Posted on 09/07/2015 10:36:00 AM PDT by the scotsman
'Using just a small hand trowel these archaeologists are painstakingly working to unlock the secrets of an ancient kingdom.
Historians believe they have unearthed tombs dating back over 2,800 years in Van, eastern Turkey.
The pithos burial chambers, which are like large ceramic jars, are thought to be from the Kingdom of Uratu, which ruled the country from the mid-ninth century BC until its defeat by the Medes.
Historians at work in the Turkish town of Vans, which was the capital of the Urartian Kingdom. Vans was the capital of the Urartian Kingdom until it fell early in the sixth century BC.
Every summer a team of around 50 archaeologists take part in an annual excavation at Van Fortress in a bid to uncover treasures that have been buried for thousands of years.
With permission from the country's Ministry of Culture and Tourism university teams have been working together.
They are currently working at the top of the fortress, where a palace was located, and the northern quarter.'
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Lake Van is way the heck beyond the natural historic Byzantine defense lines of the Taurus and Anti-Taurus Mountains. The Byzantines never should’ve been out at Lake Van, but the successes of the earlier emperors Nicephoros Phocas, John Tzimisces and Basil II had expanded the empire’s borders to be not easily defensible.
The historic defense lines in Anatolia, which the Byzantines held for centuries against the Moslems, was where to hunker down. They could’ve held that forever.
The impact on European history of keeping Anatolia? Probably most pronounced in the Balkans. The Balkans would’ve been more of a first-world area, and not the tinder box it became later.
I kind of think Austria would’ve developed more or less the same, even without the historic conflict with the Turks.
(Just initial thoughts.)
Also to keep in mind though, the fall of Byzantium lent a very important impetus to the European Renaissance, by sending Greek scholars and manuscripts to the West, where they had a tremendous impact, especially in Italy, and by transmission from there, to the rest of the West.
Yes, a lot of the “learning” modern academics claim was transmitted by the Arabs actually came from the Greeks.
And another thing — the Crusades were started by Emperor Alexius Comnenus’s appeal for help to the West.
No Manzikert, no Crusades, no expansion of western European horizons from that.
Then later, no Turks might impact whether there was obstruction of the eastern overland trade routes, which led western Europeans to seek trade routes in the Atlantic ocean.
So Manzikert may have had some good consequences for western Europe.
(But I’d still take no defeat at Manzikert!)
I thought they were started by Pope Urban II?
He got a letter from Alexius Comnenus asking for help, IIRC.
He got a letter from Alexius Comnenus asking for help, IIRC
Thanks for the clarification, learn something new every day.
We need some people like them now!
It was Alexius’s letter that caused the pope to proclaim the Crusade.
Alexius was hoping the West would just send soldiers who would fight under him, but the Crusader armies went their own way.
It did help him recover a lot of western Anatolia, and his son John and grandson Manuel reconquered more, so by 1180, the Byzantines had back maybe 1/3 of their historic lands in Anatolia.
But they didn’t get all the way back to the Taurus and Anti-Taurus Mountain lines, so they didn’t have the old defensible boundaries.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.