Who were the ancient Egyptians? Mummy DNA reveals surprising clues

[draynay]

Can't really call it the Roman Empire if it doesn't include Rome. Belisarius retook it in the 6th century but it didn't last long.

I don't know how popular Justinian was, Procopius sure didn't care for him much.

[Kalis]

Can't really call it the Roman Empire if it doesn't include Rome. Belisarius retook it in the 6th century but it didn't last long.

I don't know how popular Justinian was, Procopius sure didn't care for him much.

They moved the capital to Byzantium (Constantinople/Istanbul). It was a direct continuation of the Roman Empire.

[Flarelaine]

Yes, it was a so wonderful period for Europe that most historians refer to it as the Middle Age (with some most pessimistic referring to the early Middle Age as a Dark Age) and refer to the following one (for mysterious reasons since the previous one was so wonderful) as the Renaissance.

Charlemagne was no more than a Mud King and it is the same for early English Kings and every Europeans Kings during the most part of the Middle Age.

While there may not have been a single urban centre like pre-Crisis Rome, there were many more local and regional centres, both of learning and of economy. The chroniclers of the self-proclaimed Renaissance has only looked as far and condemned the preceding centuries, but the groundwork of what we now know as Europe - distributed power - was laid in that time. You look for the splendour of Rome, as they did, and see a "mud king". I look for the livelihood and freedom of the common folk and I say it was no worse than in the epoch of Rome - indeed, the Franks, whose very name means "free" arguably had it better.

You may want to look into The Long Morning of Medieval Europe: New Directions of Early Medieval Studies.

Recent advances in research show that the distinctive features of high medieval civilization began developing centuries earlier than previously thought. The era once dismissed as a "Dark Age" now turns out to have been the long morning of the medieval millennium: the centuries from AD 500 to 1000 witnessed the dawn of developments that were to shape Europe for centuries to come."

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Can't really call it the Roman Empire if it doesn't include Rome. Belisarius retook it in the 6th century but it didn't last long.

I don't know how popular Justinian was, Procopius sure didn't care for him much.

Procopius was a butthurt little prick.

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The Roman Empire fell to the cannon of Mehmet II on the 29th May 1453. It was a Tuesday.

And just to show how everyone in that age accepted Byzantium as Rome, Mehmet promptly assumed a new title - Kaisar-i-Rum, "Caesar of Rome". Subsequent Sultans held on to that title as long as their empire lasted. Which funnily means that one could claim Rome fell a mere century ago.

[Ravenblade]

Can't really call it the Roman Empire if it doesn't include Rome. Belisarius retook it in the 6th century but it didn't last long.

I don't know how popular Justinian was, Procopius sure didn't care for him much.

It wasn't the Roman Empire of Emperors like Hadrian for sure. However the Byzantines didn't even call themselves Byzantines and Constantinople wasn't even the only name of the city, its citizens called themselves Romanoi and the legal tradition and culture was Roman. In that sense the name of the city was just a name-giver for a synonym for a certain set of culture and traditions. The East-Roman Empire were clearly Romans, the difference later on was that they used Greek language, titles and names instead of Latin and they adopted some customs from the people who lived there. A clear indicator for this can be seen how foreign rulers addressed the Byzantine Emperor, namely as Emperor of the Romans.

[Devonitar]

Can't really call it the Roman Empire if it doesn't include Rome.

Reminds me of an old historian joke about Holy Roman Empire, which was neither holy, nor roman, nor an empire.

[Mormolyce]

Did you look at that graphic?

You are saying that Justinian, one of the great Roman emperors, with a legacy that lasts until today, was not a Roman emperor.

Justinian I? He was a Byzantine Emperor. The last Western Roman Emperor was deposed about 50 years before Justinian was proclaimed.

They moved the capital to Byzantium (Constantinople/Istanbul). It was a direct continuation of the Roman Empire.

Kalis, buddy, you might want to accept that this topic is a little more complex than your general level of engagement permits.

[Stelio Kontos]

Aparently the Balkan Peninsula is not in Europe. The things we find out every day. But heck, I've known Scandinavians who don't consider Greeks to be white so . . .

Yeah, I've run into those sorts of idiots too. The whole concept of Europe is a Greek creation, but apparently we're not good enough to be considered European/white.

I've heard lots of dumb claims. Greeks are Ethiopians. Greeks are Semites.

It's cool, I guess. Let them have Frau Merkel, we'll hang out with Gal Gadot :P

[Mormolyce]

"Ancient Egypt" describes a civilisation that covers almost 3,000 years. So its ethnic makeup might have changed dramatically several times. I'm no expert but I think that it's still a fairly open subject of research.

To put it in internet clickbait terms, "Cleopatra was born closer to the creation of the iphone than the building of the pyramids".

Ie, Cleopatra VII Philopator vs. the Great Pyramids of Giza. By about ~500 years.

"Caucasian" in the vaguest sense of the terms. They certainly weren't "white," least of all "European."

"Caucasian" is about as meaningless as "white" from an ethnological standpoint.

I assume you mean Anglo-Germanic, because that's what the US's ethnic makeup lends them to believe is "white". But that's anachronistic if we're talking about ancient civilisations.

Unless you mean skin colour, which is another kettle of fish entirely.

[Flarelaine]

Justinian I? He was a Byzantine Emperor. The last Western Roman Emperor was deposed about 50 years before Justinian was proclaimed.

"Byzantine" is a label assigned in hindsight. The empire, even with its new capital, was the same empire. Its customs, institutions, laws, culture evolved continuously, but there was no clean break with the old Rome. If anything, the drift from Latin to Greek was the most obvious difference, but even that only became pronounced well after Justinian and they still kept calling themselves Romans.

The Byzantine emperor's legitimacy as the Emperor of Rome was only questioned by various popes, trying to convert their dominion over the city into imperial legitimacy. And even they only transferred that dignity to another empire (that of the Franks) at first. And even that took a time when a woman sat on the throne in the East.

[Kalis]

Justinian I? He was a Byzantine Emperor. The last Western Roman Emperor was deposed about 50 years before Justinian was proclaimed.

The concept of a Byzantine Empire is relatively modern, used by historians for convenience and nobody in that era would have acknowledged the term.

Kalis, buddy, you might want to accept that this topic is a little more complex than your general level of engagement permits.

Nothing I said was inaccurate. I even knew the exact day the Roman Empire finally fell, which was over a millennia after the other poster claimed it had fallen.

[Wildtree]

Guys.... really?
Are you trying to mindfuck each other, or something?
You can't all possibly be that ignorant or uneducated. You're arguing over the 4th incarnation of the Roman Empire.
The least impressive one, as that.
The empire of Trebizond had as much to do with Rome of the BC times as a cow with bicycle riding.
Eventually the label literally came from the fact that some random ruler sacked the Holy See, or was it's tool depending on the timeline.

[Kalis]

Guys.... really?
Are you trying to mindfuck each other, or something?
You can't all possibly be that ignorant or uneducated. You're arguing over the 4th incarnation of the Roman Empire.
The least impressive one, as that.
The empire of Trebizond had as much to do with Rome of the BC times as a cow with bicycle riding.
Eventually the label literally came from the fact that some random ruler sacked the Holy See, or was it's tool depending on the timeline.

The Roman Empire (sort of) started with Augustus and had continuation to the rump Empire that fell to Mehmet II. It lasted about 1,500 years.

The idea that the Eastern Roman Empire was not the Roman Empire is largely due to the Holy Roman Empire wanting legitimacy as the successor, but the original had not actually disappeared.

[Doctor Amadeus]

This will be until they find the Lizard men, and possibly the oldest human in Antarctica or something. Seriously I'll never find it important to put stock in events that had nothing to do with anybody living now thousands of years ago. Outside of any information that actually helps move forward medicine or technology, I really don't care where some scientist think we originated next.

[primalmatter]

This will be until they find the Lizard men, and possibly the oldest human in Antarctica or something. Seriously I'll never find it important to put stock in events that had nothing to do with anybody living now thousands of years ago. Outside of any information that actually helps move forward medicine or technology, I really don't care where some scientist think we originated next.

Its like you don't even want space marines to be real..

How will we ever perfect the uber man without knowing everything their is to from genetics?

[Doctor Amadeus]

Its like you don't even want space marines to be real..

How will we ever perfect the uber man without knowing everything their is to from genetics?

I would just settle for sustainable energy, clean water, and advancement in modern medicine so that people are still dying of diseases like cancer, or polio 2 or some shit.

What happened in a cave 3 thousand years ago, and what color they were or how they wiped their ass really isn't important to me.

[primalmatter]

I would just settle for sustainable energy, clean water, and advancement in modern medicine so that people are still dying of diseases like cancer, or polio 2 or some shit.

What happened in a cave 3 thousand years ago, and what color they were or how they wiped their ass really isn't important to me.

The emperor frowns on your short slightness. When humanity takes to the stars to purge the xenos you will be left behind...

[Mormolyce]

The concept of a Byzantine Empire is relatively modern, used by historians for convenience and nobody in that era would have acknowledged the term.



Nothing I said was inaccurate. I even knew the exact day the Roman Empire finally fell, which was over a millennia after the other poster claimed it had fallen.

The term "Byzantine" is modern, the political and geographic distinction is not.

The fact that you think that the Empire "fell" on one day is one of the reasons I think this topic might be a bit too complex for you.

[Kalis]

The term "Byzantine" is modern, the political and geographic distinction is not.

Justinian was a Roman Emperor, if you think otherwise then you'd need to take that up with the Roman citizens of the 6th Century.

The fact that you think that the Empire "fell" on one day is one of the reasons I think this topic might be a bit too complex for you.

You are welcome to publish a book for review by historians if you have some information showing that is wrong, but you don't, so you won't.

There is nothing wrong in history with pinpointing an exact moment in time when an event happened, if we have details of the event in question, which we do in this case. The Empire had been in decline for some time, but it finally fell on the 29th May 1453, which was a Tuesday.

[Macaquerie]

For what it's worth, the Ottomans also claimed to be Caesars, and since their territory mostly coincided with that of the Eastern Empire until their own collapse, they have a pretty decent claim to the title, better than any German or Russian emperors at any rate. For all practical purposes though, Roman civilization as we know it ended well before even the fall of the Western Empire, and the for the last couple hundred years or so the emperors pretty much spent all their time scheming against rivals and none of it actually trying to govern, which is kind of an important part of the job.

[Doctor Amadeus]

The emperor frowns on your short slightness. When humanity takes to the stars to purge the xenos you will be left behind...

It's been an interesting ride then