This paper seeks to illuminate the prevailing conditions in fourteenth-century Macedonia through a focused case study. While Veria is not an isolated example, it offers a particularly illustrative case, given that local historiography frequently debates the date of its conquest by the Ottomans, often without adequate consideration of the broader historical context.
While much of the Silk Road’s history was long shrouded in legend and fragmented historical texts, modern archaeology has brought greater clarity to its narrative. One of the most illuminating discoveries in this regard is the Astana Graveyard, located near the ancient Turfan Oasis in China’s Xinjiang region. The artifacts unearthed there have significantly expanded our understanding of Silk Road commerce, mobility, and material culture.
In this article Jasleen Kaur examines the parallel political developments and interactions between the powers in Hindustan and the polities of the Mawara’ al-Nahr and the Khorasan in twelfth century, offering insights into how these diverse regions responded to similar challenges, all the while developing distinct political and cultural traditions.
In Classical Antiquity and Medieval Europe, the Chaldaeans became synonymous with astrologers. Indeed, they contributed significantly to the study of the stars and their perceived influence on the world and daily life. However, the Chaldaeans’ narrow characterization as astrologers has obscured their true identity. This article aims to set the record straight: who were the Chaldaeans? Where did they come from? And what is their place in Mesopotamian history?
In north-eastern Turkey, in the coastal region known to the Greeks as Pontos (literally ‘sea’, cf. the adjacent Black Sea), the inhabitants of several villages, of mainly Turkish and Muslim identity, communicate by means of a Greek ‘dialect’: Romeyka (or Romayka). This article explores the sociolinguistic history of this Greek 'dialect' and how it differs from the rest of the Greek language.
In the first article of his series on Hellenistic Asia, Harald Blot explores the origins of the famed—and equally mysterious—Greco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek Kingdoms, and examines the history of their study.
In 1903, an expedition of Prussian scholars investigated the ruins of the important caravan city of Turfan. The results of this expedition were nothing short of spectacular: the explorers unearthed a trove of manuscripts in more than 20 languages including Sogdian, Sanskrit, Old Turkish, and Syriac. Among the finds were also thousands of fragments written in an unknown language using a variant of the Indic Brahmi script.
The Indo-Europeans were a nomadic people, shrouded in mystery. Their existence was first inferred by linguists who identified numerous syntactical and lexical similarities among various languages spoken across the Eurasian continent, from the British Isles to Central Asia. As a result, generations of linguists have faced the significant challenge of reconstructing the theorized proto-language that existed several thousand years ago. Alongside these linguistic efforts, interest in the culture and identity of the people who spoke this language also grew. In this article, I aim to explore one particular aspect of the Indo-Europeans: their religion and mythology, and how comparative linguistic research can help fill the gaps in our limited source material.
In this essay, Prof. Dr. Hakan Özoğlu details the policies and perspectives of the major imperial powers toward the Kurds in the Caucasus region around the time of World War I.
The migrating Karakhanids arrived at the borders of the Islamic world around the middle of the 9th century. To their west, the Samanid emirs of Bukhara held sway over a vast territory. The Karakhanids settled around the city of Kashgar, currently one of the westernmost cities in China. They established an independent khanate, which — despite many challenges including rampant dynastic factionalism — would last into the early 13th century. At the height of their power, the Karakhanids ruled an empire which stretched from the Tarim Basin in the east to the Oxus River (Amu Darya) in the west. In this article we shall discuss the political history of the khanate up until its division around 1040.
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