History of the Black Sea

Black Sea is a marginal sea of Atlantic Ocean located between Europe and Asia. The mention of Black Sea dates back to 475 BC and was considered an ill omen.

Historical names and etymology

The principal Greek name Póntos Áxeinos is generally accepted to be a rendering of Iranian word *axšaina- (dark colored), compare Avestan axšaēna- (dark colored), Old Persian axšaina- (turquoise colored), Middle Persian axšēn/xašēn (blue), and New Persian xašīn (blue), as well as Ossetic œxsīn (dark gray). ^[1] Ancient Greek voyagers adopted the name as Á-xe(i)nos, identified with the Greek word áxeinos (inhospitable). ^[1] The name Πόντος ἌξεινοςPóntos Áxeinos (Inhospitable Sea), first attested in Pindar (c. 475 BC), was considered an ill omen and was euphemized to its opposite, Εὔξεινος ΠόντοςEúxeinos Póntos (Hospitable Sea), also first attested in Pindar. This became the commonly used designation in Greek, although in mythological contexts the "true" name Póntos Áxeinos remained favored. ^[1]

Strabo's Geographica (1.2.10) reports that in antiquity, the Black Sea was often simply called "the Sea" (ὁ πόντοςho Pontos). ^[2] He also thought the Black Sea was called "inhospitable" before Greek colonization for its difficult navigation and hostile barbarian natives (7.3.6), and that the name was changed to "hospitable" after the Milesians colonized the Pontus region of the southern shoreline, bringing it within Greek civilization. ^[3]

Popular supposition derives "Black Sea" from the dark color of the water or climatic conditions. Rather, it referred to a system of color symbolism representing the cardinal directions, with black or dark for north, red for south, white for west, and green or light blue for east. ^[1] Hence "Black Sea" meant "Northern Sea", while "Red Sea" from the time of Herodotus (c. 450 BC) designated the waters south of the known world, the Indian Ocean together with today's Persian Gulf and Red Sea. According to this scheme, the name could not have originated with the Scythians, who principally roamed north of the sea, but only with a people living between the northern (black) and southern (red) seas: this points to the Achaemenids (550–330 BC). ^[1]

In the Greater Bundahishn, a Middle Persian Zoroastrian scripture, the Black Sea is called Siyābun. ^[4] In the tenth-century Persian geography book Hudud al-'Alam , the Black Sea is called Sea of the Georgians (daryā-yi Gurz). ^[5] The Georgian Chronicles use the name zğua sperisaზღუა სპერისა (Sea of Speri) after the Kartvelian tribe of Speris or Saspers. ^[6] Other modern names such as Chyornoye more and Karadeniz, originated in the 13th century. ^[1] A 1570 map Asiae Nova Descriptio from Abraham Ortelius's Theatrum Orbis Terrarum labels the sea Mar Maggior (Great Sea), compare Latin mare major. ^[7]

English writers of the 18th century often used Euxine Sea ( /ˈjuːksɪn/ or /ˈjuːkˌsaɪn/ ), for example Edward Gibbon throughout his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire . ^[8] During the Ottoman Empire, it was called either Bahr-e Siyah or Karadeniz, both meaning "Black Sea" in Turkish. ^[9]

Recorded history

A medieval map of the Black Sea by Diogo Homem.

The Black Sea was a busy waterway on the crossroads of the ancient world: the Balkans to the west, the Eurasian steppes to the north, the Caucasus and Central Asia to the east, Asia Minor and Mesopotamia to the south, and Greece to the south-west.

The oldest processed gold in the world was found in Varna, Bulgaria, and Greek mythology portrays the Argonauts as sailing on the Black Sea. The land at the eastern end of the Black Sea, Colchis, (now Georgia), marked for the Greeks the edge of the known world.

The steppes to the north of the Black Sea have been suggested as the original homeland ( Urheimat ) of the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language, (PIE) the progenitor of the Indo-European language family, by some scholars such as Marija Gimbutas; others move the homeland further east towards the Caspian Sea, yet others to Anatolia.

Greek presence in the Black Sea began at least as early as the 9th century BC with colonization of the Black Sea's southern coast. By 500 BC, permanent Greek communities existed all around the Black Sea and a lucrative trade network connected the entirety of the Black Sea to the wider Mediterranean. While Greek colonies generally maintained very close cultural ties to their founding polis, Greek colonies in the Black Sea began to develop their own Black Sea Greek culture, known today as Pontic. The coastal community of Black Sea Greeks remained a prominent part of the Greek World for centuries. ^{[10] [11]}

The Black Sea became a virtual Ottoman Navy lake within five years of Genoa losing the Crimean Peninsula in 1479, after which the only Western merchant vessels to sail its waters were those of Venice's old rival Ragusa. This restriction was challenged by the Russian Navy from 1783 until the relaxation of export controls in 1789 because of the French Revolution. ^{[12] [13]}

The Black Sea was a significant naval theatre of World War I and saw both naval and land battles during World War II.

Archaeology

Ivan Aivazovsky. Black Sea Fleet in the Bay of Theodosia, just before the Crimean War

Ancient trade routes in the region are currently^{[ when? ]} being extensively studied by scientists, as the Black Sea was sailed by Hittites, Carians, Colchians, Thracians, Greeks, Persians, Cimmerians, Scythians, Romans, Byzantines, Goths, Huns, Avars, Slavs, Varangians, Crusaders, Venetians, Genoese, Georgians, Tatars and Ottomans.

Perhaps the most promising areas in deepwater archaeology are the quest for submerged prehistoric settlements in the continental shelf and for ancient shipwrecks in the anoxic zone, which are expected to be exceptionally well preserved due to the absence of oxygen. This concentration of historical powers, combined with the preservative qualities of the deep anoxic waters of the Black Sea, has attracted increased interest from marine archaeologists who have begun to discover a large number of ancient ships and organic remains in a high state of preservation.

See also

• Black Sea trade and economy

References

1. Schmitt 1989, pp. 310–313. sfn error: no target: CITEREFSchmitt1989 (help)
2. Jones, Horace Leonard, ed. (1917). Strabo: Geography, Volume I: Books 1-2. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Retrieved 26 November 2021.
3. Jones, Horace Leonard, ed. (1924). Strabo: Geography, Volume III: Books 6-7. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Retrieved 26 November 2021.
4. Peterson, Joseph H. "Greater Bundahishn". www.avesta.org. Retrieved July 1, 2017.
5. § 42. Discourse on the Country of Rūm, its Provinces and Towns Hudud al-'Alam
6. Part II Georgian Chronicles, Line of ed: 14
7. "Central Asia and Dravidan Connection - Revealed - Part 6" . Retrieved 15 Jun 2020.
8. Gibbon, Edward (1993) [1910]. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Everyman's Library. ISBN   0-679-42308-7.
9. Öztürk, Özhan (2016). Pontus. Ankara, Turkey: Nika Yayınları. ISBN   978-605-83891-7-5.
10. King, Charles (2004-03-18). "Pontus Euxinus 700BC–AD500". The Black Sea. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/0199241619.001.0001. ISBN   978-0-19-924161-3.
11. Braund, David; Stolba, Vladimir F.; Peter, Ulrike (2021). Environment and Habitation around the Ancient Black Sea. Berlin: De Gruyter. doi:10.1515/9783110715972. ISBN   9783110715705.
12. David Nicolle (1989). The Venetian Empire 1200–1670. Osprey Publishing. p. 17. ISBN   978-0-85045-899-2.
13. Bruce McGowan (4 March 2010). Economic Life in Ottoman Europe: Taxation, Trade and the Struggle for Land, 1600–1800, Studies in Modern Capitalism. p. 134. ISBN   978-0-521-13536-8.