Miletus
Miletus was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia, near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Caria. Its ruins are located near the village of Balat in Aydın Province. Before the Persian invasion in the middle of the 6th century BC, Miletus greatest wealth and splendor was reached during the Hellenistic era and Roman times. Evidence of first settlement at the site has been inaccessible by the rise of sea level. The first available evidence is of the Neolithic, in the early and middle Bronze age the settlement came under Minoan influence. Legend has it that an influx of Cretans occurred displacing the indigenous Leleges, the site was renamed Miletus after a place in Crete. The Late Bronze Age, 13th century BC, saw the arrival of Luwian language speakers from south central Anatolia calling themselves the Carians, in that century other Greeks arrived. The city at that time rebelled against the Hittite Empire, after the fall of that empire the city was destroyed in the 12th century BC and starting about 1000 BC was resettled extensively by the Ionian Greeks.
Legend offers an Ionian foundation event sponsored by a founder named Neleus from the Peloponnesus, the Greek Dark Ages were a time of Ionian settlement and consolidation in an alliance called the Ionian League. The Archaic Period of Greece began with a sudden and brilliant flash of art, Miletus is the birthplace of the Hagia Sophias architect Isidore of Miletus and Thales, a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher in c.624 BC. The ruins appear on maps at 37°31. 8N 27°16. 7E, about 3 km north of Balat and 3 km east of Batıköy in Aydın Province. In antiquity the city possessed a harbour at the entry of a large bay. The harbour of Miletus was additionally protected by the small island of Lade. Over the centuries the gulf silted up with alluvium carried by the Meander River, there is a Great Harbour Monument where, according to the New Testament account, the apostle Paul stopped on his way back to Jerusalem by boat. He met the Ephesian Elders and headed out to the beach to bid farewell, recorded in the book of Acts 20.
During the Pleistocene epoch the Miletus region was submerged in the Aegean Sea and it subsequently emerged slowly, the sea reaching a low level of about 130 meters below present level at about 18,000 BP. The site of Miletus was part of the mainland, a gradual rise brought a level of about 1.75 meters below present at about 5500 BP, creating several karst block islands of limestone, the location of the first settlements at Miletus. At about 1500 BC the karst shifted due to small crustal movements, since the sea has risen 1.75 m but the peninsula has been surrounded by sediment from the Maeander river and is now land-locked
Feodosia
Feodosia, called Theodosia, is a port and resort, a town of regional significance in Crimea on the Black Sea coast. Feodosia serves as the center of Feodosia Municipality, one of the regions into which Crimea is divided. During much of its history the city was known as Caffa or Kaffa, the city was founded as Theodosia by Greek colonists from Miletos in the 6th century BC. Noted for its agricultural lands, on which its trade depended. Theodosia remained a village for much of the next nine hundred years. It was at times part of the sphere of influence of the Khazars, like the rest of Crimea, this place fell under the domination of the Kipchaks and was conquered by the Mongols in the 1230s. Between 1204–1261 and again in 1296–1307, the city of Kaffa was ruled by Genoas chief rival, in the late 13th century, traders from the Republic of Genoa arrived and purchased the city from the ruling Golden Horde. It came to one of Europes biggest slave markets. From 1266 and on, Kaffa was governed by a Genoese consul, in early 1318 Pope John XXII established a Latin Church diocese of Kaffa, as a suffragan of Genoa.
The first bishop was Fra Gerolamo, who had already been consecrated seven years before as a missionary bishop ad partes Tartarorum, the diocese ended as a residential bishopric with the capture of the city by the Ottomans in 1475. Accordingly, Kaffa is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see and it is believed that the devastating pandemic the Black Death entered Europe for the first time via Kaffa in 1347, through the movements of the Golden Horde. Fleeing inhabitants may have carried the back to Italy, causing its spread across Europe. However, the plague appears to have spread in a stepwise fashion, there were a number of Crimean ports under Mongol control, so it is unlikely that Kaffa was the only source of plague-infested ships heading to Europe. In addition, there were overland caravan routes from the East that would have been carrying the disease into Europe as well, the thriving, culturally diverse city and its thronged slave market have been described by the Spanish traveler Pedro Tafur, who was there in the 1430s.
In 1462 Caffa placed itself under the protection of King Casimir IV of Poland, Poland did not offer help when real danger came. Following the fall of Constantinople and lastly Trebizond and he was at no loss for a pretext to extinguish this last Genoese colony on the Black sea. In 1473, the tudun of the Crimean Khanate died and a fight developed over the appointment of his successor, the Genoese involved themselves in the dispute, and the Tatar notables who favored the losing candidate finally asked Mehmed to settle the dispute. Mehmed dispatched a fleet under the Ottoman commander Gedik Ahmet Pasha and it anchored before the walls of the city on 1 June, started the bombardment the next day, and on 6 June the inhabitants capitulated
Scandinavia
Scandinavia /ˌskændᵻˈneɪviə/ is a historical and cultural region in Northern Europe characterized by a common ethnocultural North Germanic heritage and mutually intelligible North Germanic languages. The term Scandinavia always includes the three kingdoms of Denmark and Sweden, the remote Norwegian islands of Svalbard and Jan Mayen are usually not seen as a part of Scandinavia, nor is Greenland, an overseas territory of Denmark. This looser definition almost equates to that of the Nordic countries, in Nordic languages, only Denmark and Sweden are commonly included in the definition of Scandinavia. In English usage, Scandinavia sometimes refers to the geographical area, the name Scandinavia originally referred vaguely to the formerly Danish, now Swedish, region Scania. Icelanders and the Faroese are to a significant extent descended from the Norse, Finland is mainly populated by Finns, with a minority of approximately 5% of Swedish speakers. A small minority of Sami people live in the north of Scandinavia.
The Danish and Swedish languages form a continuum and are known as the Scandinavian languages—all of which are considered mutually intelligible with one another. Faroese and Icelandic, sometimes referred to as insular Scandinavian languages, are intelligible in continental Scandinavian languages only to a limited extent, Finnish and Meänkieli are closely related to each other and more distantly to the Sami languages, but are entirely unrelated to the Scandinavian languages. Apart from these, German and Romani are recognized minority languages in Scandinavia, the southern and by far most populous regions of Scandinavia have a temperate climate. Scandinavia extends north of the Arctic Circle, but has mild weather for its latitude due to the Gulf Stream. Much of the Scandinavian mountains have a tundra climate. There are many lakes and moraines, legacies of the last glacial period, Scandinavia usually refers to Denmark and Sweden. Some sources argue for the inclusion of the Faroe Islands and Iceland, though that broader region is known by the countries concerned as Norden.
Before this time, the term Scandinavia was familiar mainly to classical scholars through Pliny the Elders writings, and was used vaguely for Scania, as a political term, Scandinavia was first used by students agitating for Pan-Scandinavianism in the 1830s. After a visit to Sweden, Andersen became a supporter of early political Scandinavism, the term is often defined according to the conventions of the cultures that lay claim to the term in their own use. More precisely, and subject to no dispute, is that Finland is included in the broader term Nordic countries, various promotional agencies of the Nordic countries in the United States serve to promote market and tourism interests in the region. The official tourist boards of Scandinavia sometimes cooperate under one umbrella, Norways government entered one year later. All five Nordic governments participate in the joint promotional efforts in the United States through the Scandinavian Tourist Board of North America, Scandinavia can thus be considered a subset of the Nordic countries
Strabo
Strabo was a Greek geographer 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 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 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 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, 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
Kurgan
A kurgan is a tumulus, a type of burial mound or barrow, heaped over a burial chamber, often of wood. The Russian noun, which is attested in Old East Slavic, is borrowed from an unidentified Turkic language, compare Modern Turkish kurgan. They are mounds of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves, associated with its use in Soviet archaeology, the word is now widely used for tumuli in the context of Eastern European and Central Asian archaeology. The earliest kurgans date to the 4th millennium BC in the Caucasus, kurgans were built in the Eneolithic, Iron and Middle Ages, with ancient traditions still active in Southern Siberia and Central Asia. Kurgan cultures are divided archeologically into different sub-cultures, such as Timber Grave, Pit Grave, Sarmatian, many placenames contain the word kurgan. The earliest known kurgans are dated to the 4th millennium BC in the Caucasus, Kurgan barrows were characteristic of Bronze Age peoples, and have been found from the Altay Mountains to the Caucasus, Ukraine and Bulgaria.
Kurgans were used in the Ukrainian and Russian steppes, their use spreading with migration into eastern, the monuments of these cultures coincide with Scythian-Saka-Siberian monuments. Scythian-Saka-Siberian monuments have common features, and sometimes common genetic roots, the archaeological site on the Ukok Plateau associated with the Pazyryk culture is included in the Golden Mountains of Altai UNESCO World Heritage Site. Scythian-Saka-Siberian classification includes monuments from the 8th to the 3rd century BC and this period is called the Early or Ancient Nomads epoch. Hunnic monuments date from the 3rd century BC to the 6th century AD, the tradition of kurgan burials was adopted by some neighboring peoples who did not have such a tradition. The Kurgan hypothesis postulates that the Proto-Indo-Europeans were the bearers of the Kurgan culture of the Black Sea, the hypothesis was introduced by Marija Gimbutas in 1956, combining kurgan archaeology with linguistics to locate the origins of the Proto-Indo-European -speaking peoples.
She tentatively named the culture Kurgan after their burial mounds. This hypothesis has had a significant impact on Indo-European studies and those scholars who follow Gimbutas identify a Kurgan culture as reflecting an early Indo-European ethnicity, which existed in the steppes and southeastern Europe from the 5th to 3rd millennia BC. In Kurgan cultures, most of the burials were in kurgans, most prominent leaders were buried in individual kurgans, now called Royal kurgans. More elaborate than clan kurgans and containing grave goods, the examples have attracted the greatest attention. Burial mounds are complex structures with internal chambers, within the burial chamber at the heart of the kurgan, elite individuals were buried with grave goods and sacrificial offerings, sometimes including horses and chariots. The structures of the earlier Neolithic period from the 4th to the 3rd millenniums BC and they were inspired by common ritual-mythological ideas. In all periods, the development of the kurgan structure tradition in the various zones is revealed by common components or typical features in the construction of the monuments
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until it was overthrown by the short-lived February Revolution in 1917. One of the largest empires in history, stretching over three continents, the Russian Empire was surpassed in landmass only by the British and Mongol empires. The rise of the Russian Empire happened in association with the decline of neighboring powers, the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Persia. It played a role in 1812–14 in defeating Napoleons ambitions to control Europe. The House of Romanov ruled the Russian Empire from 1721 until 1762, and its German-descended cadet branch, with 125.6 million subjects registered by the 1897 census, it had the third-largest population in the world at the time, after Qing China and India. Like all empires, it included a large disparity in terms of economics, there were numerous dissident elements, who launched numerous rebellions and assassination attempts, they were closely watched by the secret police, with thousands exiled to Siberia.
Economically, the empire had an agricultural base, with low productivity on large estates worked by serfs. The economy slowly industrialized with the help of foreign investments in railways, the land was ruled by a nobility from the 10th through the 17th centuries, and subsequently by an emperor. Tsar Ivan III laid the groundwork for the empire that emerged and he tripled the territory of his state, ended the dominance of the Golden Horde, renovated the Moscow Kremlin, and laid the foundations of the Russian state. Tsar Peter the Great fought numerous wars and expanded an already huge empire into a major European power, Catherine the Great presided over a golden age. She expanded the state by conquest and diplomacy, continuing Peter the Greats policy of modernisation along West European lines, Tsar Alexander II promoted numerous reforms, most dramatically the emancipation of all 23 million serfs in 1861. His policy in Eastern Europe involved protecting the Orthodox Christians under the rule of the Ottoman Empire and that connection by 1914 led to Russias entry into the First World War on the side of France and Serbia, against the German and Ottoman empires.
The Russian Empire functioned as a monarchy until the Revolution of 1905. The empire collapsed during the February Revolution of 1917, largely as a result of failures in its participation in the First World War. Perhaps the latter was done to make Europe recognize Russia as more of a European country, Poland was divided in the 1790-1815 era, with much of the land and population going to Russia. Most of the 19th century growth came from adding territory in Asia, Peter I the Great introduced autocracy in Russia and played a major role in introducing his country to the European state system. However, this vast land had a population of 14 million, grain yields trailed behind those of agriculture in the West, compelling nearly the entire population to farm. Only a small percentage lived in towns, the class of kholops, close to the one of slavery, remained a major institution in Russia until 1723, when Peter I converted household kholops into house serfs, thus including them in poll taxation
Rostov Oblast
Rostov Oblast is a federal subject of Russia, located in the Southern Federal District. The oblast has an area of 100,800 square kilometers and its administrative center is the city of Rostov-on-Don, which became the administrative center of the Southern Federal District in 2002. Rostov Oblast borders Ukraine and Volgograd and Voronezh Oblasts in the north and Stavropol Krais in the south, and it is within the Russian Southern Federal District. The Don River, one of Europes largest rivers, flows through the oblast for part of its course, lakes cover only 0. 4% of the oblasts area. The most important ethnicities are the 3,795,607 ethnic Russians, the 77,802 ethnic Ukrainians, the 110,727 ethnic Armenians. Other important groups are the 35,902 Turks,16,493 Belarusians ),13,948 Tatars,17,961 Azeris,11,449 Chechens,16,657 Roma,11,597 Koreans, and 8,296 Georgians. There were 76,498 people belonging to other ethno-cultural groupings,76,735 people were registered from administrative databases, and could not declare an ethnicity.
It is estimated that the proportion of ethnicities in this group is the same as that of the declared group, according to a 2012 official survey 49. In addition, 26% of the population declares to be spiritual but not religious, 12% is atheist, major industries of Rostov Oblast are agriculture, agricultural industry, food processing, heavy industry and automobile manufacture. Областной закон №19-ЗС от29 мая1996 г, Областного закона №442-ЗС от23 ноября2015 г. «О поправках к Уставу Ростовской области», Вступил в силу6 июня1996 г. Опубликован, Наше время, №98–99,6 июня1996 г, Областной Закон №30-ЗС от10 октября1996 г. Вступил в силу с момента опубликования, Опубликован, Наше время, №196,31 октября1996 г. Official website of Rostov Oblast Russian South
Timur
Timur, historically known as Amir Timur and Tamerlane, was a Turco-Mongol conqueror and the founder of the Timurid Empire in Persia and Central Asia. He was the first ruler in the Timurid dynasty, born into the Barlas confederation in Transoxiana on 9 April 1336, Timur gained control of the western Chagatai Khanate by 1370. From these conquests he founded the Timurid Empire, but this empire fragmented shortly after his death, according to John Joseph Saunders, Timurs background was Iranized and not steppe nomad. Timur envisioned the restoration of the Mongol Empire of Genghis Khan, in his formal correspondence Temur continued throughout his life to portray himself as the restorer of Chinggisid rights. He justified his Iranian and Ottoman campaigns as a re-imposition of legitimate Mongol control over lands taken by usurpers, to legitimize his conquests, Timur relied on Islamic symbols and language, referred to himself as the Sword of Islam and patronized educational and religious institutions.
He converted nearly all the Borjigin leaders to Islam during his lifetime, Temur, a non-Chinggisid, tried to build a double legitimacy based on his role as both guardian and restorer of the Mongol Empire. Timur decisively defeated the Christian Knights Hospitaller at Smyrna, styling himself a ghazi, by the end of his reign, Timur had gained complete control over all the remnants of the Chagatai Khanate and Golden Horde and even attempted to restore the Yuan dynasty. Timurs armies were inclusively multi-ethnic and were feared throughout Asia, scholars estimate that his military campaigns caused the deaths of 17 million people, amounting to about 5% of the world population. Timur is recognized as a patron of art and architecture, as he interacted with Muslim intellectuals such as Ibn Khaldun. Timur was born in Transoxiana near the city of Kesh some 80 kilometres south of Samarkand and his father, was a minor noble of the Barlas, a Mongolian tribe that had been turkified in many aspects. According to Gérard Chaliand, Timur was a Muslim, and he saw himself as Genghis Khans heir, though not a Borjigid or a descendent of Genghis Khan, he clearly sought to invoke the legacy of Genghis Khans conquests during his lifetime.
His name Temur means Iron in the Chaghatay language, Timurs mother-tongue, Timurid dynastic histories claim that he was born on April 8,1336, but most sources from his lifetime give ages that are consistent with a birthdate in the late 1320s. At the age of eight or nine and his mother, in his childhood, Timur and a small band of followers raided travelers for goods, especially animals such as sheep and cattle. In around 1363, it is believed that Timur tried to steal a sheep from a shepherd but was shot by two arrows, one in his leg and another in his right hand, where he lost two fingers. Both injuries crippled him for life, some believe that Timur suffered his crippling injuries while serving as a mercenary to the khan of Sistan in Khorasan in what is today the Dashti Margo in southwest Afghanistan. Timurs injuries have given him the names of Timur the Lame, Timur was a Muslim, possibly belonging to the Naqshbandi school of Sufism, which was influential in Transoxiana. However, his official religious counsellor and adviser was the Hanafi scholar Abdu l-Jabbar Khwarazmi.
In Tirmidh, he had come under the influence of his spiritual mentor Sayyid Baraka, Timur was known to hold Ali and the Ahl al-Bayt in high regard and has been noted by various scholars for his pro-Alid stance
Ottoman dynasty
The Ottoman dynasty was made up of the members of the imperial House of Osman. According to Ottoman tradition, the family originated from the Kayı tribe branch of the Oghuz Turks, the Ottoman dynasty, named after Osman I, ruled the Ottoman Empire from c.1299 to 1922. During much of the Empires history, the sultan was the regent, head of state. The imperial family was deposed from power and the sultanate was abolished on 1 November 1922 after the Turkish War of Independence, the Republic of Turkey was declared the following year. The living members of the dynasty were sent into exile as persona non gratae, though some have been allowed to return. In its current form, the family is known as the Osmanoğlu family, before Orhans proclamation of the dynasty, the tribe was known as the Bilecik Söğüt Beylik or Beys but was renamed Osmanlı in honor of Osman. The Ottoman dynasty is known in modern Turkish as Osmanlı Hanedanı, meaning House of Osman, in Ottoman Turkish it was known as Hanedan-ı Âl-i Osman, thus they still formally acknowledged the sovereignty of the Seljuk Empire and its successor, the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm.
The first Ottoman ruler to claim the title of Sultan was Murad I. The holder of the title Sultan was in Arabic-Islamic dynasties originally the power behind the throne of the Caliph in Bagdad, the Ottoman sultans claimed the title of Caliph starting with Murad I, who transformed the Ottoman state into a transcontinental empire. With the Conquest of Constantinople in 1453, Sultan Mehmed II Fatih claimed the title Kaysar-i-Rûm Emperor of Rome and he appointed the Patriarch of Constantinople Gennadius Scholarius, whom he protected and whose status he elevated into leader of all the Eastern Orthodox Christians. As Emperor of Rome he laid claim to all Roman territories, Sultan Mehmed II took the title of Padishah, a Persian title meaning Master of Kings and ranking as Emperor, claiming superiority among the other kings. He was the first Ottoman ruler to adopt the title of Padishah. The Ottoman claim to caliphate was strengthened when they defeated the Mamluks in 1517, as the empire grew, sultans adopted secondary titles expressing the empires claim to be the legitimate successor of the absorbed states.
Furthermore, they tended to enumerate even regular provinces, not unlike the long lists of -mainly inherited- feudal titles in the style of many Christian European monarchs. Some early Ottoman Sultans even had to accept the status in the eyes of a foreign overlord. However, the Ottoman Caliphate too was abolished soon afterwards, and Abdulmecid II was utterly deposed and expelled from Turkey with the rest of the Ottoman dynasty on 3 March 1924
Black Sea
The Black Sea is a body of water between Eastern Europe and Western Asia, bounded by Bulgaria, Romania, Russia and Ukraine. It is supplied by a number of rivers, such as the Danube, Rioni, Southern Bug. The Black Sea has an area of 436,400 km2, a depth of 2,212 m. It is constrained by the Pontic Mountains to the south and by the Caucasus Mountains to the east, the longest east-west extent is about 1,175 km. The Black Sea has a water balance, that is, a net outflow of water 300 km3 per year through the Bosphorus. Mediterranean water flows into the Black Sea as part of a two-way hydrological exchange, the Black Sea drains into the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, via the Aegean Sea and various straits. The Bosphorus Strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and these waters separate Eastern Europe and Western Asia. The Black Sea is connected to the Sea of Azov by the Strait of Kerch, the water level has varied significantly. Due to these variations in the level in the basin. At certain critical water levels it is possible for connections with surrounding water bodies to become established and it is through the most active of these connective routes, the Turkish Straits, that the Black Sea joins the world ocean.
When this hydrological link is not present, the Black Sea is a basin, operating independently of the global ocean system. Currently the Black Sea water level is high, thus water is being exchanged with the Mediterranean. The Turkish Straits connect the Black Sea with the Aegean Sea, and comprise the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Black Sea as follows, On the Southwest. The Northeastern limit of the Sea of Marmara, a line joining Cape Takil and Cape Panaghia. Strabos Geographica reports that in antiquity, the Black Sea was often just called the Sea, for the most part, Graeco-Roman tradition refers to the Black Sea as the Hospitable sea, Εὔξεινος Πόντος Eúxeinos Póntos. This is a euphemism replacing an earlier Inhospitable Sea, Πόντος Ἄξεινος Póntos Áxeinos, strabo thinks that the Black Sea was called inhospitable before Greek colonization because it was difficult to navigate, and because its shores were inhabited by savage tribes.
The name was changed to hospitable after the Milesians had colonized the southern shoreline and it is possible that the epithet Áxeinos arose by popular etymology from a Scythian word axšaina- unlit, the designation Black Sea may thus date from antiquity. A map of Asia dating to 1570, entitled Asiae Nova Descriptio, from Abraham Orteliuss Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, english-language writers of the 18th century often used the name Euxine Sea to refer to the Black Sea
Goths
The Goths were an East Germanic people, two of whose branches, the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, played an important role in the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the emergence of Medieval Europe. In the Gothic language they were called the Gut-þiuda, most commonly translated as Gothic people, gut-þiudai, or Gutans Inferred from gen. pl. gutani in Pietroassa inscription. In Old Norse they were known as the Gutar or Gotar, in Latin as the Gothi, the exact origin of the ancient Goths is unknown. Evidence of them before they interacted with the Romans is limited, Modern academics have generally abandoned this theory. Today, the Wielbark culture is thought to have developed from earlier cultures in the same area, archaeological finds show close contacts between southern Sweden and the Baltic coastal area on the continent, and further towards the south-east, evidenced by pottery, house types and graves. Rather than a migration, similarities in the material cultures may be products of long-term regular contacts.
However, the record could indicate that while his work is thought to be unreliable. Sometime around the 1st century AD, Germanic peoples may have migrated from Scandinavia to Gothiscandza, early archaeological evidence in the traditional Swedish province of Östergötland suggests a general depopulation during this period. However, there is no evidence for a substantial emigration from Scandinavia. Upon their arrival on the Pontic Steppe, the Germanic tribes adopted the ways of the Eurasian nomads, the first Greek references to the Goths call them Scythians, since this area along the Black Sea historically had been occupied by an unrelated people of that name. The earliest known material culture associated with the Goths on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea is the Wielbark culture, centered on the modern region of Pomerania in northern Poland. This culture replaced the local Oxhöft or Oksywie culture in the 1st century, the culture of this area was influenced by southern Scandinavian culture beginning as early as the late Nordic Bronze Age and early Pre-Roman Iron Age.
In Eastern Europe they formed part of the Chernyakhov culture and it has been suggested that the Goths maintained contact with southern Sweden during their migration. In the first attested incursion in Thrace, the Goths were mentioned as Boranoi by Zosimus, the first incursion of the Roman Empire that can be attributed to Goths is the sack of Histria in 238. Several such raids followed in subsequent decades, in particular the Battle of Abrittus in 251, led by Cniva, at the time, there were at least two groups of Goths, the Thervingi and the Greuthungs. Goths were subsequently recruited into the Roman Army to fight in the Roman-Persian Wars. The Moesogoths settled in Thrace and Moesia, the first seaborne raids took place in three subsequent years, probably 255-257. An unsuccessful attack on Pityus was followed in the year by another
Golden Horde
The Golden Horde was a Mongol and Turkicized khanate established in the 13th century and originating as the northwestern sector of the Mongol Empire. With the fragmentation of the Mongol Empire after 1259 it became a functionally separate khanate and it is known as the Kipchak Khanate or as the Ulus of Jochi. After the death of Batu Khan in 1255, his dynasty flourished for a century, until 1359. The Hordes military power peaked during the reign of Uzbeg, who adopted Islam, the territory of the Golden Horde at its peak included most of Eastern Europe from the Urals to the Danube River, and extended east deep into Siberia. In the south, the Golden Hordes lands bordered on the Black Sea, the Caucasus Mountains, the khanate experienced violent internal political disorder beginning in 1359, before it briefly reunited under Tokhtamysh. However, soon after the 1396 invasion of Timur, the founder of the Timurid Empire, at the start of the 15th century the Horde began to fall apart. By 1466 it was being referred to simply as the Great Horde, within its territories there emerged numerous predominantly Turkic-speaking khanates.
These internal struggles allowed the northern state of Muscovy to rid itself of the Tatar Yoke at the Great stand on the Ugra river in 1480. The Crimean Khanate and the Kazakh Khanate, the last remnants of the Golden Horde, in any event, it was not until the 16th century that Russian chroniclers begin explicitly using the term Golden Horde to refer to this particular successor khanate of the Mongol Empire. The first known use of the term, in 1565, in the Russian chronicle History of Kazan, applied it to the Ulus of Batu and its left wing was referred to as the Blue Horde in Russian chronicles and as the White Horde in Timurid sources. Western scholars have tended to follow the Timurid sources nomenclature and call the left wing the White Horde, the khanate apparently used the term White Horde to refer to its right wing, which was situated in Batus home base in Sarai and controlled the ulus. However, the designations Golden Horde, Blue Horde, and White Horde have not been encountered in the sources of the Mongol period.
At his death in 1227, Genghis Khan divided the Mongol Empire amongst his four sons as appanages, Jochi was the eldest, but he died six months before Genghis. In 1235, Batu with the great general Subedei began an invasion westwards, first conquering the Bashkirs, from there he conquered some of the southern steppes of present-day Ukraine in 1237, forcing many of the local Cumans to retreat westward. The military campaign against the Kypchaks and Cumans had started under Jochi, by 1239 a large portion of Cumans were driven out of the Crimea peninsula, and it became one of the appanages of the Mongol Empire. The remnants of the Crimean Cumans survived in the Crimean mountains, moving north, Batu began the Mongol invasion of Rus and for three years subjugated the principalities of former Kievan Rus, whilst his cousins Möngke, and Güyük moved southwards into Alania. Using the migration of the Cumans as their casus belli, the Mongols continued west, raiding Poland and Hungary and culminating in the battles of Legnica, in 1241, however, Ögedei Khan died in the Mongolia homeland.
Batu turned back from his siege of Vienna to take part in disputing the succession, the Mongol armies would never again travel so far west
.svg)
.svg)
