Ottoman Power

Jelous?

Edited by Christscrusader

Not racially pure, but ethnically distinct.

for?

no racial pureness, just not as much mixing as believed prehaps.

Originally posted by MixcoatlToltecahtecuhtli It is complete nonsense for any ethnic group to say they've descended from a people that lived 2000 years ago. Since then so many peoples have migrated, occupied other people's regions, interbred with other, etc. a people can't claim heritage (especially not sole heritage) on "Ancient Greeks", "Ancient Macedonians", "Romans" or "Byzantines".

I disagree. There is proof.
For example, there is genetic proof that Assyrians of today are ethnically distinct from all other inhabitants of the middle east today. To add to that, the empire was multi-ethnic before it collapsed in 612 bc. Within the timeframe of 2617 years there is also archaeological proof with documents referring to Assyrians- bleh I have no time to finish this with all the sources included. Just take my word for it.
there:
http://aanf.org/America/assyrians/assyrian_continuity.htm
It is so much easier to disprove continuity than it is to prove. But when there is proof of continuity it is much more convincing.
I hate it when someone tells me I don't exist. And I bet Greeks, Macedonians, and Romans would feel the same way.

Wow, this is way off topic.

Well, this is interesting... this thread is still
alive   

And about my claim, you can all forget about it, I don't
know what I must have been smoking when I wrote that   

Originally posted by Christscrusader What proof do you have that the Greeks are more Lombard"ish"? Of course there have been miragtions, but more than the Ancient Greeks themselves? the mainland of Greece was lost and regained alot during the Byzantine Empires time, and was never really lost up until the end. THe Lombards did not control the Greek Penninsula for very long, and a small population settled there. Of course present day greeks are mixed a bit, but would you then consider them a slavic or germandic people? I dont think i agree with that.

Unsettling fact is that most of present day Europeans came from somewhere else in the beginning of first millenium CE. Europe was able to reconnect to Greek and Roman antique cultures and we can all feel descendants of these cultures.

Proof of what I am saying is that most of people living in Italy or Greece do not match physical descriptions of Romans or Greeks of Antiquity. Longobards were Germanic tribe that overran both Greece and Italy. What was Northern Greece was overran by Slavs. These were migrations I am familiar with, there may been others.
There are some enclaves in Greece and, suprisingly, in Georgia in which one may find people more directly related to Ancient Greeks. But these are really small minority.
There is a dark side to these claims as well. History was abused in Europe to justify a lot of nasty behavior. Just take look at Yougoslavia.


It could be interesting to open discussion just focusing on migration of various groups.

As I pointed out in another forum not a single modern state should claim any direct descendance from the Antiquity. During the migrations of peoples period, all antiquity states  were overran. Most modern Europeans are descendants of Germans or Slavs with few islands of Celts left. We can say that  there is a minority that doesn't belong to Slavic or Germanic descendance. They are Ungro-Finns(Hungarian, Finns), Balts (Lithuania and Latvia) and Bulgares. This applies to Greeks as well. I believe they have a lot more in common with Longobards than ancient Hellens. When newcomers interracted with local population, often local population had a much stronger culture and affected language of newcomers.
Only truly ancient people, left in Europe, are Basques and Albanians. Both have a pretty misterious past.

Originally posted by sephodwyrm Are you really sure that the Dutch people call themselves Dutch? They call themselves Nederlanders.

That's right

"damn, here we go again. the people of the netherlands call themselves Dutch, the people of Germany cal themselves Deutsch. Romanoi (Greek for Roman) is not the same as Romanum (latin). same name 2 different people, just like PRC and ROC"

No its same thing two differnt rponouciation. The Byzantine called their empire Roman and thats a fact I don't know what you are denying just like ROC called itself China. And until it officially declare otherwise, its not different.

 

"there's also a perfect continuation from the Republic into the empire proper, yet republican rome is not the roman empire eve though it's the same people. "

 

And? I never said they are the same. Whats your point? And they are still both Roman.

 

"1. no, they called their country Romania"

 

The Byzantine called their empire Roman, whether its a different pronouciation of the same word or not, thats what they refered to their empire.

"Germany did call itself Roman Empire (while not even considdering themselves to be!!!)"

It was the Holy Roman Empire of the "GERMAN NATION"

"it's not a continuation fo Rome, they had no emperor, they had a king of kings, which is an asian concept (of Persian origin?), emperor is a Roman concept. therfore there's no continuation."

 

All it means is a change in title, the insitution was a continuation, there isn't anything that happended to the eastern empire between the "original" roman empier and after the collapse of the west, the eastern Roman empier is the Byzantine, nothing changed.

 

"I fail as well because we're here to find out if there's truth to that claim. "

 

You claimed why they can't claim its heritage, so you pretty much answered it yourself

 

"so, 'they are not recognized for the simple reason they are not in China', then why the bloody hell are you bitching about byzantine emprie being Roman if it's not in Italy any more?????"

 

I'm not bitching anything, the Roman empire isn't just Italy, it includes Greece which was a Roman Province, Mongolia was never a Chinese province nor Chinese ruler. And need I say this, the Yuan is BOTH China and Mongolia since prior to nation state, it was irrelevant and the emperor is both the emperor of China and the Khan of Mongolia, yet residing in China while having Mongolian origin, makes him both.

"since our last discussion of the issue, you have still not grasped the difference between the Roman concept of an empire (bound to title) and the Chinese concept (bound to location)"

 

You're the one that haven't grasped the difference between a nation which is a political concept from an ethnicity which is blood and cultural. And no, China is not just bound to location.