From Antioch to Samarkand: Melkite Communities East of Byzantium (original) (raw)
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The presence of Christians in Central Asia in the Late Antiquity late antique and medieval periods represents a forgotten episode in the history of Christianity. It is perhaps surprising to find Christians of the Byzantine-rite contributing to this history given their remoteness from the patriarchates of the Eastern Mediterranean. The patriarch of Antioch in particular seems to have appointed bishops to Central Asia, although it is not always clear where their sees were located and when they became merely titular appointments. These minority Chalcedonian communities are mentioned in a variety of Greek and Arabic sources and survived in this distant region in spite of changes in the ethnic and religious hegemony. Recent archaeological discoveries have endorsed the textual references to their settlement, but many questions relating to their identity still remain unanswered.
Palaeobalkan-Westanatolian Community – Explanation and Territorial Scope
ÉTUDES BALKANIQUES LV/3, À l’occasion du XIIe Congrès d’études du Sud-Est européen, Bucarest 2019; n hommage à la mémoire de Vassilka Tăpkova-Zaïmova, Professeure d’histoire byzantine et balkanique, 2019
In this text the term Palaeobalkan-Westanatolian community is proposed to replace the other terms used: Thracian-Phrygian ethno-cultural community, the Pelasgo-Thracian circumaegean community, Mycenaean Thrace, Circumpontic macro-zone and others. Adopting the existence of the Palaeobalkan-Westanatolian community makes it possible to avoid long introductions explaining why parallels between the Balkans and Western Anatolia are made. The scholars can compare political models, functions of the kings, religious doctrines, and interpretations of archaeological complexes, especially cult objects. Besides, information from the Greek literary tradition could be referred to surrounding, non-literary societies with a great deal of confidence. Using the spiral retrospection method, information about later historical periods could also be referred to earlier periods. Keywords: Ancient Anatolia, Phrygia, Lydia, Ancient Thrace, Palaeobalcan Cultures
The people of Early Byzantine Maroneia, Greece (5 th-6 th c. AD)
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is study reports on the human remains of 39 individuals uncovered at the Early Byzantine cemetery of Maroneia in race, Greece (5-6 c. AD). Results on physiological and activity related stress indicators do not show deteriorating living conditions caused by major geopolitical transformation, social upheavals or natural disasters but rather a peasant lifestyle and adequate diet. e sample includes two individuals with intentional cranial modification, a practice that was not customary in Christian tradition. Biocul-tural evidence supports the hypothesis that these individuals had a cultural origin which was linked to the Huns. e combined analysis of historical, archaeological and skeletal data allows interpretations of health, lifestyle and biosocial complexity during Early Christian times in Greece.
Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 2022
The city of Melitene in eastern Asia Minor/western Armenia presents a peculiar case in the study of Byzantine-Islamic commerce in the early Middle Ages, because, unlike Trebizond or Attaleia, its commerce was entirely based on land-route connections, and the available evidence does not identify it as a town deliberately designated as a commercial exchange point by the Byzantine authorities. My purpose is to find an answer to the question of how Byzantine-Islamic trade took place in a location on the eastern land frontier where the coexistence of war and trade was a daily reality. The products and export items as well as the routes of the Melitene zone and its neighboring regions (Cappadocia, Pontos, Armenia) are examined in order to situate Melitene in a larger commercial context. I argue that Melitene prospered commercially in the middle of war zone for centuries and that its commercial fortunes began to improve especially by the beginning of the tenth century, reaching their climax in the eleventh century.