1.
Krasnodar Krai
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Krasnodar Krai is a federal subject of Russia, located in the Southern Federal District. Its administrative center is the city of Krasnodar and it had a population of 5,226,647. The krai is sometimes referred to as Kuban, a term describing a region of southern Russia. The Republic of Adygea is completely encircled by the krai territory, the krais Taman Peninsula is situated between the Sea of Azov in the north and the Black Sea in the south. In the west, the Kerch Strait separates the krai from the Crimean Peninsula, at its widest extent, the krai stretches for 327 kilometers from north to south and for 360 kilometers from east to west. The krai is split into two parts by the Kuban River, which gave its name to this entire geographic region. The northern part is a zone which shares continental climate patterns. The height of the mountains exceeds 3,000 meters, with Mount Tsakhvoa being the highest at 3,346 meters, Mount Fisht, at 2,867 meters, is the Great Caucasus westernmost peak with a glacier. The Black Sea coast stretches from the Kerch Strait to Adler and is shielded by Caucasus Mountains from the northern winds. Numerous small mountain rivers flow in the areas, often creating picturesque waterfalls. Lake Abrau, located in the region of Abrau-Dyurso, is the largest lake in the northeastern Caucasus region. Lake Ritsa is considered to be one of the most picturesque lakes in the region, in 631, Kubrat was founded on the Kuban State and the Great Bulgar Khans dynasty began. The territory of Krasnodar Region from the 8th to the 10th centuries was part of the Khazars, after the defeat of the Khazar Khanate in 965 Kievan prince Svyatoslav conquered the area, it came under the rule of Kievan Rus, and it then formed the Tmutarakan principality. Later, due to the claims of Byzantium at the end of the 11th century. In that period of history, Russian Circassians first appeared under the name Kasogs, for example, Rededi Prince Kasozhsky was mentioned in The Tale of Igors Campaign. In 1243-1438 the current territory of the Kuban was part of the Golden Horde, after the collapse of the latter, parts of Kuban were held under the Crimean Khanate, Circassia, and the Ottoman Empire, which dominated the region. The Tsardom of Russia began to challenge the protectorate of the Ottoman Empire in the area during the Russian-Turkish wars, in April 1783, by decree of Catherine II, right-bank Kuban and Taman Peninsula were annexed to the Russian Empire. During the campaign for control of the North Caucasus to Russia in 1829 pushed the Ottoman Empire, border was marked on the Black Sea coast
2.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
3.
Black Sea
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The Black Sea is a body of water between Eastern Europe and Western Asia, bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine. It is supplied by a number of rivers, such as the Danube, Dnieper, 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 then 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 also 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 also possible that the epithet Áxeinos arose by popular etymology from a Scythian word axšaina- unlit, dark, 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
4.
Sea of Azov
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The Sea of Azov is a sea in Eastern Europe. To the south it is linked by the narrow Strait of Kerch to the Black Sea, the sea is bounded in the north by mainland Ukraine, in the east by Russia, and in the west by the Crimean Peninsula. The Don and Kuban are the rivers that flow into it. The Sea of Azov is the shallowest sea in the world, there is a constant outflow of water from the Sea of Azov to the Black Sea. The sea is affected by the inflow of numerous rivers, which bring sand, silt, and shells, which in turn form numerous bays, limans. Because of these deposits, the sea bottom is relatively smooth, also, due to the river inflow, water in the sea has low salinity and a high amount of biomass that affects the water colour. Abundant plankton results in high fish productivity. The sea shores and spits are low, they are rich in vegetation, the name likely derives from the settlement of an area around Azov, whose name comes from the Kipchak Turkish asak or azaq. A Russian folk etymology, however, instead derives it from an eponymous Cuman prince named Azum or Asuf, a formerly common spelling of the name in English was the Sea of Azoff, which is closer to the Russian pronunciation. In antiquity, the sea was known as the Maeotis Swamp from the marshlands to its northeast. It remains unclear whether it was named for the nearby Maeotians or if that name was applied broadly to various peoples who happened to live beside it. Other names included Lake Maeotis or Maeotius, the Maeotium or Maeotic Sea, the Cimmerian or Scythican Swamps, the Maeotians themselves were said by Pliny to call the sea Temarenda or Temerinda, meaning Mother of Waters. The medieval Russians knew it as the Sea of Surozh after the adjacent city now known as Sudak and it was known in Ottoman Turkish as the Balük-Denis from its high productivity. There are traces of Neolithic settlement in the now covered by the sea. In 1997, William Ryan and Walter Pitman of Columbia University published a theory that a flood through the Bosporus occurred in ancient times. Subsequent work has been both to support and to discredit this theory, and archaeologists still debate it. This has led some to associate this catastrophe with prehistoric flood myths, the Maeotian marshes around the mouth of the Tanais River were famous in antiquity, as they served as an important check on the migration of nomadic people from the Eurasian steppelands. The Maeotians themselves lived by fishing and farming, but were avid warriors able to defend themselves against invaders
5.
Kerch
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Kerch is a city of regional significance on the Kerch Peninsula in the east of the Crimea. Founded 2,600 years ago as an ancient Greek colony, the city experienced rapid growth starting in the 1920s and was the site of a major battle during World War II. Today, it is one of the largest cities in Crimea and is among the republics most important industrial, transport, archeological digs at Mayak village near the city ascertained that the area had already been inhabited in 17th–15th centuries BC. Kerch as a city starts its history in 7th century BC, Panticapaeum subdued nearby cities and by 480 BC became a capital of the Kingdom of Bosporus. Later, during the rule of Mithradates VI Eupator, Panticapaeum for a period of time became the capital of the much more powerful. The city was located at the intersection of routes between the steppe and Europe. This caused it to grow rapidly, the citys main exports were grain and salted fish, wine-making was also common. According to extant documents the Melek-Chesme river was navigable in Bosporan times, a large portion of the citys population was ethnically Scythian, later Sarmatian, as the large royal barrow at Kul-Oba testifies. In the 1st century AD Panticapaeum and the Kingdom of Bosporus suffered from Ostrogoth raids, from the 6th century the city was under the control of the Byzantine Empire. By order of Emperor Justinian I, a citadel named Bospor was built there, Bospor was the centre of a bishopric, the diocese of Bosporus and developed under the influence of Greek Christianity. In 576, it withstood a siege by the Göktürks under Bokhan, aided by Anagai, in the 7th century, the Turkic Khazars took control of Bospor, and the city was named Karcha from Turkic karşı meaning opposite, facing. The main local government official during Khazar times was the tudun, Christianity was a major religion in Kerch during the period of Khazar rule. Kerchs Church of St. John the Baptist was founded in 717, thus, the Church of the Apostles existed during the late 8th and early 9th centuries, according to the Life of the Apostle Andrew by Epiphanius of Salamis. Following the fall of Khazaria to Kievan Rus in the late 10th century and its ruler, Georgius Tzul, was deposed by a Byzantine-Rus expedition in 1016. From the 10th century, the city was a Slavic settlement named Korchev, Kerch was a center of trade between Russia, Crimea, Caucasus and the Orient. In the 13th century, the Crimea including Korchev was invaded by Mongols, after Mongols, the city became the Genoese colony of Cerco in 1318 and served as a sea harbour, where townspeople worked at salt-works and fishery. In 1475, city was passed to the Ottoman Empire, during the Turkish rule Kerch fell into decay and served as a slave-market. It repeatedly suffered from raids of Zaporizhian Cossacks, in response to strengthening of Russian military forces in Azov area, the Turks built a fortress, named Yenikale, near Kerch on the shore of Kerch Strait
6.
Khazars
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The Khazars were a semi-nomadic Turkic people, who created what for its duration was the most powerful polity to emerge from the break-up of the Western Turkic Kaganate. For some three centuries the Khazars dominated the vast area extending from the Volga-Don steppes to the eastern Crimea, the alliance was dropped around 900. Between 965 and 969, the Kievan Rus ruler Sviatoslav I of Kiev conquered the capital Atil, the native religion of the Khazars is thought to have been Tengrism, like that of the North Caucasian Huns and other Turkic peoples. The polyethnic populace of the Khazar Khaganate appears to have been a multiconfessional mosaic of pagan, Tengrist, Jewish, Christian and this theory still finds occasional support, but most scholars view it with scepticism. The theory is associated with antisemitism and anti-Zionism. Gyula Németh, following Zoltán Gombocz, derived Xazar from a hypothetical *Qasar reflecting a Turkic root qaz- being an hypothetical velar variant of Common Turkic kez-, louis Bazin derived it from Turkic qas- on the basis of its phonetic similarity to the Uyğur tribal name, Qasar. András Róna-Tas connects it with Kesar, the Pahlavi transcription of the Roman title Caesar, D. M. Dunlop tried to link the Chinese term for Khazars to one of the tribal names of the Uyğur Toquz Oğuz, namely the Gésà. One method for tracing their origins consists in analysis of the possible etymologies behind the ethnonym Khazar itself. The tribes that were to comprise the Khazar empire were not a union, but a congeries of steppe nomads and peoples who came to be subordinated. They appear to stem from Mongolia and South Siberia in the aftermath of the fall of the Hunnic/Xiōngnú nomadic polities, moving west, the confederation reached the land of the Akatziroi, who had been important allies of Byzantium in fighting off Attilas army. An embryonic state of Khazaria began to form sometime after 630, Göktürk armies had penetrated the Volga by 549, ejecting the Avars, who were then forced to flee to the sanctuary of the Hungarian plain. The Āshǐnà clan whose tribal name was Türk appear on the scene by 552, by 568, these Göktürks were probing for an alliance with Byzantium to attack Persia. Both briefly challenged Tang hegemony in eastern Turkestan, to the West, two new nomadic states arose in the meantime, Old Great Bulgaria under Kubrat, the Duōlù clan leader, and the Nǔshībì subconfederation, also consisting of five tribes. The Duōlù challenged the Avars in the Kuban River-Sea of Azov area while the Khazar Qağanate consolidated further westwards, led apparently by an Āshǐnà dynasty. The Qağanate of the Khazars thus took out of the ruins of this nomadic empire as it broke up under pressure from the Tang dynasty armies to the east sometime between 630–650. According to Omeljan Pritsak, the language of the Onoğur-Bulğar federation was to become the lingua franca of Khazaria as it developed into what Lev Gumilev called a steppe Atlantis, Khazaria developed a Dual kingship governance structure, typical among Turkic nomads, consisting of a shad/bäk and a qağan. The emergence of this system may be deeply entwined with the conversion to Judaism, particularly elaborate rituals accompanied a royal burial. At one period, travellers had to dismount, bow before the rulers tomb, such a royal burial ground is typical of inner Asian peoples
7.
Ancient Greece
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Ancient Greece was a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th-9th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and this was followed by the period of Classical Greece, an era that began with the Greco-Persian Wars, lasting from the 5th to 4th centuries BC. Due to the conquests by Alexander the Great of Macedonia, Hellenistic civilization flourished from Central Asia to the end of the Mediterranean Sea. Classical Greek culture, especially philosophy, had a influence on ancient Rome. For this reason Classical Greece is generally considered to be the culture which provided the foundation of modern Western culture and is considered the cradle of Western civilization. Classical Antiquity in the Mediterranean region is considered to have begun in the 8th century BC. Classical Antiquity in Greece is preceded by the Greek Dark Ages and this period is succeeded, around the 8th century BC, by the Orientalizing Period during which a strong influence of Syro-Hittite, Jewish, Assyrian, Phoenician and Egyptian cultures becomes apparent. The end of the Dark Ages is also dated to 776 BC. The Archaic period gives way to the Classical period around 500 BC, Ancient Periods Astronomical year numbering Dates are approximate, consult particular article for details The history of Greece during Classical Antiquity may be subdivided into five major periods. The earliest of these is the Archaic period, in which artists made larger free-standing sculptures in stiff, the Archaic period is often taken to end with the overthrow of the last tyrant of Athens and the start of Athenian Democracy in 508 BC. It was followed by the Classical period, characterized by a style which was considered by observers to be exemplary, i. e. classical, as shown in the Parthenon. This period saw the Greco-Persian Wars and the Rise of Macedon, following the Classical period was the Hellenistic period, during which Greek culture and power expanded into the Near and Middle East. This period begins with the death of Alexander and ends with the Roman conquest, Herodotus is widely known as the father of history, his Histories are eponymous of the entire field. Herodotus was succeeded by authors such as Thucydides, Xenophon, Demosthenes, Plato, most of these authors were either Athenian or pro-Athenian, which is why far more is known about the history and politics of Athens than those of many other cities. Their scope is limited by a focus on political, military and diplomatic history, ignoring economic. In the 8th century BC, Greece began to emerge from the Dark Ages which followed the fall of the Mycenaean civilization, literacy had been lost and Mycenaean script forgotten, but the Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet, modifying it to create the Greek alphabet. The Lelantine War is the earliest documented war of the ancient Greek period and it was fought between the important poleis of Chalcis and Eretria over the fertile Lelantine plain of Euboea. Both cities seem to have suffered a decline as result of the long war, a mercantile class arose in the first half of the 7th century BC, shown by the introduction of coinage in about 680 BC
8.
Panticapaeum
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Panticapaeum was an ancient Greek city on the eastern shore of Crimea, which the Greeks called Taurica. The city was built on Mount Mithridat, a hill on the side of the Cimmerian Bosporus. It was founded by Milesians in the late 7th or early 6th century BC, the ruins of the site are now located in the modern city Kerch. During the first centuries of the existence, imported Greek articles predominated, pottery, terracottas, and metal objects, probably from workshops in Rhodes, Corinth, Samos. Local production, imitated from the models, was carried on at the same time, Athens manufactured a special type of bowl for the city, known as Kerch ware. Local potters imitated the Hellenistic bowls known as the Gnathia style as well as relief wares—Megarian bowls, the city minted silver coins from the 5th century BC and gold and bronze coins from the 4th century BC. At its greatest extent it occupied 100 hectares, the Hermitage and Kerch Museums contain material from the site, which is still being excavated. Its economic decline in the 4th–3rd centuries BC was the result of the Sarmatian conquest of the steppes, the last of the Spartocids, Paerisades V, apparently left his realm to Mithridates VI Eupator, king of Pontus. This transition was arranged by one of Mithridatess generals, Diophantus, the mission did not go smoothly, Paerisades was murdered by Scythians led by Saumacus, and Diophantus escaped to return later with reinforcements to suppress the revolt. Half of a later, Mithridates took his life in Panticapaeum. In about 70 BC an earthquake caused damage to the city. The city was destroyed by the Huns in approximately 370 AD, later the area came under the control of the Byzantine Empire which built a new town at the site, which became known as Bosphorus in the Middle Ages. This settlement ultimately developed in the city of Kerch. The Origins of the Greek Colony at Panticapaeum, the Journal of the Walters Art Gallery. A Survey of the Major Urban Settlements in the Kimmerian Bosporos, yet More Studies in the Ancient Greek Polis
9.
Bosporan Kingdom
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The Bosporan Kingdom was the longest surviving Roman client kingdom. The 1st and 2nd centuries BC saw a period of renewed golden age of the Bosporan state and it was a Roman province from 63 to 68 AD, under Emperor Nero. At the end of the 2nd century AD, King Sauromates II inflicted a defeat on the Scythians. The prosperity of the Bosporan Kingdom was based on the export of wheat, fish and these include gold work, vases imported from Athens, coarse terracottas, textile fragments and specimens of carpentry and marquetry. These Greek colonies were settled by Milesians in the 7th and 6th centuries BC. Phanagoria was a colony of Teos, and the foundation of Nymphaeum may have had a connection with Athens, at least it appears to have been a member of the Delian League in the 5th century. The Bosporan Kingdom was centred around the Kerch Strait between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, known in antiquity as the Cimmerian Bosporus from where the name derived. Spartocus founded a dynasty which seems to have endured until c.110 BC, surviving material do not supply enough information to reconstruct a complete chronology of kings of the region. Satyrus son Leucon eventually took the city and he was succeeded jointly by his two sons, Spartocus II, and Paerisades, Spartocus died in 342, allowing Paerisades to reign alone until 310. After Paerisades death, a war between his sons Satyrus and Eumelus was fought. Satyrus defeated his younger brother Eumelus at the Battle of the River Thatis in 310 BC but was killed in battle. Eumelus successor was Spartocus III and after him Paerisades II, succeeding princes repeated the family names, so it is impossible to assign them a definite order. Paerisades was killed by a Scythian named Saumacus who led a rebellion against him and they maintained close relations with Athens, their best customer for the Bosporan grain exports, Leucon I of Bosporus created privileges for Athenian ships at Bosporan ports. The Attic orators make numerous references to this, in return the Athenians granted Leucon Athenian citizenship and made decrees in honour of him and his sons. His eldest living son, Machares, regent of Cimmerian Bosporus, was unwilling to aid his father, so Mithridates had Machares killed, Mithridates then ordered the conscriptions and preparations for war. In 63 BC, Pharnaces, the youngest son of Mithridates, led a rebellion against his father, Mithridates VI withdrew to the citadel in Panticapaeum, where he committed suicide. Pompey buried Mithridates VI in a tomb in either Sinope or Amasia. Before the death of Pharnaces II, Asander had married Pharnaces II’s daughter Dynamis, Asander and Dynamis were the ruling monarchs until Caesar commanded a paternal uncle of Dynamis, Mithridates II to declare war on the Bosporan Kingdom and claimed the kingship for himself
10.
Crete
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Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, 88th-largest island in the world and the fifth-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and Corsica. Crete and a number of surrounding islands and islets constitute the region of Crete, the capital and the largest city is Heraklion. As of 2011, the region had a population of 623,065, Crete forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece, while retaining its own local cultural traits. It was once the centre of the Minoan civilization, which is regarded as the earliest recorded civilization in Europe. The island is first referred to as Kaptara in texts from the Syrian city of Mari dating from the 18th century BC, repeated later in Neo-Assyrian records and it was also known in ancient Egyptian as Keftiu, strongly suggesting a similar Minoan name for the island. The current name of Crete is thought to be first attested in Mycenaean Greek texts written in Linear B, through the words
11.
Aphrodite
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Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation. She is identified with the planet Venus, and her Roman equivalent is the goddess Venus, as with many ancient Greek deities, there is more than one story about her origins. According to Hesiods Theogony, she was born when Cronus cut off Uranuss genitals and threw them into the sea, according to Homers Iliad, she is the daughter of Zeus and Dione. In Plato, these two origins are said to be of hitherto separate entities, Aphrodite Ourania and Aphrodite Pandemos, Aphrodite had many lovers—both gods, such as Ares, and men, such as Anchises. She played a role in the Eros and Psyche legend, and was lover and surrogate mother of Adonis. Many lesser beings were said to be children of Aphrodite, Aphrodite is also known as Cytherea and Cypris after the two cult sites, Cythera and Cyprus, which claimed to be her place of birth. Myrtle, roses, doves, sparrows and swans were sacred to her, the ancient Greeks identified her with the Ancient Egyptian goddess Hathor. Aphrodite had many names such as Acidalia and Cerigo, each used by a different local cult of the goddess in Greece. The Greeks recognized all of these names as referring to the single goddess Aphrodite, despite the differences in what these local cults believed the goddess demanded of them. The Attic philosophers of the 4th century, however, drew a distinction between a celestial Aphrodite of transcendent principles, and a separate, common Aphrodite who was the goddess of the people, hesiod derives Aphrodite from aphrós sea-foam, interpreting the name as risen from the foam. Michael Janda, accepting this as genuine, claims the birth myth as an Indo-European mytheme. Likewise, Witczak proposes an Indo-European compound *abʰor- very and *dʰei- to shine and it has been argued that etymologies based on comparison with Eos are unlikely since Aphrodites attributes are entirely different from those of Eos or the Vedic deity Ushas. A number of improbable non-Greek etymologies have suggested in scholarship. One Semitic etymology compares Aphrodite to the Assyrian barīrītu, the name of a demon that appears in Middle Babylonian. Hammarström looks to Etruscan, comparing prϑni lord, an Etruscan honorific loaned into Greek as πρύτανις and this would make the theonym in origin an honorific, the lady. Hjalmar Frisk and Robert Beekes reject this etymology as implausible, especially since Aphrodite actually appears in Etruscan in the borrowed form Apru, the medieval Etymologicum Magnum offers a highly contrived etymology, deriving Aphrodite from the compound habrodíaitos, she who lives delicately, from habrós and díaita. The alteration from b to ph is explained as a characteristic of Greek obvious from the Macedonians. Aphrodite is usually said to have been born near her chief center of worship, Paphos, on the island of Cyprus, however, other versions of her myth have her born near the island of Cythera, hence another of her names, Cytherea
12.
Huns
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The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia between the 1st century AD and the 7th century AD. In 91 AD, the Huns were said to be living near the Caspian Sea, by 370, the Huns had established a vast, if short-lived, dominion in Europe. In the 18th century, the French scholar Joseph de Guignes became the first to propose a link between the Huns and the Xiongnu people, who were neighbours of China in the 3rd century BC. Since Guignes time, considerable effort has been devoted to investigating such a connection. However, there is no consensus on a direct connection between the dominant element of the Xiongnu and that of the Huns. Numerous other ethnic groups were included under Attilas rule, including very many speakers of Gothic and their main military technique was mounted archery. The Huns may have stimulated the Great Migration, a factor in the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. They formed an empire under Attila the Hun, who died in 453. Variants of the Hun name are recorded in the Caucasus until the early 8th century, the Huns were a confederation of warrior bands, ready to integrate other groups to increase their military power, in the Eurasian Steppe in the 4th to 6th centuries AD. Most aspects of their ethnogenesis are uncertain, walter Pohl explicitly states, All we can say safely is that the name Huns, in late antiquity, described prestigious ruling groups of steppe warriors. Jerome associated them with the Scythians in a letter, written four years after the Huns invaded the eastern provinces in 395. The equation of the Huns with the Scythians, together with a fear of the coming of the Antichrist in the late 4th century. This demonization of the Huns is also reflected in Jordaness Getica, written in the 6th century, otto J. Maenchen-Helfen was the first to challenge the traditional approach, based primarily on the study of written sources, and to emphasize the importance of archaeological research. Thereafter the identification of the Xiongnu as the Huns ancestors became controversial among some, the similarity of their ethnonyms is one of the most important links between the two peoples. A Sogdian merchant described the invasion of northern China by the Xwn people in a letter, Étienne de la Vaissière asserts both documents prove that Huna or Xwn were the exact transcriptions of the Chinese Xiongnu name. Christopher P. Atwood rejects that identification because of the very poor match between the three words. For instance, Xiongnu begins with a velar fricative, Huna with a voiceless glottal fricative, Xiongnu is a two-syllable word. However, according to Zhengzhang Shangfang, Xiongnu was pronounced in Late Old Chinese, the Chinese Book of Wei contain references to the remains of the descendants of the Xiongnu who lived in the region of the Altai Mountains in the early 5th century AD
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