades in both colloquial usage and scholarly Greek-language literature until the 18th century. The transfer of the name to the present-day Dodecanese has its roots in the Ottoman period, the place of the latter two was taken by Kos and Rhodes, bringing the number of the major islands under Italian rule back to twelve. Thus, when the Greek press began agitating for the cession of the islands to Greece in 1913, the islands joined Greece in 1947 as the Governorate-General of the Dodecanese, since 1955 the Dodecanese Prefecture. The Dodecanese have been inhabited since prehistoric times, in the Neopalatial period on Crete, the islands were heavily Minoanized. Following the downfall of the Minoans, the islands were ruled by the Mycenaean Greeks from circa 1400 BC and it is in the Dorian period that they began to prosper as an independent entity, developing a thriving economy and culture through the following centuries. By the early Archaic Period Rhodes and Kos emerged as the islands in the group. Together with the island of Kos and the cities of Knidos and Halicarnassos on the mainland of Asia Minor and this development was interrupted around 499 BC by the Persian Wars, during which the islands were captured by the Persians for a brief period. Following the defeat of the Persians by the Athenians in 478 BC, when the Peloponnesian War broke out in 431 BC, they remained largely neutral although they were still members of the League. By the time the Peloponnesian War ended in 404 BC, the Dodecanese were mostly removed from the larger Aegean conflicts, and had begun a period of relative quiet and prosperity. Other islands in the Dodecanese also developed into significant economic and cultural centers, most notably, however, the Peloponnesian War had so weakened the entire Greek civilizations military strength that it lay open to invasion. In 357 BC, the islands were conquered by the king Mausolus of Caria, following the death of Alexander, the islands, and even Rhodes itself, were split up among the many generals who contended to succeed him
15.
Anatolia
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Anatolia, in geography known as Asia Minor, Asian Turkey, Anatolian peninsula, or Anatolian plateau, is the westernmost protrusion of Asia, which makes up the majority of modern-day Turkey. The region is bounded by the Black Sea to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Sea of Marmara forms a connection between the Black and Aegean Seas through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits and separates Anatolia from Thrace on the European mainland. Traditionally, Anatolia is considered to extend in the east to a line between the Gulf of Alexandretta and the Black Sea to the Armenian Highlands, thus, traditionally Anatolia is the territory that comprises approximately the western two-thirds of the Asian part of Turkey. The Turkification of Anatolia began under the Seljuk Empire in the late 11th century, however, various non-Turkic languages continue to be spoken by minorities in Anatolia today, including Kurdish, Assyrian, Armenian, Arabic, Laz, Georgian, and Greek. Traditionally, Anatolia is considered to extend in the east to a line running from the Gulf of Alexandretta to the Black Sea. This traditional geographical definition is used, for example, in the latest edition of Merriam-Websters Geographical Dictionary, under this definition, Anatolia is bounded to the east by the Armenian Highlands, and the Euphrates before that river bends to the southeast to enter Mesopotamia. To the southeast, it is bounded by the ranges that separate it from the Orontes valley in Syria, the first name the Greeks used for the Anatolian peninsula was Ἀσία, presumably after the name of the Assuwa league in western Anatolia. As the name of Asia came to be extended to areas east of the Mediterranean. The name Anatolia derives from the Greek ἀνατολή meaning “the East” or more literally “sunrise”, the precise reference of this term has varied over time, perhaps originally referring to the Aeolian, Ionian and Dorian colonies on the west coast of Asia Minor. In the Byzantine Empire, the Anatolic Theme was a theme covering the western, the modern Turkish form of Anatolia is Anadolu, which again derives from the Greek name Aνατολή. The Russian male name Anatoly and the French Anatole share the same linguistic origin, in English the name of Turkey for ancient Anatolia first appeared c. It is derived from the Medieval Latin Turchia, which was used by the Europeans to define the Seljuk controlled parts of Anatolia after the Battle of Manzikert. Human habitation in Anatolia dates back to the Paleolithic, neolithic Anatolia has been proposed as the homeland of the Indo-European language family, although linguists tend to favour a later origin in the steppes north of the Black Sea. However, it is clear that the Anatolian languages, the oldest branch of Indo-European, have spoken in Anatolia since at least the 19th century BC. The earliest historical records of Anatolia stem from the southeast of the region and are from the Mesopotamian-based Akkadian Empire during the reign of Sargon of Akkad in the 24th century BC, scholars generally believe the earliest indigenous populations of Anatolia were the Hattians and Hurrians. The region was famous for exporting raw materials, and areas of Hattian-, one of the numerous cuneiform records dated circa 20th century BC, found in Anatolia at the Assyrian colony of Kanesh, uses an advanced system of trading computations and credit lines. They were speakers of an Indo-European language, the Hittite language, originating from Nesa, they conquered Hattusa in the 18th century BC, imposing themselves over Hattian- and Hurrian-speaking populations. According to the most widely accepted Kurgan theory on the Proto-Indo-European homeland, however, the Hittites adopted the cuneiform script, invented in Mesopotamia
16.
Municipalities and communities of Greece
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The municipalities of Greece are the lowest level of government within the organizational structure of that country. Since the 2011 Kallikratis reform, there are 325 municipalities, thirteen regions form the largest unit of government beneath the State. Within these regions are 74 second-level areas called regional units, regional units are then divided into municipalities. The new municipalities can be subdivided into units, which are subdivided into municipal communities or local communities. Leadership of municipalities and communities is elected by universal and secret ballot, municipalities may voluntarily or be mandated by law to work together to provide certain services, but elected representatives from the participating groups govern these partnerships. The national Greek government supervises local government agencies, but is not to interfere in any local initiatives or actions, the State is required to provide funds necessary to fulfill the mandate of local government agencies. Communities are governed by a community made up of 7 to 11 members. A deputy chairperson from a communal quarter may also take part in meetings when specific issues of a communal interest are being discussed. A municipal council and town hall committee led by a mayor governs municipalities, depending on the size of the municipality, municipal councils are made up of anywhere from 11 to 41 council members representing municipal departments. In addition, the council elects 2 to 6 town hall committee members, in the case of mergers, local village or town councils may still exist to provide feedback and ideas to the larger governing body. Council members are elected via public election every four years on the basis of a party system. Three-fifths of all seats go to the party winning a plurality of the vote, the municipal council elects the town hall committee for a term of two years. Citizens have very few opportunities for direct participation in decision-making outside the elections held four years. Beyond national referendums that may be called for issues, citizens cannot request local referendums. The only other possibility for direct input by citizens is if the local municipality establishes district councils or if the community president calls an assembly to discuss issues of concern. The organization of these opportunities, however, is solely at the discretion of the community or municipal leadership. Ordinary revenue is derived from the State budget, property revenues, by law, the State funds first level governments on the basis of a fixed formula, 20% of legal persons’ income tax, 50% of traffic duties and 3% of property transfer duties. For smaller populated communities and municipalities, the State has also allocated additional revenue based on other expenses, local governments are required to direct any property or resource fees to related expenses
17.
Classical antiquity
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It is the period in which Greek and Roman society flourished and wielded great influence throughout Europe, North Africa and Southwestern Asia. Conventionally, it is taken to begin with the earliest-recorded Epic Greek poetry of Homer, and continues through the emergence of Christianity and it ends with the dissolution of classical culture at the close of Late Antiquity, blending into the Early Middle Ages. Such a wide sampling of history and territory covers many disparate cultures, Classical antiquity may refer also to an idealised vision among later people of what was, in Edgar Allan Poes words, the glory that was Greece, and the grandeur that was Rome. The culture of the ancient Greeks, together with influences from the ancient Near East, was the basis of art, philosophy, society. The earliest period of classical antiquity takes place before the background of gradual re-appearance of historical sources following the Bronze Age collapse, the 8th and 7th centuries BC are still largely proto-historical, with the earliest Greek alphabetic inscriptions appearing in the first half of the 8th century. Homer is usually assumed to have lived in the 8th or 7th century BC, in the same period falls the traditional date for the establishment of the Ancient Olympic Games, in 776 BC. The Phoenicians originally expanded from Canaan ports, by the 8th century dominating trade in the Mediterranean, carthage was founded in 814 BC, and the Carthaginians by 700 BC had firmly established strongholds in Sicily, Italy and Sardinia, which created conflicts of interest with Etruria. The Etruscans had established control in the region by the late 7th century BC, forming the aristocratic. According to legend, Rome was founded on April 21,753 BC by twin descendants of the Trojan prince Aeneas, Romulus and Remus. As the city was bereft of women, legend says that the Latins invited the Sabines to a festival and stole their unmarried maidens, leading to the integration of the Latins and the Sabines. Archaeological evidence indeed shows first traces of settlement at the Roman Forum in the mid-8th century BC, the seventh and final king of Rome was Tarquinius Superbus. As the son of Tarquinius Priscus and the son-in-law of Servius Tullius, Superbus was of Etruscan birth and it was during his reign that the Etruscans reached their apex of power. Superbus removed and destroyed all the Sabine shrines and altars from the Tarpeian Rock, the people came to object to his rule when he failed to recognize the rape of Lucretia, a patrician Roman, at the hands of his own son. Lucretias kinsman, Lucius Junius Brutus, summoned the Senate and had Superbus, after Superbus expulsion, the Senate voted to never again allow the rule of a king and reformed Rome into a republican government in 509 BC. In fact the Latin word Rex meaning King became a dirty and hated throughout the Republic. In 510, Spartan troops helped the Athenians overthrow the tyrant Hippias, cleomenes I, king of Sparta, put in place a pro-Spartan oligarchy conducted by Isagoras. Greece entered the 4th century under Spartan hegemony, but by 395 BC the Spartan rulers removed Lysander from office, and Sparta lost her naval supremacy. Athens, Argos, Thebes and Corinth, the two of which were formerly Spartan allies, challenged Spartan dominance in the Corinthian War, which ended inconclusively in 387 BC
18.
City-state
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A city-state is a sovereign state that consists of a city and its dependent territories. A great deal of consensus exists that the term applies to Singapore, Monaco. A number of small states share similar characteristics, and therefore are sometimes also cited as modern city-states. Occasionally, other states with high population densities, such as San Marino, are also cited. Several non-sovereign cities enjoy a degree of autonomy, and are sometimes considered city-states. Hong Kong and Macau, along with independent members of the United Arab Emirates, most notably Dubai, scholars have classed the Viking colonial cities in medieval Ireland, most importantly Dublin, as city-states. In Cyprus, the Phoenician settlement of Kition was a city-state that existed from around 800 BC until the end of the 4th century BC. The success of regional units coexisting as autonomous actors in loose geographical and cultural unity, as in Italy and Greece. However, such small political entities often survived only for short periods because they lacked the resources to defend themselves against incursions by larger states, thus they inevitably gave way to larger organisations of society, including the empire and the nation-state. In the history of Mainland Southeast Asia, aristocratic groups, Buddhist leaders, the system existed until the 19th century when colonization by European powers, and Thailands resulted in the adoption of the modern concept of statehood. In the Holy Roman Empire the Free Imperial Cities enjoyed a considerable autonomy, some, like the three Hanseatic cities of Bremen, Hamburg and Lübeck, pooled their economic relations with foreign powers and were able to wield considerable diplomatic clout. Under Habsburg rule the city of Fiume had the status of a Corpus separatum, a later city-state, though lacking sovereignty, was West Berlin, being a state legally not belonging to any other state, but ruled by the Western Allies. They allowed – notwithstanding their overlordship as occupant powers – its internal organisation as one state simultaneously being a city, though West Berlin maintained close ties to the West German Federal Republic of Germany, it was legally never part of it. But the idea of leaving the United States proved too radical even in the turmoil of 1861 and was poorly received, the war, and especially conscription, was nevertheless often unpopular in the city, sparking the deadly New York Draft Riots. The neighboring City of Brooklyn, in contrast, was staunchly Unionist, the Free City of Danzig was a semi-autonomous city-state that existed between 1920 and 1939, consisting of the Baltic Sea port of Danzig and nearly 200 towns in the surrounding areas. It was created on 15 November 1920 under the terms of Article 100 of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles after the end of World War I. Its territory of 28 km2 comprised the city of Fiume and rural areas to its north, with a corridor to its west connecting it to Italy, the Shanghai International Settlement was an international zone with its own legal system, postal service, and currency. The Klaipėda Region or Memel Territory was defined by the Treaty of Versailles in 1920 when it was put under the administration of the Council of Ambassadors
19.
Vineyard
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A vineyard /ˈvɪnjərd/ is a plantation of grape-bearing vines, grown mainly for winemaking, but also raisins, table grapes and non-alcoholic grape juice. The science, practice and study of production is known as viticulture. The earliest evidence of production dates from between 6000 and 5000 BC. Wine making technology improved considerably with the ancient Greeks but it wasnt until the end of the Roman Empire that cultivation techniques as we know them were common throughout Europe. In medieval Europe the Church was a supporter of wine. They owned and tended the best vineyards in Europe and vinum theologium was considered superior to all others, European vineyards were planted with a wide variety of the Vitis vinifera grape. However, in the late 19th century, the species was nearly destroyed by the plant louse phylloxera accidentally introduced to Europe from North America. Native American grapevines include varieties such as Vitis labrusca, which is resistant to the bug, the quest for vineyard efficiency has produced a bewildering range of systems and techniques in recent years. Due to the much more fertile New World growing conditions. Innovation in palissage and pruning and thinning methods have replaced more general, traditional concepts like yield per unit area in favor of maximizing yield of desired quality. Many of these new techniques have since adopted in place of traditional practice in the more progressive of the so-called Old World vineyards. Other recent practices include spraying water on vines to protect them from sub-zero temperatures, new grafting techniques, soil slotting, such techniques have made possible the development of wine industries in New World countries such as Canada. Today there is increasing interest in developing organic, ecologically sensitive, biodynamics has become increasingly popular in viticulture. The use of irrigation in recent years has expanded vineyards into areas which were previously unplantable. The research includes developing improved grape varieties and investigating pest control, the International Grape Genome Program is a multi-national effort to discover a genetic means to improving quality, increasing yield and providing a natural resistance to pests. The implementation of mechanical harvesting is often stimulated by changes in laws, labor shortages. It can be expensive to hire labor for periods of time. Numbers of New World vineyard plantings have been increasing almost as fast as European vineyards are being uprooted, the size of individual vineyards in the New World is significant
20.
Wine
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Wine is an alcoholic beverage made from fermented grapes. These grapes are generally Vitis vinifera, or a hybrid with Vitis labrusca or Vitis rupestris, grapes are fermented without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, water, or other nutrients. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol, different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts produce different styles of wine. These variations result from the interactions between the biochemical development of the grape, the reactions involved in fermentation, the terroir. Many countries enact legal appellations intended to define styles and qualities of wine and these typically restrict the geographical origin and permitted varieties of grapes, as well as other aspects of wine production. There are also made from fermenting other fruits or cereals. Wines made from other than grapes include rice wine and various fruit wines such as those made from plums or cherries. Some well known examples are hard cider from apples, perry from pears, pomegranate wine, Wine has been produced for thousands of years. The earliest known traces of wine from Georgia in Eurasia where 8000-year-old wine jars were found and in Iran with 7, the earliest known winery is the 6, 100-year-old Areni-1 winery Armenia. Wine reached the Balkans by 4500 BC and was consumed and celebrated in ancient Greece, Thrace, throughout history, wine has been consumed for its intoxicating effects, which are evident after the normal serving size of five ounces. Wine has long played an important role in religion, the earliest chemically attested grape wine was discovered at Hajji Firuz in the northwestern Zagros Mountains dating back to 5400 BC. The earliest evidence of a fermented drink was found in Georgia, where wine residue inside ceramic jars dates from 6000 BC. The earliest evidence of a production facility is the Areni-1 winery in Armenia and is at least 6100 years old, presumably. A2003 report by archaeologists indicates a possibility that grapes were mixed with rice to produce mixed fermented beverages in China in the years of the seventh millennium BC. Pottery jars from the Neolithic site of Jiahu, Henan, contained traces of tartaric acid, however, other fruits indigenous to the region, such as hawthorn, cannot be ruled out. The spread of wine culture westwards was most probably due to the Phoenicians who spread outward from a base of city-states along the Lebanese, Syrian, the wines of Byblos were exported to Egypt during the Old Kingdom and then throughout the Mediterranean. Evidence includes two Phoenician shipwrecks from 750 BC discovered by Robert Ballard, whose cargo of wine was still intact. As the first great traders in wine, the Phoenicians seem to have protected it from oxidation with a layer of oil, followed by a seal of pinewood and resin
21.
Heraion of Samos
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The Heraion of Samos was a large sanctuary to the goddess Hera, in the southern region of Samos, Greece,6 km southwest of the ancient city, in a low, marshy river basin near the sea. The Late Archaic Heraion of Samos was the first of the gigantic free-standing Ionic temples, the site of temples ruins, with its sole standing column, was designated a joint UNESCO World Heritage Site, along with the nearby Pythagoreion in 1992. The core myth at the heart of the cult of Hera at Samos is that of her birth, according to the local tradition, the goddess was born under a lygos tree. At the annual Samian festival called the Toneia, the binding, the tree still featured on the coinage of Samos in Roman times. Many construction phases are known, identified in part through fragments of roof tiles, the first temple, the Hekatompedos, was roughly 100 feet long and narrow, it consisted of three walls and an interior central line of columns to support a roof structure. A much larger temple was built by the architects Rhoikos and Theodoros ca, the temple stood opposite the cult altar of Hera in her walled and gated temenos. It was a temple, that is with a portico of columns two deep, which surrounded it entirely. It had a deep square-roofed pronaos in front of a closed cella, cella and pronaos were divided into three equal aisles by two rows of columns that marched down the pronaos and through the temple. The result was that Hera was worshipped in a temple fitted within a grove of columns, eight across. The columns stood on unusual torus bases that were horizontally fluted, the Rhoikos temple must have had central significance for the development of monumental Ionic architecture, Helmut Kyrieleis observes. Unfortunately it stood for only about a decade before it was destroyed, after the destruction of the Rhoikos temple, an even larger one was built approximately 40 m to the west. This temple had the largest known floor plan of any Greek temple and is known as the Polycrates Temple, one of the giant statues from the Heraion survives in the Samos Archaeological Museum. Construction continued into the Roman period, but this Heraion was never wholly finished, instead, the cult image was housed in Roman imperial times in a smaller structure to the east, which remained in use until the Theodosian edicts of 391 forbade pagan observance. A Christian church occupied the Roman site, employing stone taken from the Roman Heraeum, the Heraion served as a quarry through Byzantine times, so that it was eventually dismantled to the very foundations. Little information has survived in literary sources, pausanias missed Samos in his Periegesis of Greece. Scattered mentions by Herodotus do not provide a satisfactory substitute, with the exception of the open-air altar and the great temple no other feature of the temenos is mentioned in a classical source. The first Westerner to visit the site was Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, commissioned by Louis XIV to travel in the East, Tournefort visited Samos in 1704, and published his drawings of the ruins as engravings. Massive siltation deposits obscured, yet protected the site from amateur tinkering in the 18th and 19th centuries, thus the first preliminary archaeological excavations were delayed until 1890-92, under the direction of P. Kavvadias and Th
22.
Tunnel of Eupalinos
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The Tunnel of Eupalinos or Eupalinian aqueduct is a tunnel of 1,036 m length in Samos, Greece, built in the 6th century BC to serve as an aqueduct. The tunnel is the second tunnel in history which was excavated from both ends, and the first with a geometry-based approach in doing so. Today it is a popular tourist attraction, in the sixth century BC, Samos was ruled by the famous tyrant Polycrates. This was of utmost defensive importance, as the aqueduct ran underground it was not easily found by an enemy who could otherwise cut off the water supply, the Eupalinian aqueduct was used for a thousand years, as proved from archaeological findings. It was rediscovered in 1882-1884 and today is open to visitors, the tunnel took water from an inland spring, which was roofed over and thus concealed from enemies. A buried channel, with periodic inspection shafts, winds along the hillside to the tunnel mouth. A similar hidden channel, buried just below the surface of the ground, in the mountain itself, the water used to flow in pipes in a separate channel several metres below the human access channel, connected to it by shafts or by a trench. The southern half, by contrast, benefits from being dug through a rock stratum. The two headings meet at a dogs-leg, a technique which was used to avoid the two tunnels missing each other, as explained in the paragraph Surveying techniques. The method Eupalinos employed to make the two meet in the middle of the mountain, is documented by Hermann J. Kienast. In planning the digging, Eupalinos used what are now well-known principles of geometry, with a length of 1,036 metres, the Eupalinian subterranean aqueduct is famous today as one of the masterpieces of ancient engineering. Eupalinos was aware that error in measurement and staking could make him miss the point of the two teams, either horizontally or vertically. He therefore employed the techniques, Since two parallel lines never meet, Eupalinos recognized that an error of more than two metres horizontally, would make him miss the meeting point. However, Eupalinos could not take a chance and he increased the possibility of the two tunnels meeting each other, by increasing the height of both tunnels. His precautions in the vertical sense proved unnecessary, since measurements show that there was very little error, however recent research has shown that Eupalinos used three straight lines for his navigation. He connected a “south line” to the line at the south side going straight into the mountain around which Eupalinos undulated the south tunnel. At the north side a “north line” is connected to the mountain line and this line guided the cut into the mountain from the north side. After 273 meters Eupalinos directed the tunnel to the west obviously because of a combination of water, weak rock, when leaving the north line Eupalinos used for navigating an equal legged triangle with angles 22.5,45 and 22.5 degrees in theory
23.
Greek philosophy
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Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BC and continued throughout the Hellenistic period and the period in which Ancient Greece was part of the Roman Empire. Philosophy was used to sense out of the world in a non-religious way. It dealt with a variety of subjects, including political philosophy, ethics, metaphysics, ontology, logic, biology, rhetoric. Many philosophers around the world agree that Greek philosophy has influenced much of Western culture since its inception, alfred North Whitehead once noted, The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. Clear, unbroken lines of lead from ancient Greek and Hellenistic philosophers to Early Islamic philosophy, the European Renaissance. Some claim that Greek philosophy, in turn, was influenced by the wisdom literature. But they taught themselves to reason, Philosophy as we understand it is a Greek creation. Subsequent philosophic tradition was so influenced by Socrates as presented by Plato that it is conventional to refer to philosophy developed prior to Socrates as pre-Socratic philosophy. The periods following this, up to and after the wars of Alexander the Great, are those of classical Greek, the pre-Socratics were primarily concerned with cosmology, ontology and mathematics. They were distinguished from non-philosophers insofar as they rejected mythological explanations in favor of reasoned discourse, Thales of Miletus, regarded by Aristotle as the first philosopher, held that all things arise from water. It is not because he gave a cosmogony that John Burnet calls him the first man of science, according to tradition, Thales was able to predict an eclipse and taught the Egyptians how to measure the height of the pyramids. He began from the observation that the world seems to consist of opposites, therefore, they cannot truly be opposites but rather must both be manifestations of some underlying unity that is neither. This underlying unity could not be any of the classical elements, for example, water is wet, the opposite of dry, while fire is dry, the opposite of wet. Anaximenes in turn held that the arche was air, although John Burnet argues that by this he meant that it was a transparent mist, the aether. Xenophanes was born in Ionia, where the Milesian school was at its most powerful, Burnet says that Xenophanes was not, however, a scientific man, with many of his naturalistic explanations having no further support than that they render the Homeric gods superfluous or foolish. He has been claimed as an influence on Eleatic philosophy, although that is disputed, and a precursor to Epicurus, a representative of a total break between science and religion. Pythagoras lived at roughly the time that Xenophanes did and, in contrast to the latter. Parmenides of Elea cast his philosophy against those who held it is and is not the same, and all travel in opposite directions, —presumably referring to Heraclitus
24.
Pythagoras
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Pythagoras of Samos was an Ionian Greek philosopher, mathematician, and the putative founder of the movement called Pythagoreanism. Most of the information about Pythagoras was written centuries after he lived. He was born on the island of Samos, and travelled, visiting Egypt and Greece, around 530 BC, he moved to Croton, in Magna Graecia, and there established some kind of school or guild. In 520 BC, he returned to Samos, Pythagoras made influential contributions to philosophy and religion in the late 6th century BC. He is often revered as a mathematician and scientist and is best known for the Pythagorean theorem which bears his name. Many of the accomplishments credited to Pythagoras may actually have been accomplishments of his colleagues, some accounts mention that the philosophy associated with Pythagoras was related to mathematics and that numbers were important. It was said that he was the first man to himself a philosopher, or lover of wisdom, and Pythagorean ideas exercised a marked influence on Plato. Burkert states that Aristoxenus and Dicaearchus are the most important accounts, Aristotle had written a separate work On the Pythagoreans, which is no longer extant. However, the Protrepticus possibly contains parts of On the Pythagoreans and his disciples Dicaearchus, Aristoxenus, and Heraclides Ponticus had written on the same subject. These writers, late as they are, were among the best sources from whom Porphyry and Iamblichus drew, while adding some legendary accounts. Herodotus, Isocrates, and other writers agree that Pythagoras was the son of Mnesarchus and born on the Greek island of Samos. His father is said to have been a gem-engraver or a wealthy merchant, a late source gives his mothers name as Pythais. As to the date of his birth, Aristoxenus stated that Pythagoras left Samos in the reign of Polycrates, at the age of 40, around 530 BC he arrived in the Greek colony of Croton in what was then Magna Graecia. There he founded his own school the members of which he engaged to a disciplined. He furthermore aquired some political influence, on Greeks and non-Greeks of the region, following a conflict with the neighbouring colony of Sybaris, internal discord drove most of the Pythagoreans out of Croton. Pythagoras left the city before the outbreak of civil unrest and moved to Metapontum, after his death, his house was transformed into a sanctuary of Demeter, out of veneration for the philosopher, by the local population. In ancient sources there was disagreement and inconsistency about the late life of Pythagoras. His tomb was shown at Metapontum in the time of Cicero, according to Walter Burkert, Most obvious is the contradiction between Aristoxenus and Dicaearchus, regarding the catastrophe that overwhelmed the Pythagorean society
25.
Pythagorean theorem
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In mathematics, the Pythagorean theorem, also known as Pythagorass theorem, is a fundamental relation in Euclidean geometry among the three sides of a right triangle. It states that the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the two sides. There is some evidence that Babylonian mathematicians understood the formula, although little of it indicates an application within a mathematical framework, Mesopotamian, Indian and Chinese mathematicians all discovered the theorem independently and, in some cases, provided proofs for special cases. The theorem has been given numerous proofs – possibly the most for any mathematical theorem and they are very diverse, including both geometric proofs and algebraic proofs, with some dating back thousands of years. The Pythagorean theorem was known long before Pythagoras, but he may well have been the first to prove it, in any event, the proof attributed to him is very simple, and is called a proof by rearrangement. The two large squares shown in the figure each contain four triangles, and the only difference between the two large squares is that the triangles are arranged differently. Therefore, the space within each of the two large squares must have equal area. Equating the area of the white space yields the Pythagorean theorem and that Pythagoras originated this very simple proof is sometimes inferred from the writings of the later Greek philosopher and mathematician Proclus. Several other proofs of this theorem are described below, but this is known as the Pythagorean one, If the length of both a and b are known, then c can be calculated as c = a 2 + b 2. If the length of the c and of one side are known. The Pythagorean equation relates the sides of a triangle in a simple way. Another corollary of the theorem is that in any triangle, the hypotenuse is greater than any one of the other sides. A generalization of this theorem is the law of cosines, which allows the computation of the length of any side of any triangle, If the angle between the other sides is a right angle, the law of cosines reduces to the Pythagorean equation. This theorem may have more known proofs than any other, the book The Pythagorean Proposition contains 370 proofs, Let ABC represent a right triangle, with the right angle located at C, as shown on the figure. Draw the altitude from point C, and call H its intersection with the side AB, point H divides the length of the hypotenuse c into parts d and e. By a similar reasoning, the triangle CBH is also similar to ABC, the proof of similarity of the triangles requires the triangle postulate, the sum of the angles in a triangle is two right angles, and is equivalent to the parallel postulate. Similarity of the leads to the equality of ratios of corresponding sides. The first result equates the cosines of the angles θ, whereas the second result equates their sines, the role of this proof in history is the subject of much speculation
26.
Epicurus
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Epicurus was an ancient Greek philosopher who founded the school of philosophy called Epicureanism. Only a few fragments and letters of Epicuruss 300 written works remain, much of what is known about Epicurean philosophy derives from later followers and commentators. As a boy, he studied philosophy for four years under the Platonist teacher Pamphilus, at the age of eighteen, he went to Athens for his two-year term of military service. The playwright Menander served in the same age-class of the ephebes as Epicurus, after the death of Alexander the Great, Perdiccas expelled the Athenian settlers on Samos to Colophon, on the coast of what is now Turkey. After the completion of his service, Epicurus joined his family there. He studied under Nausiphanes, who followed the teachings of Democritus, in 311/310 BC Epicurus taught in Mytilene but caused strife and was forced to leave. He then founded a school in Lampsacus before returning to Athens in 306 BC where he remained until his death, even though many of his teachings were heavily influenced by earlier thinkers, especially by Democritus, he differed in a significant way with Democritus on determinism. Epicurus would often deny this influence, denounce other philosophers as confused, Epicurus never married and had no known children. He was most likely a vegetarian, for I have been attacked by a painful inability to urinate, and also dysentery, so violent that nothing can be added to the violence of my sufferings. But the cheerfulness of my mind, which comes from the recollection of all my philosophical contemplation, and I beg you to take care of the children of Metrodorus, in a manner worthy of the devotion shown by the young man to me, and to philosophy. Epicurus school, which was based in the garden of his house and thus called The Garden, had a small and his school was the first of the ancient Greek philosophical schools to admit women as a rule rather than an exception. An inscription on the gate to The Garden is recorded by Seneca in epistle XXI of Epistulae morales ad Lucilium, Stranger, here you will do well to tarry, here our highest good is pleasure. Epicurus emphasised friendship as an important ingredient of happiness, and the school resembled in many ways a community of living together. However, he instituted a hierarchical system of levels among his followers. He was a key figure in the Axial Age, the period from 800 BC to 200 BC, during which, according to Karl Jaspers, similar thinking appeared in China, India, Iran, the Near East, and Ancient Greece. Epicuruss teachings represented a departure from the other major Greek thinkers of his period, and before, like Democritus, he was an atomist, believing that the fundamental constituents of the world were indivisible little bits of matter flying through empty space. Everything that occurs is the result of the atoms colliding, rebounding and his theory differs from the earlier atomism of Democritus because he admits that atoms do not always follow straight lines but their direction of motion may occasionally exhibit a swerve. This allowed him to avoid the implicit in the earlier atomism
27.
Aristarchus of Samos
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Aristarchus of Samos was an ancient Greek astronomer and mathematician who presented the first known model that placed the Sun at the center of the known universe with the Earth revolving around it. He was influenced by Philolaus of Croton, but he identified the central fire with the Sun, like Anaxagoras before him, he suspected that the stars were just other bodies like the Sun, albeit further away from Earth. His astronomical ideas were rejected in favor of the geocentric theories of Aristotle and Ptolemy. Nicolaus Copernicus had attributed the theory to Aristarchus. This is the account as you have heard from astronomers. Since stellar parallax is only detectable with telescopes, his accurate speculation was unprovable at the time and it is a common misconception that the heliocentric view was held as sacrilegious by the contemporaries of Aristarchus. This is due to Gilles Ménages translation of a passage from Plutarchs On the Apparent Face in the Orb of the Moon. Plutarch reported that Cleanthes as a worshipper of the Sun and opponent to the model, was jokingly told by Aristarchus that he should be charged with impiety. Gilles Ménage, shortly after the trials of Galileo and Giordano Bruno, amended an accusative with a nominative, the resulting misconception of an isolated and persecuted Aristarchus is still transmitted today. In his Naturalis Historia, Pliny the Elder later wondered whether errors in the predictions about the heavens could be attributed to a displacement of the Earth from its central position. Pliny and Seneca referred to planets retrograde motion as an apparent phenomenon, still, no stellar parallax was observed, and Plato, Aristotle and Ptolemy preferred the geocentric model, which was held as true throughout the Middle Ages. The heliocentric theory was revived by Copernicus, after which Johannes Kepler described planetary motions with greater accuracy with his three laws, isaac Newton later gave a theoretical explanation based on laws of gravitational attraction and dynamics. The only surviving work attributed to Aristarchus, On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun. The discrepancy may come from a misinterpretation of what unit of measure was meant by a certain Greek term in Aristarchus text, Aristarchus claimed that at half moon, the angle between the Sun and Moon was 87°. He might have proposed 87° as a bound, since gauging the lunar terminators deviation from linearity to 1° accuracy is beyond the unaided human ocular limit. Aristarchus is known to have also studied light and vision, using correct geometry, but the insufficiently accurate 87° datum, Aristarchus concluded that the Sun was between 18 and 20 times farther away than the Moon. The implicit false solar parallax of slightly under 3° was used by astronomers up to and including Tycho Brahe, Aristarchus inequality Belief Perseverance Heath, Sir Thomas. Gomez, A. G. Aristarchos of Samos, the Polymath, online Galleries, History of Science Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries High resolution images of works by Aristarchus of Samos in. jpg and. tiff format
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Heliocentrism
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Heliocentrism is the astronomical model in which the Earth and planets revolve around the Sun at the center of the Solar System. Historically, Heliocentrism was opposed to geocentrism, which placed the Earth at the center, in the following century, Johannes Kepler elaborated upon and expanded this model to include elliptical orbits, and Galileo Galilei presented supporting observations made using a telescope. With the observations of William Herschel, Friedrich Bessel, and others, astronomers realized that the sun, the Ptolemaic system was a sophisticated astronomical system that managed to calculate the positions for the planets to a fair degree of accuracy. However, he rejected the idea of a spinning earth as absurd as he believed it would create huge winds and his planetary hypotheses were sufficiently real that the distances of moon, sun, planets and stars could be determined by treating orbits celestial spheres as contiguous realities. This system postulated the existence of a counter-earth collinear with the Earth and central fire, the Sun revolved around the central fire once a year, and the stars were stationary. The Earth maintained the same face towards the central fire. Kepler gave an explanation of the Pythagoreans central fire as the Sun. Heraclides of Pontus said that the rotation of the Earth explained the apparent daily motion of the celestial sphere and it used to be thought that he believed Mercury and Venus to revolve around the Sun, which in turn revolves around the Earth. Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius later described this as the Egyptian System, stating that it did not escape the skill of the Egyptians, the first person known to have proposed a heliocentric system, however, was Aristarchus of Samos. Like Eratosthenes, Aristarchus calculated the size of the Earth, and measured the size and distance of the Moon and Sun, from his estimates, he concluded that the Sun was six to seven times wider than the Earth and thus hundreds of times more voluminous. His writings on the system are lost, but some information is known from surviving descriptions and critical commentary by his contemporaries. This is the account as you have heard from astronomers. The stars are in fact much farther away than the distance that was assumed in ancient times. Archimedes says that Aristarchus made the stars distance larger, suggesting that he was answering the natural objection that Heliocentrism requires stellar parallactic oscillations and he apparently agreed to the point but placed the stars so distant as to make the parallactic motion invisibly minuscule. Thus Heliocentrism opened the way for realization that the universe was larger than the geocentrists taught, according to one of Plutarchs characters in the dialogue, the philosopher Cleanthes had held that Aristarchus should be charged with impiety for moving the hearth of the world. Since Plutarch mentions the followers of Aristarchus in passing, it is likely there were other astronomers in the Classical period who also espoused Heliocentrism. Seleucus adopted the system of Aristarchus and is said to have proved the heliocentric theory. He may have used trigonometric methods that were available in his time
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Principality of Samos
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Instead, in 1834 the island was granted self-government as a semi-independent state, the Principality of Samos. Tributary to the Ottoman Empire, paying the sum of £2700, it was governed by a Christian of Greek descent though nominated by the Porte. The prince was assisted in his function as chief executive by a 4-member senate and these were chosen by him out of eight candidates nominated by the four districts of the island, Vathy, Chora, Marathokampos, and Karlovasi. The actual legislative power belonged to a chamber of 36 deputies, the seat of the government was the port of Vathy. The unification took place officially on 2 March 1913, during the Greek War of Independence Samos bore a conspicuous part, forming its own autonomous administration under the leadership of Lykourgos Logothetis. This formed the acropolis of the ancient city, which in its flourishing times covered the slopes of Mount Ampelus down to the shore, the aqueduct cut through the hill by Polycrates may still be seen. From this city a road led direct to the far famed temple of Hera, which was situated close to the shore, where its site is marked by a single column. Here a new town has grown up, well built and paved, Samos was celebrated in ancient times as the birthplace of Pythagoras. His name and figure are found on coins of the city of imperial date, rhoecus was also the architect of the temple of Hera. The vases of Samos are among the most characteristic products of Ionian pottery in the 6th century, the name Samian ware, often given to a kind of red pottery found wherever there are Roman settlements, has no scientific value. It is derived from a passage in Pliny, Another famous Samian sculptor was Pythagoras, the authors of the Samos article in the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition thought the prosperity of the island in 1911 bore witness to the wisdom of the semi-independent arrangement. Its principal article of export is its wine, which was celebrated in ancient times and it exports also silk, oil, raisins and other dried fruits. The population in 1900 was about 54,830, not including the 15,000 Samians living nearby on the mainland, the predominant religion was Greek Orthodoxy. The metropolitan district included Samos and Ikaria, in 1900 there were 634 foreigners on the island. Pro-Greek agitation and the reaction of the faction led to increased tensions. The ensuing riots left several dead, the unification took place officially on 2 March 1913. Sofoulis remained for a while as the president of the government of Samos until April 1914. Attribution This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Bunbury, Edward Herbert, Caspari, Maximilian Otto Bismarck, Gardner
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Ottoman Empire
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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 later 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, society, 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, Assyrians 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 also 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, Turks, 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, Orhan, 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
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Strabo
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Strabo was a Greek geographer, philosopher, and historian who lived in Asia Minor during the transitional period of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus, Strabos life was characterized by extensive travels. He journeyed to Egypt and Kush, as far west as coastal Tuscany and as far south as Ethiopia in addition to his travels in Asia Minor and the time he spent in Rome. Travel throughout the Mediterranean and Near East, especially for scholarly purposes, was popular during this era and was facilitated by the relative peace enjoyed throughout the reign of Augustus. He moved to Rome in 44 BC, and stayed there, studying and writing, in 29 BC, on his way to Corinth, he visited the island of Gyaros in the Aegean Sea. Around 25 BC, he sailed up the Nile until reaching Philae and it is not known precisely when Strabos Geography was written, though comments within the work itself place the finished version within the reign of Emperor Tiberius. Some place its first drafts around 7 BC, others around 17 or 18 AD, the latest passage to which a date can be assigned is his reference to the death in AD23 of Juba II, king of Maurousia, who is said to have died just recently. He probably worked on the Geography for many years and revised it steadily, on the presumption that recently means within a year, Strabo stopped writing that year or the next, when he died. The first of Strabos major works, Historical Sketches, written while he was in Rome, is completely lost. Strabo studied under several prominent teachers of various specialties throughout his life at different stops along his Mediterranean travels. His first chapter of education took place in Nysa under the master of rhetoric Aristodemus, Strabo was an admirer of Homers poetry, perhaps a consequence of his time spent in Nysa with Aristodemus. At around the age of 21, Strabo moved to Rome, where he studied philosophy with the Peripatetic Xenarchus, despite Xenarchuss Aristotelian leanings, Strabo later gives evidence to have formed his own Stoic inclinations. In Rome, he learned grammar under the rich and famous scholar Tyrannion of Amisus. Although Tyrannion was also a Peripatetic, he was more relevantly a respected authority on geography, the final noteworthy mentor to Strabo was Athenodorus Cananites, a philosopher who had spent his life since 44 BC in Rome forging relationships with the Roman elite. Athenodorus endowed to Strabo three important items, his philosophy, his knowledge, and his contacts, moreover, from his own first-hand experience, Athenodorus provided Strabo with information about regions of the empire which he would not otherwise have known. Strabo is most notable for his work Geographica, which presented a history of people. Although the Geographica was rarely utilized in its antiquity, a multitude of copies survived throughout the Byzantine Empire. It first appeared in Western Europe in Rome as a Latin translation issued around 1469, the first Greek edition was published in 1516 in Venice
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Phoenician language
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Phoenician was a language originally spoken in the coastal region then called Canaan in Phoenician, Arabic, Greek, and Aramaic, Phoenicia in Greek and Latin, and Pūt in the Egyptian language. It is a part of the Canaanite subgroup of the Northwest Semitic languages, other members of the family are Hebrew, Ammonite, Moabite and Edomite. The area where Phoenician was spoken includes modern-day Lebanon, coastal Syria, coastal northern Israel, parts of Cyprus and, at least as a prestige language, some adjacent areas of Anatolia. Phoenician, together with Punic, is known from approximately 10,000 surviving inscriptions. In addition to their inscriptions, the Phoenicians are believed to have left numerous other types of written sources. In their cities by the sea, the air and soil were damp, thus disappeared the literature of the people who taught a large portion of the earth’s population to write. The only written documents of Phoenicians and Carthaginians are monumental inscriptions on stone, a few letters or notes on pieces of broken pottery. Thus, no Tyrian primary sources dating from Hiram I’s time are available, roman authors, such as Sallust, allude to some books written in the Punic language, but none have survived except occasionally in translation or in snippets. Even as late as 1837 only 70 Phoenician inscriptions were known to scholars and these were compiled in Wilhelm Geseniuss Scripturae linguaeque Phoeniciae monumenta, which comprised all that was known of Phoenician by scholars at that time. Basically, its core consists of the edition, or re-edition of 70 Phoenician. However, just to note the advances made in the century, it is noteworthy that Gesenius’ precursor Hamaker. On the other hand only 30 years later the amount of Phoenician inscribed monuments had grown so enormously that Schröder in his compendium Die phönizische Sprache. Entwurf einer Grammatik nebst Sprach- und Schriftproben of 1869 could state that Gesenius knew only a quarter of the material Schröder had at hand himself, the Phoenicians were the first state-level society to make extensive use of the Semitic alphabet. The Phoenician alphabet is the oldest verified consonantal alphabet, or abjad and it has become conventional to refer to the script as Proto-Canaanite until the mid-11th century BCE, when it is first attested on inscribed bronze arrowheads, and as Phoenician only after 1050 BCE. The Phoenician phonetic alphabet is believed to be at least the partial ancestor of almost all modern alphabets. From a traditional perspective, Phoenician was a variety of the Canaanite languages. Through their maritime trade, the Phoenicians spread the use of the alphabet to North Africa and Europe, later, the Etruscans adopted a modified version for their own use, which, in turn, was modified and adopted by the Romans and became the Latin alphabet. Carthaginian colonisation spread Phoenician to the western Mediterranean, where the distinct Punic language developed, Punic also died out, although it seems to have survived slightly longer than the original Phoenician, perhaps into the fifth century CE
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Muscat (grape)
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Their colors ranges from white, to yellow, to pink to near black. Muscat grapes and wines almost always have a sweet floral aroma. It is also used in the production of many of the French fortified wines known as vin doux naturels, in Australia, this is also the main grape used in the production of Liqueur Muscat, from the Victorian wine region of Rutherglen. Young, unaged and unfortified examples of Muscat blanc tend to exhibit the characteristic Muscat grapey aroma as well as citrus, rose, fortified and aged examples tend to be very dark in color due to oxidation with aroma notes of coffee, fruit cake, raisins and toffee. Elsewhere it is used to make off-dry to sweet wines, often labeled as Moscato in Australia, California. In Alsace and parts of Central Europe, Muscat Ottonel is used to produce usually dry, Anglicus Latin work was translated into French in 1372 with the wine being described by Anglicus as vin extrait de raisins muscats. Because the exact origins of the Muscat family cannot be pinpointed, the most commonly cited belief is the name is derived from the Persian word muchk. Similar etymology follows the Greek moskos, Latin muscus and French musc, in Italy, the Italian word mosca for fly could also be one possibility with the sweet aroma and high sugar levels of Muscat grapes being a common attractant for insects such as fruit flies. Other theories suggest that the family originated in the Arabian country of Oman and was named after the city of Muscat located on the coast of the Gulf of Oman. Of the more than 200 grape varieties sharing Muscat in their name, the exception are the members of the Muscat blanc à Petits Grains and Muscat of Alexandria families. Rarely seen outside of Greece, Axina de Tres Bias is also grown in Malta and these include the Italian wine grapes Aleatico, Moscato Giallo, Moscato rosa del Trentino and Moscato di Scanzo. DNA analysis was able to identify the Tuscan wine grape Mammolo as the parent variety that crossed with Muscat blanc à Petits Grains to produce Muscat rouge de Madère. More than 40 different monoterpenes have been discovered in Muscat grapes and these include the German wine grape Morio Muskat which, despite its name, is not related to the Muscat family and is, instead, a crossing of Silvaner x Pinot blanc. Additionally, the Bordeaux wine grape Muscadelle that is used for sweet and dry wines is often mistaken for a Muscat variety due to its aromatic qualities. While made from a more aromatically neutral grape, Melon de Bourgogne grape, lastly, the Muscat grape can be confused in name only with Vitis rotundifolia, which is commonly known as a muscadine grape. The Muscat family is highly populous, with more than 200 distinct members, however, among these many different grapes only a handful of Muscat varieties are widely used in wine production. These include Muscat blanc à Petits Grains, Muscat of Alexandria, Muscat of Scanzorosciate, Muscat of Hamburg, in some vineyards, vines of Muscat blanc à Petits Grains are known to produce clusters of berries of different colors that change every vintage. The precise origins of Muscat blanc à Petits Grains are not known, though Greece, nearly all the most notable sweet Muscats of Greece, particularly those from the island of Samos and the city of Patras on the Peloponnese are made from Muscat blanc à Petits Grains
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Karlovasi
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Karlovasi is a town and a former municipality on the island of Samos, North Aegean, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Samos and it is located on the northwest side of the island. According to the 2011 census, the population of the unit was 9,855 inhabitants. Its land area is 100.330 km², the municipal unit shares the island of Samos with the municipal units of Vathy, Pythagoreio, and Marathokampos. Karlovasi is a town with a cultural and industrial history, being a flourishing tannery. Many magnificent neoclassical mansions can be seen from that period as well as the remains of the large factories at the Ormos seaside. The towns economy shifted to trade after World War II and the collapse of the leather market, the connection of the Karlovasi Port with Seferihisars Sığacık, in Turkey, brings a large number of travelers in the island. Lykourgos Logothetis, the leader during the Greek War of Independence was born here in 1772. The main touristic sights are the Tannery Museum, the Folklore Museum, the 11th century church of Metamorfosis, the waterfalls of Potami and the nearby beaches of Mikro and Megalo Seitani are among the islands most popular attractions. Official Website School of Sciences My Samos directory - History e-samos webpage - History & Culture
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Pythagoreio
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Pythagoreio is a small town and former municipality on the island of Samos, North Aegean, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform, it is part of the municipality Samos and it is the largest municipal unit in land area on Samos, at 164.662 km2. It shares the island with the units of Vathy, Karlovasi. The archaeological remains in the town, known collectively as Pythagoreion, has designated a joint UNESCO World Heritage Site with nearby Heraion, the seat of the municipality was the town of Pythagorio, formerly known as Tigani. The town was renamed in 1955 to honour the locally born mathematician, the port of the town is considered to be the oldest man-made port of the Mediterranean Sea. Pythagorio is built on the ancient city of Samos, some ruins of the ancient city are today incorporated in modern houses of Pythagorio. The ancient city reached affluence around 530 B. C. under Polycrates tyrant, at that time Samos became a powerful nautical state. This power led to richness and prosperity, which is evident from great works of the period, such as the aqueduct, temple of Heraion. Today many of these works can be seen in the modern town, Samos was conquered by Persians and declined for a while. Samos flourished again for two periods, First during the 3rd century under Ptolemys rule, and second under Roman rule. The ruins of Roman period are today, about half a kilometre west of Pythagorio. The harbour of Samos remained important during Byzantine period, ruins of the Byzantine period are visible in the area of Logothetis Tower on the west side of the harbour. Samos totally declined during Frangokratia, when the coastal settlements depopulated, in the later Ottoman period the centre of the island was Chora, built inland,4 km northwest of Pythagorio. During Greek War of Independence the Samian Leader Lykourgos Logothetis built a tower in Pythagorio between 1824 and 1827, in 1831 Logothetis built a church near the tower. Between 1859 and 1866 the new harbour was built in the place as the ancient harbour. Pythagorio is one of the most toured places of Samos since it has many sites as well as a big sandy beach. The most important sights in Pythagorio and the area are, Tunnel of Eupalinos. The Tunnel of Eupalinos,1036 meters long, was part of an ancient aqueduct and it is located about 2 km northwest of Pythagorio
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Marathokampos
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Marathokampos is a former municipality on the island of Samos, North Aegean, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Samos, the population is 2,609 and the land area is 87.250 km². It shares the island of Samos with the units of Vathy, Pythagoreio. It is the smallest of the four in both area and population. Official website Poseidon Hotel Samos Greece Hotels and Studio Room Information Samos Greece
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Bunbury, Edward Herbert; Caspari, Maximilian Otto Bismarck; Gardner, Ernest Arthur (1911). "Samos". In Chisholm, Hugh. Encyclopædia Britannica. 24 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 116–117.
Samos travel guide from Wikivoyage
