Concerning the non-Greek origin and history of Asia Minor

[tchaiku]

White Syrians

Eth. LEUCOSYRI (Eth. Λευκόσνροι), the ancient name of the Syrians inhabiting Cappadocia, by which they were distinguished from the more southern Syrians, who were of a darker complexion. (Hdt. 1.72, 7.72; Strab. xvi. p.737; Plin. Nat. 6.3; Eustath. ad Dionys. 772, 970.) They also spread over the western parts of Pontus, between the rivers Iris and Halys. In the time of Xenophon (Xen. Anab. 5.6.8, &c.) they were united with Paphlagonia, and governed by a Paphlagonian prince, who is said to have had an army of 120,000 men, mostly horsemen. This name was often used by the Greeks, even at the time when it had become customary to designate [p. 2.172]all the inhabitants of the country by their native, or rather Persian name, Cappadoces ; but it was applied more particularly to the inhabitants of the coast district on the Euxine, between the rivers Halys and Iris. (Hecat. Fragm. 194, 200,. 350; Marcian. Heracl. p. 72.) Ptolemy (5.6.2) also applies the name exclusively to the inhabitants about the Iris, and treats of their country as a part of the province of Cappadocia. The Leucosyri were regarded as colonists, who had been planted there during the early conquests of the Assyrians, and were successively subject to Lydia, Persia, and Macedonia; but after the time of Alexander their name is scarcely mentioned, the people having become entirely amalgamated with the nations among which they lived.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0064:entry=leucosyri-geo

[tchaiku]

Rhodes - Majority non-Greek in antiquity:

In Rhodes, freedmen and foreigners, including natives of Asia Minor, Syria, Phoenicia, and Egypt, as well as a slave population drawn from a large number of language groups— Lydian, Phrygian, Cappadocian, Galatian, and Armenian— formed the bulk of the population.
But of all the polyglot communities, perhaps Dioscurus, in Colchis at the eastern end of the Black Sea, was the most remarkable. According to Pliny "it was once so famous that as many as 300 different languages were spoken in the settlement."

https://books.google.com/books?id=Yl0QAAAAYAAJ&q=Cappadocia+demography+antiquity+hellenization&dq=Cappadocia+demography+antiquity+hellenization&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwifgJ7_vuLZAhUF2aQKHchcDtc4ChDoAQguMAI

[Carlin]

1) On the Eve of the Crusades: the Chanson de Roland and Byzantium

The peasants and mountaineers of Asia Minor, belonging to many races, but hellenized at least in so far as the language was concerned, (50 percent may have been Armenians), became, by the wise policy of great Soldier-Emperors, in the course of 3 or 4 centuries of constant warfare against the Arab raiders from Mesopotamia, Syria proper, and Arab-held Cilicia, a magnificent military element firmly attached to their ground and soil.

URL:

http://www.doaks.org/research/library-archives/dumbarton-oaks-archives/collections/historical-papers/henri-gregoire-papers/on-the-eve-of-the-crusades-the-chanson-de-roland-and-byzantium

2)

[Carlin]

[tchaiku]

If you follow the link of the first line you will find this table at the right side of the bottom. Yet, you should be warned that all the data are false. No devastated island was ever totally abandoned, especially the big ones.

Ios:

" In the whole island there is only a village on the slope of a hill. The inhabitants are of Albanian descent and brave. They are boldly treated by the corsairs . " (Francois Richard, 1650).

[tchaiku]

Carlin, do you know anything about Western Turkey? Are Greeks from there ancient or not?

[Carlin]

Carlin, do you know anything about Western Turkey? Are Greeks from there ancient or not?

In this very thread I have provided some sources/quotes about settlements and colonization of large masses of Slavs, Vlachs and Cumans in different regions of Western Turkey. I'm sure there were other movements and settlements, but if you search this thread in detail you will find a lot of interesting info.

It is also important to keep in mind that the native languages / peoples of Western Asia Minor/Turkey survived long into the Christian era (and perhaps even longer), such as Mysian and Phrygian.

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaves_d%27Asie_mineure

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a number of Slavs Islamized during Ottoman rule left the Balkan peninsula for Turkey. Around 1900 Bosniacs hostile to Austria-Hungary, which occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina since 1878, will emigrate to Turkey and settle, for example, in northwestern Anatolia, Bursa. During the twentieth century, a number of Pomaks, hostile to the policy of Forced Bulgarization, will leave Bulgaria for Turkey. They will settle primarily in Eastern Thrace but smaller communities were also established in Asia Minor, especially in the province of Çanakkale and that of Eskişehir. In 2010, more than 350,000 people of Pomak origin were identified in Turkey, mainly in Eastern Thrace.

According to a Turkish study commissioned in 2008 by the National Security Council (Milli Güvenlik Kurulu), about 2,000,000 Turks are of Balkan Slavic origin. They live mainly in the Marmara region of northwestern Turkey and are now largely Turkicized.

Asia Minor 424 BC - Dominated by Persia


582 BC - Lydia

[Carlin]

LAZ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUT-QYYkXMQ

VARIETY OF TRADITIONAL GEORGIAN AND LAZ COSTUMES (MEN)








PONTIANS - IN GREECE

[tchaiku]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysians

Strabo in his Geographica informs that, according to his sources, the Mysians in accordance with their religion abstained from eating any living thing, including from their flocks, and that they used as food honey and milk and cheese.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carians

[Carlin]

Armenian Cilicia

[Carlin]

[tchaiku]

I actually read that a certain numbers of Greeks were resettled in the coastal Turkey during the Ottoman period. I haven't found anything about this in Google.

[Carlin]

[Carlin]

Alexander Dale (page 433):

Thus the borrowing into Greek of the suffix -wann(ī) can be seen in the context of other areal features and borrowings from Luwian in to Greek, such as … patronymic adjectives in -ašša/i- … the extensive use of the inherited -σκ- (-sk-) suffix in iterative usage in East Ionic and Homeric Greek, a likely result of diffusion from Hittite -ške- and/or Luwian -za- (Watkins, 2001: 58) […]

Greek ethnics in -ηνος and the name of Mytilene, Alexander Dale -- URL:

https://www.academia.edu/19952724/Greek_ethnics_in_-%CE%B7%CE%BD%CE%BF%CF%82_and_the_name_of_Mytilene

[Carlin]

Roman colonies in Asia Minor

URL:

http://www.ehw.gr/asiaminor/Forms/fLemmaBodyExtended.aspx?lemmaID=9075

Author(s) : Kadirea Maria (9/24/2002)
Translation : Koutras Nikolaos

For citation: Kadirea Maria, "Roman colonies in Asia Minor",
Encyclopaedia of the Hellenic World, Asia Minor

The institution of the Roman colony survived for more than 500 years on account of its adaptability. Successive generations of inhabitants were able to find in this political and social arrangement the means to satisfy various social and financial needs.

The first Roman who attempted to establish colonies in the East was Julius Caesar, and his policy was continued by the Emperor Augustus. His colonizing project resulted in the arrival of approximately 15,000 Italian colonists (50,000-100,000 individuals if we include family members and slaves) in the lands of Asia Minor.