> During this period, from the late fourth to the mid-seventh century AD, Christianity became the dominant religion, towns expanded across the country and Egypt served as one of the empire's richest provinces.
It's easy to forget how different the Middle East looked before the conquest of Islam starting in 600 AD.
Not just Islamic conquest but Arab conquest. Up to this point Arabs lived mainly in, well, Arabia. The indigenous peoples of Egypt, Syria, Iraq, etc..., were all non-Arab. Nowadays those indigenous groups are known as Copts, Syriacs, Chaldeans, etc...
Local populations adopted Arabic. Somewhat like, several centuries earlier, they adopted Greek; and elsewhere and at other times, Latin. The peoples of the regions were not replaced by Greek or Roman colonists.
Legitimate question, in the early days was this a large distinction? Specifically, my understanding was that the earliest raids where this distinction is most accurate, they didn't actually change the local societies much. Mostly were raids for resources and did not stay.
That is, until the Islamic raids started, the indigenous groups took losses, but were not nearly as transformed. Is that not accurate?
Well, the distinction mattered. But because the distinction mattered, the modern labels aren't really accurate.
Arabs were the highest-prestige ethnicity within their empire. But they were numerically insignificant. You have "Arabs" and "Copts" in Egypt today, but most of the "Arabs" are Copts whose ancestors decided they wanted more respect. Same thing is true farther west, where the "Arabs" are Berbers.
And indigenous groups in France (just to use an example) are called Occitans, Bretons, Catalonians, Flemish, Alsatians, Corsicans, etc., etc. This isn't a unique phenomenon.
Flemish, Alsatians and Corsicans are literally Dutch, German and Italian, who are just part of France due to recent history. Occitans and Catalans are near Spain.
Bretons are Celts just like Gauls, whom you missed. You also missed other Celtic groups. And they (Celts) were the majority before invasions, still the majority.
Indigenous doesn't mean minority, it means the original inhabitants.
>It's easy to forget how different the Middle East looked before the conquest of Islam starting in 600 AD.
it naturally looked differently due to different climate. For example there was booming agriculture in Carthage back then - modern Tunisia. The climate warming during the first millennia made Mediterranean Basin less grain-production and animal farming suitable while more suitable for the nomadic Arabs riding out of Arabia. That warming also made life more convenient (in particular conditions became much better for agriculture, the backbone of the civilization) in the previously cold and swampy Mid and North Europe where as a result we see the wave of rise of the civilization.
Try reading about Kafiristan, where primitive Hinduism (think Rig Veda) survived for 3500 years before being wiped out in the 1890s by a British-appointed Islamic despot.
Please educate yourself more on this. Step out of your bubble.
Christian nations have created the cultural and technical achievements over the last thousands of years. There is nothing even remotely comparable.
I don't believe in the original sin of slavery in Western countries.
Slavery has been existed for centuries before and, despite being abolished by Western countries (hint: there were several wars were people lost lives), still exists in China, India, Indonesia, and a large group of Arab countries.
> I don't believe in the original sin of slavery in Western countries.
I have no idea what that sentence is specifically meant to mean, that aside, western countries have had actual slavery and effective slavery both in the past and the present.
I don't mean to exclusively beat on Christians or just Catholics here; but I do intend to counter your apparent narrative of good Christians and evil Muslims.
Christians certainly diminished a lot of cultures, just as other religions also did - the initial point that started this above.
Be fair now, the Catholic Church hasn't always and consistently been a backward medieval deathcult - there have been periods of non Crusading, non Inquisition, not slaughtering Cathars, not trading in babies, etc.
What a dumb argument. Over the millennia Christian theocracy has been a net benefit to the world. There is a reason why the world wants to live in Christian countries and not in Muslims countries. And its not for the food.
To be fair in addition to the uncountable horrible things it did or took part in the Catholic church did build the foundations that allowed the concepts of modern scientific thought to develop. No other religion did that.
And they burned quite people for defending the science that went against their beliefs. They only stopped when they thought it would be good for their economic profits.
Exactly the same when they stopped protecting slavery, when they thought it would be good as they would get a lot of new followers and all the money and influence that would come with them.And all the fights that gave birth to the other Christian churches always for the same reasons power and money.
Well yes it’s relative. However the Church in the 1400s to 1600s or so was generally very permissive of scientific debate and not strictly dogmatic. See Galileo’s story, the issue is that when they rejected something (based on a reasonably valid scientific process albeit based on flawed evidence available at the time) that was kind of it and continued to challenging the consensus got you into some deep trouble (with a few exceptions).
One interesting thing is that in the 1400s open debate and heterodoxy was generally tolerated or even accepted IF you did it in Latin and only inside the “international scholar network” that existed at the time and didn’t go around preaching your ideas to peasants and such.
I’m certainly not implying that it was in any way good or let alone perfect in absolute terms, just that it.
Oh playing the old game of "you more" , we're not debating which belief is more savage than the other, all of them are, we're pointing out that the followers of the supposedly all loving version of a god killed,should we say assassinated, lots of people just because their discoveries did not fit in their stories books.
Its been the most anti-slavery religion and was the main motivation for the abolition of slavery. There is no Christian objection to 'miscegenation' and its a weird concept only taken up in America and a few other places like South Africa during apartheid, and it owes more to race science than Christianity.
Yet Christians had no problems taking, owning an selling slaves on an industrial scale for 100s of years. Their book even includes an ownership guide. And then you want a gold star for stopping what you created? The theocratic mind is laughable.
You mean the books of the Bible containing rules explicitly rejected by Christians from the start? The rules that Jesus is recorded as saying was a moral compromise? You are also conveniently skipping over the declarations of equality (with regard to slavery, race and sex) in the New Testament.
That's the thing, there's something about just about everything that can be interpreted in either direction. But christians are just humans, we do these things. The problem I have is when christians pretend they are better and always were because their new interpretation of some text. American slavery being a great example of this as the bible was just to both justify and in abolishment. And as usual, its all about what parts we currently like while ignoring the others.
> Its been the most anti-slavery religion and was the main motivation for the abolition of slavery.
Which branch of Christianity though? There was a huge disparity in approaches in new england colonies (ie rhode island thought the indigenous should have rights, Massachusetts couldn't give a shit about anyone other than the elected.)
A lot of the english abolitionists were radicals, well outside the mainstream. The Quakers, Methodists, shakers were all deeply scary to the establishment
The Roman/Byzantine empire was pretty much destroyed by Muslims, though. Its a but like thanking the Franks/Goths/etc. for preserving Roman cultural identity in Western Europe by preserving some of their texts..
I wouldn't thank Christianity for the scientific advancements of the West, except maybe for protestant work ethic. Science only started to flourish when Catholic church started to lose power, and religion became a bit more separated from law and politics.
Best religion for progress of humanity is the one that embraces work, tells people to treat each other fairly, and otherwise keeps its hands off from irrelevant details of people's lives - things like what consenting adults do in bed, what they eat or drink, what they can or can't say.
Unfortunately Christians have been historically way too focused on the bad parts while ignoring the good parts, leading to madness like wars between Catholics and Protestants and discrimination of minorities. Think of the current conservative elite in America for example - it's hard to find people who are further away from teachings of Jesus Christ than those greedy, hateful idiots.
More like the last 500 years.
Before that the cultural and scientific centers of the world were variously in muslim, hindu, chinese, roman and other civilizations.
Translating the arabic texts of science (either copied and expanded from greek, latin and other places, or new research) and claiming that it was widom of the ancients?
To be fair for the most part Christianity didn’t spread top down through violent conquest (obviously with some huge exceptions) at least in the Middle East and surrounding regions. Also it’s historically better at integrating local cultural practices and languages.
Unlike Islam which which usually wiped out local cultural and linguistic identities (during the periods of Arab conquests, that shifted quite a but later on of course)
Well the crusades, northern crusades and most of imperialism.
For the most part it's enough to conquer a place. People below the timing elite would switch religions as it would be beneficial for them, and eventually trickle down to peasants and such.
Many of the regions they invaded were still (or until quite recently) majority Christian. After all initially it was a defensive relief expedition organized by the pope and the Byzantine emperor to free the territories the empire lost in Anatolia very recently. Of course it was massively more successful than anyone anticipated and they just kept on going and then the whole thing got “slightly” out of hand..
But yes, as I said there were some huge exceptions. However early on the way Christianity spread was fundamentally different to Islam. It was usually not through violent conquest but bottom up.
European imperialism was quite mixed as well. Christianity played a huge part in the Spanish conquests of the Americas. Much less so in British India and other similar places.
Very peaceful when you convienently ignore all the violence.
Northern crusades were extremely bloody and defeated people would accept baptism or be executed.
Charlemange was more of the same deal.
Catholic church left pagans to their own devices?
Christian history is littered with these examples, it has not been a peaceful religion since it merged with Roman society. The only real good examples you could have are missionaries and top down conversion as kings and such voluntarily switched religions.
And when you say “historically better at integrating local cultural practices”, India, China and Australia, would like a word with you. Holy shit you should just delete your account right now
Christianity was very different, and the evidence for that is undeniable and gigantic. The fruits of diversity within christendom is offered in great treasure heaps within science, music, art, philosophy, theology, lifestyles, ways of worship, mysteries of the faith, and culture in general.
Christianity merged with local cultures, removing some aspects and adding some aspects.
It doesn't absolve those who commit the atrocities, even if there are externalities involved. It's not always the White Man's fault - neither in Africa nor the Middle East. We can and should hold the societies in those places to a certain global standard of conduct.
Hell no, that's ridiculous. Israel is a wholesale violator of human rights at massive scale, along with its criminal 5-eyes cronies, and it is in the midst of an imperialist genocide, murdering children every single day. If a state cannot defend itself against children, it is failed and should be refactored by its citizens, immediately and with haste.
We also strike the USA off the list, which cannot even take care of its peoples' most basic needs.
Switzerland. The answer you're looking for, is Switzerland. /s
There is a certain irony in your comment written in English posted on July 11, the 2026th year of Our Lord (though not mine), according to the Gregorian calender (named after Pope Gregory XIII who issued the papal bull that ordained said calendar) at 03:42:12, Universal Standard Time (the local time in London, United Kingdom). And the fact that i am reading this comment in the weekend (the Christian and Jewish days of Sabbath) and replying in similar fashion, (which is mostly historically rooted in the fact that these customs and culture were originally imposed on my country, India by our conquerors, than because it won out in some nebulous contest in the marketplace of ideas)
> It's easy to forget how different the Middle East looked before the conquest of Islam starting in 600 AD.
It’s easy to forget because it’s a fabricated perspective. Islamic/Arabian conquest of MENA isn’t really that different from what Romans or Persians did. That region is literally the source of human civilization (in the Old World at least) and had seen empires come and go ever since the Bronze Age, and along with them all sorts of cultures and religions. What fundamentally changed the dynamics of the region is not the islamic conquest but the shift of the center of the global trade away from Middle East and the Mediterranean to the Western Europe.
It is somewhat different. Romans or Greeks didn’t really violently impose their culture, religion and language to a comparable degree. Without the Islamic invasions Egyptian would likely still be speaking Coptic these days.
That's not exactly true. Spain, Portugal and France, at least, speak languages derived from Latin, while the original languages went extincted. And Christian religion taken by the Romans annihilated all the rest of religions in Europe.
i’m no apologist for christian history but you are both dancing around the nuances to make your own respective points. both things can be true but they require a lot of words:
the roman republic, and subsequent empire were happy to allow conquered peoples to maintain their own ways of life as long as a few basic (in their estimation) requirements were met (taxes, fealty, etc). it was ripe for corruption to the conquered peoples tended to rebel and they got put down with severe violence
christianity offered a unifying thematic message and de facto polity under which constantine believed he could more effectively maintain power and peace. this system was ripe for corruption but now the people are generally kept in line by the conflation of church and state.
islam arises primarily as a repudiation of polytheism and what is perceived as loose monotheism and nonviolently sweeps through the area quickly.
regional leaders quickly learn the same lesson that constantine learned and use islam to prevent rebellion and exert control, with the added lesson learned that it’s best to just ensure everyone follows the same code from the start so that you don’t have to do a lot of political cleanup in the transition to a new belief system.
fractured “european” leaders realize how much power they’ve lost and decide that they should unify under the christian brand to go take back their power.
Yeah, also it was the way it happened, we should not judge those times with our vision of things, different times, different values. All religions are a form of control over the peasants, Islam grew and evolved in an area with a set of political and social characteristics and Christianity the same but different ones and that's why you find the differences and the same reason that Islam and Christianity split in several branches. And you can see east Europe went Orthodox, South Europe went Catholic and North went Protestant, add to that the fights for the power.
> islam arises primarily as a repudiation of polytheism and what is perceived as loose monotheism
I doubt that “repudiation” of said things was the main driver.
I’m pretty sure by 600ad Rome was pretty solidly Christian (or at elite levels, perhaps secular), what other gods did exist were folk/syncretistic practices, which also existed in Islam (sufis, Zoroastrian stuff, gnostic stuff etc) and which still existed today in Christianity (in the Philippines, the Caribbean, Africa, etc)
Well yes it highly varied. However Romans were generally more motivated by plunder and subsequent economic exploitation. To an extent they didn’t really suppress local cultural practices or imposed forced assimilation in cases where it didn’t conflict with that and even often allowed alternative power structures to exist. Assimilation largely happened over time and was mostly voluntary. To be fair gradual voluntary conversion to Islam to enhance your social/economic status was the main mechanism in the Muslim empires as well. However in Rome the transition wasn’t as binary and “multiculturalism” was much more tolerated. Also Romans were way more open to integrating and assimilating foreign cultures and practices (which is why the Roman Empire eventually turned into a “Greek Empire”) what being a “Roman” meant was way more malleable and flexible than being a Muslim.
And if the British hadn't conquered and exploited my country, modern India wouldn't have been an impoverished country that is now a developing nation whose identity and culture has been forever changed due to European imperialism. The Islamophobia (and the general lack of respect for most non-western cultures) in this discussion is based on real ignorance:
1. There are indeed many things to admire about the west. However, for all the cultural and scientific advancement made by the west, westerners choose to ignore that the backbone of the current western "empire" was also built on the knowledge and wealth you looted from other non-western empires. The reason that you are now the most "developed" nation is because you now follow the same political pattern as all the "superpower" empires of their time - you hoard the wealth and knowledge now, and deny it to others. (Please read about the The fate of the Library of Alexandria - https://www.britannica.com/topic/Library-of-Alexandria/The-f... to understand, for one, how much knowledge was created, collated and valued in the eastern cultures - even by the "barbarian" muslim empires.)
(I know there have been books written in the west trying to justify that slavery and imperialism isn't why the west are wealthy. I partially agree with some points in them but disagree that the wealth that you stole was inconsequential. If the west truly believes that the wealth stolen from us wasn't what made your economies rich, but only your own culture and ingenuity, why don't you repatriate that amount that was diverted to your economy and actually test that theory? Mughal India, for example was one of the richest economies that accounted for 24% of the world GDP - https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5724162 - before the British conquered and transferred most of that wealth to enrich itself).
2. Many of you pretend (or rather seek comfort in the idea) that State violence of ancient non-western empires is something cultural to only non-western cultures. That western / Christian nations are more "peaceful" by nature. A study of the history of crusades, and western imperialism, should immediately dismiss that notion. (Shamefully, even today, many western nations sponsor and support the ethnic cleansing and genocide of native populations by your allies in Africa and the middle-east).
3. Some of you resort to selectively applying modern cultural perceptions to criticise historical societies. That is not how history is studied - one strives to understand history based on the cultural contexts of their period.
E.g. Prophet Muhammad didn't marry a 9 or 10 year old Ayesha because he liked to diddle young girls. During his time, puberty was treated as someone entering adulthood. While marriages may be arranged between pre-pubescent kids, it was only after they had reach puberty that they were allowed to consummate the marriage. Marriage to Ayesha was also political - Muhammad was actually forced to marry someone from every tribal leader's family as that was the diplomatic equivalent of establishing a political alliance during his time! (That is why he is an exception to the rule that a muslim can only have up to 4 wives). Note that even before Muhammad, Mary, mother of Christ, was considered eligible to be married to Joseph (an old man, past his middle-age) when she turned 12. She was still a teenager when she became pregnant ( https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/12317/is-th... ) - is Christ's father / God a paedophile too? By today's modern standard, you would say yes, that's ephebophilia.
The nomenclature of "Child marriage" or even "teen marriage" is a modern cultural phenomenon because of the advancement we have made in understanding our own biology (i.e. reproductive systems) and our changing moral and cultural norms on the ideas of sexuality. Despite this, note that most of the world still can't agree on a universal age of consent or marriage. For example, Japan only recently raised the minimum age of consent for sex from 13 to 16 ( https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/83755/why-was-t..., while in some parts of the US, an adult can still marry a teenager with the consent of their parents ( https://www.unchainedatlast.org/child-marriage-in-the-u-s/ )! My own grandparents were only 13 and 9 when they were married in the 1920's, a really common practice in India until the late 20th century, till it was made illegal and is nearly abolished now.
4. Some of you resort to judging other cultures by the worst members of their community. How would the west like it if only the Nazis were considered as their true representatives, and were solely judged based on their ideology?
There is a certain irony in your comment written in English posted on July 11, the 2026th year of Our Lord (though not mine), according to the Gregorian calender (named after Pope Gregory XIII who issued the papal bull that ordained said calendar) at 08:34:41, Universal Standard Time (the local time in London, United Kingdom). And the fact that i am reading this comment in the weekend (the Christian and Jewish days of Sabbath) and replying in similar fashion, (which is mostly historically rooted in the fact that these customs and culture were originally imposed on my country, India by our conquerors, than because it won out in some nebulous contest in the marketplace of ideas)
None of the previous empire changes led to the population replacement. Islamic expansion (colonisation, conquest) brought Arabs and their way of life everywhere.
You can see the cultural differences though. One culture has the ability to pool finances and invest its way out of crisis. The other invests it all into exponential humans and conflict. Ideal for spreading in squalid, burned down conditions, non-ideal, when more then spreading is in your definiton of what humanity should strife for.
You're gonna have to be more specific. which religion, and what time are you insinuating for spreading in "spreading in squalid, burned down conditions"
It's true that Islam is a Christian heresy but to be fair, Islam tries to be it's own State Religion only for the Arabs. So in that sense it's not the same God since they don't believe in the Trinity.
Incorrect translation, Allahu Akbar means “the god is the greatest”
Allah is not a name that came with Islam but existed before, it just means deity. the Al prefix is the definite singular form. It just says one thing: god is a singleton and nothing is above it.
When Indian army regiments, with predominantly Sikh soldiers, fight any army, they rally themselves for battle with cries of "Wahe Guru ki Khalsa, Wahe Guru ki Fatah" (which roughly translates to "[We] the pure are of the almighty, and the triumph in making is also of the almighty). Pakistani army, predominantly Muslim soldiers, do use the rallying cry of "Allahu Akbar". It's debatable whether these chants are meant more for themselves, than directed at their "enemies".
Fun fact - not every Christian sect believes in the trinity.
Another fun fact, the Jewish God and the Christian God are the same… it’s just that the Jewish God didn’t have a son who was also himself that killed himself only to resurrect himself negating the sacrifice
Completely wiped out? Christian copts were the majority for more than a century after Egypt became under Islamic rule, the shift took centuries of immigration and fertility rate changes.
Many churches still stands in Egypt where they were before Islamic rule.
The copts themselves welcomed Islamic conquest as Muslims gave them more rights than previous rulers.
I’m not OP but to say Your article is incomplete and washed. It makes no mention of the jizya, Janissary, of slavery, persecution, or rape. Read a history book written by a copt like Sword & Scimitar and then look at the references. He references the Muslim sources themselves. Determine the truth from that. The west keeps washing the truth
What progress are you referring to? The shiny blinky things that scroll across our screens while the poor stay poor, war rages everywhere and the internet is overwhelmed with fake AI generated content.
The more I look back into history, the more I realise that besides the sparkling blinky-blinky gadgets, we have made no progress at all - on a species level. We’re still living in caves, we’re still believe in God myths that make no sense and let ourselves be blindly led by folks who claim legitimacy because they won voter approval based on the lies they told.
No, for me progress is a fiction invented in hollywood or silicon valley. Real progress would be understanding our place in the universe, understanding that we are one of many species with which we share this planet, that we don’t have the right to strip clear the planet for our sole benefit. And that shiny bits of metal or bits of paper with numbers and faces on them aren’t important and most certainly won’t help us achieve true progress.
Not singling you out, all the articles do it, but: Strange to call this Byzantine. The coins found are from the reign of Constantius II, who at times ruled the whole empire alone (as did his successor Julian). The idea that the East, even when administered separately, was some foreign/"Byzantine"/not-really-Roman "other" was invented much later.
Yes, invented much later, but the expression of a different power structure that those types of Romans felt was not present. But to our modern eyes it was. Hell, the mere fact the centre of power was in Constantinople and not Rome is proof enough that they were distinct.
Many Western polities have sought the title of the Roman Empire and the legitimacy it endows. Constantine split the empire, and Constantius II did not rule over Rome (or many other parts of the empire). Is it even reasonable to assert it was still the Roman Empire after the fracture?
Is it legitimate for the Eastern Roman Empire to claim the legacy? I think so, and I think they have among the best arguments for it. Conversely it is also legitimate to note the major differences between the two and the fact that discontinuities do exist.
"Constantine split the empire" is just incorrect. There were co-emperors with regional responsibilities both before and after him. They were co-emperors of one empire. If you want a firm split, 395 (death of Theodosius) is the more common date AFAIK.
I'm not denying that gradually, over well more than a thousand years, the empire (only surviving in the East) changed character in many ways. I am denying that a unique Eastern character sprang up (and immediately applied to Egypt) the moment that Constantinople was founded.
You're correct, I'm mistaken that Constantine split the empire. That being said I think there are some semantics as far as "co-emperors with regional responsibilities" being in a single polity or separate polities.
I do agree with you that there was no instantaneous Eastern character that sprang up out of nowhere.
They actually called themselves Ῥωμαῖοι, not Romani, and not every description needs to be emic. There's nothing wrong with the label "Byzantine" except to Byzaboos.
Separately, your facts are wrong, because it was centuries before that the word Byzantine was first used to describe this era of the latter eastern Roman empire. Oops, might want to read a book instead of looking at memes.
I'd love to see that! I can't take credit for the term. There are some people who are extreme fans of the Byzantine empire and defend it at every turn. I can kind of get recent history, but being a fanatic about an ancient polity strikes this trained historian as utterly bizarre.
Because I was too brief while at work before, let me be fuller now: if you were to go back a thousand years and ask about the national characteristic of the emperor of Constantinople, they'd look at you crazy because you spoke English. But your question is laden with several assumptions that are completely foreign to their minds. First, Byzantine is an adjective from Byzantium, the original name of Constantinople. First and foremost, when its used in Classical and Late Antique historiography, it's describing an empire, culture, polity, etc. that centers on Constantinople, rather than other cities of the empire. It is not an ethnic marker. The people at the time would have called themselves Greek, Romans, or Syrians. Second, whether "Romaioi" or "Hellenes" is preferred waxes and wanes depending on what's en vogue at the time. Contrary to the meme, the citizens of Athens did not uniformly call themselves "Romans" (Romaioi) from the 320s onward. Some were, some weren't. What language did they speak? What ethnos, genos were they of? What does Romaioi even really mean? That will yield better answers, but again, it differs based on fashion. Lastly, the very idea of a defined "empire" would be very confusing for the ancients. What is that word? It looks like imperium, but that means domain of rule. It's not limited to those at the helm, who might call themselves imperatores, but also Augusti. It's not like a kingdom encompassing other kingdoms. It's just a modern term given to an ancient reality, with no difference at all to names like Byzantine or even Roman.
See e.g. Lintott on the problems of this terminology:
This whole "debate" is a charade provided by people who once complained they had to take a humanities class and thereafter were clueless about what real modern historians and philologists were discussing about this period.
It would be like if the US moved the capital to DC, replaced Christianity with Islam, switched English to French, no longer contained NY, Boston, Pennsylvania, and foreign powers stopped calling it the United States.
Its more complicated than you are making it seem. I dont even have a strong opinion on the conclusion but it’s certainly not how you’ve framed it.
It really isn't more complicated. These are mostly the excuses that 19th century Western European scholars used to deny the Eastern Romans their Romanness, because they wanted to place themselves as the inheritors of Rome.
First, The Roman Empire was always bilingual. Greek always held sway over the eastern half and Latin over the western half. Once the west is gone, of course you'll switch to primarily using the language that most use. The Irish didn't stop being Irish because they primarily speak English now, for example.
Second, the only states that refused to recognize the Eastern Roman Empire as the Roman Empire were the states that were descended from the German invaders and that was because they wanted to claim the Roman mantle for themselves. All of Islam called the East Romans, Rum. As did all of the rest of the world when they had contact with them.
Third, the switch to Christianity had already happened by the time of the split in 395.
Fourth, Rome hadn't been the seat of power for many Emperors since before the Third Century Crisis.
Fifth, states lose and gain territory all the time.
Read The New Roman Empire by Anthony Kaldellis. If you want to read more about this.
>the only states that refused to recognize the Eastern Roman Empire as the Roman Empire were the states that were descended from the German invaders and that was because they wanted to claim the Roman mantle for themselves.
Ironically these guys called themselves Holy Roman Empire, it's neither Holy, nor Roman nor an Empire. They're hallucinating hundred of years before AI/LLM.
> All of Islam called the East Romans, Rum
Fun fact there's entire Chapter on Rome in the Quran namely Surah Ar-Rum [1]. In the New Testament Bible there's a section or book called Epistle to the Romans, or the letter of Paul to Roman originally written in Koine Greek [2]. But there's letter of Paul not the word of God or Jesus hence called espistle.
There's also an authentic direct letter from the Prophet Muhammad to the Roman Emperor at the time of Hercules inviting him and his subjects to Islam [3]. Please note that Muhammad cannot read or write hence the letter was written for him as dictated by him [4].
Philadelphia and DC is basically the same place though. Similar to how Babylon, Ctesiphon, etc liked moving around in lower Mesopotamia in the same geography
I always liked to think of empires as being defined by the people of a specific geography, bound by cultural and ideological tenets, making a development which allowed them to extract wealth from elsewhere.
The Northwestern US coast is the seat of the US empire, and is effectively defined by leveraging inward European culture, tech , and populations, to conquer a continent worth of free resources under manifest destiny, which has then scaled to the world.
If the capital moved to New York, the US empire would still be the same; based on the same history, culture, and geographical roots.
If it moved to California or Texas, however, I would consider it a new power entirely. The reasons underpinning the change would inherently make it an empire fuelled by a different history, geography, context in the world, etc, no matter how often people would claim to be a continuation of America.
One of the articles mentioned inscriptions in Coptic, Latin, and Greek. The elites would have spoken both Greek and Latin, I think? Greek was commonly known and used. Caesar, a Very Latin Roman, as he was being murdered in Rome, is conjectured to have spoken Greek to Brutus, another Very Latin Roman.
The notion that people are mostly monolingual, and that language is very closely tied to a cultural identity, is a modern projection (and far from universally true nowadays as well).
Broadly Latin was the main language in the western Roman Empire but educated people would also have spoken Greek, and in the eastern Mediterranean it was reversed (almost everything was done in Greek but Latin was used for official purposes and by educated people).
Coptic is the interesting one though because it's actually the latest version of ancient Egyptian
There are a lot of people who only learned about history through memes or online talking points, but this is one of those things that is passed around that way.
Again, I'm not criticizing that person specifically. They repeated a word that appears in all the articles.
There are two points I was trying to make:
1. At the relevant time, there were no separate Eastern and Western empires, so this city was just Roman, without qualification.
2. Even later, it could just be called Eastern Roman. Calling it Byzantine instead may be a conscious choice to make the Roman-ness disappear. More likely it's just deeply implanted, based on an education that was based on making the Roman-ness disappear. Again, I'm speaking about the general use of the term in all the articles, not by the OP.
Anyway. Even the person in this thread arguing most vehemently for the use of the term Byzantine says it applies to the "latter eastern Roman empire". So it shouldn't be used for this city, since it's neither form the Eastern empire (which, again, did not exist yet) and especially not from its latter period.
can you tell a bit more about how you got scammed? I was in Cairo twice for business and our hosts organized nice trips through the historic sites and new museum. I intend to go there with my family one day
i guess you might be ok if you are cocooned in a safe travel group. I travel more independently, freely and let things come to me. Going on planned group iternary isnt much of an interest for me at the moment.
I absolutely hate tours and being penned in. However, if I see expats or locals in a tour group, it tells me there's some value there I'm missing. Served me well in India and parts of South America, for example.
One common way: you go for a camel ride. The camelier offers a very cheap price. He takes you far out somewhere. You get off for a bit. If you want to get back on to go back, he will overcharge you. Otherwise you walk back and that is worse.
Best way not to get scammed is to hire a tour guide. Best care. Best everything. They will tell you what to watch for. If you love Egyptology like others do, you are going to be in the targeted category for advertisement, souvenirs, and scams.
I haven't been to Egypt and I've heard nothing but bad things from multiple sources. This is the only place in the world where I can say this about. It's really disappointing, as I'd love to see some of the history there.
There's haggling where you actually enjoy the process (i.e. Turkey, visiting the bazaars, you get to haggle, then you get invited for some cay w/ the vendor, talk a bit, that's really enjoyable) and then there's outright scamming. Friend of mine went to Egypt, really wanted to ride a camel. Agreed on a price, rode the camel, and at the end they wouldn't bring the wooden thingy so that he could dismount, and they were asking for more money. That's not enjoyable at all.
I spent 6 weeks in India, mostly for work, but also ventured out quite a bit. I didn't really have any major issues and would go back. That said, I wasn't in any of the major tourist areas. My cousin has also started going there for work more recently and has enjoyed it a lot. I was little more nervous for her as a woman going by herself.
But to your point, when I think about it, I do hear a lot of negative things from others. A lot of people tried to talk me out of going there, but none of them had actually been there. The negative stuff I've heard about Egypt has all been from people who have been there.
I've been to India many times (visiting family) as someone born and raised in America, and most people on the internet have bizarre views on India. I'm someone who is generally 'down' on travel to India because it's just a lot to ingest and I prefer easier places, but I personally would never worry about the sorts of things people online claim. It's not particularly dangerous in terms of violence. Food is amazing obviously. Hotels are out of this world if you're willing to pay the totally normal rates and not stay in hovels -- in fact hospitality is miles ahead of most western countries. Chaotic, loud, dirty at times, sure. You have to be used to seeing visible, sometimes shocking, poverty. And of course, if you don't know the local language and are not traveling with someone who is, it can be even more overwhelming. But I mean people are nice, and in some places, it's really nice and there are even some places I've been where I could see the appeal of living there.
I think India tends to defy common categorization. It's a developing country, but also quite advanced in many ways. Certain things work better. Trains are great. Metros are now really nice. Payment is great. They mostly do their own thing and it seems to be working for them.
To be totally honest, a lot of the India negging is from accounts associated with 'rival' countries. This has become more obvious as places like X have started showing the origins of many accounts. And before people start bringing up caste or whatever to explain my neutral-to-positive disposition towards the country, my 'community' in India is technically an 'otherwise backwards class', so it's not like I'm basing this based off of my family's non-existent wealth. By far, I'd rather stay in actual accommodations in India rather than with family because the accommodations are legit nice, and staying with family can be really hit or miss.
The problem with India is hygiene, not so much safety. The food might be great but you're practically guaranteed to get Delhi-Belly. I visited for work years ago, didn't eat any street food and was still taken out of action for 3 days. Rubbish is strewn everywhere, any standing water stinks. I don't think visiting again is worth the risk.
Every Indian I've ever met has been lovely though (except for the ones who try to scam call my mother)
But like you said, if it works for them who am I to disagree.
Can confirm... Was flying back home and during a layover in Mumbai I grabbed some food from the food court. It was only after having sat down and eaten most of my food when I noticed that there were pigeons roosting directly above where my meal was purchased from, with their poop stains dribbling down the raised walls directly above the food. That was a particularly rough set of flights back home, but I lucked out and had a fairly empty flight for one leg of it that offered a full row of empty seats for me to lay down in and disassociate from the pain on.
(for anyone who is unaware, the airports - the ones I passed through, at least - in India are fairly open air, so birds were a common sight within them)
I think it was Anthony Bourdain who said pretty accurately that it's far safer to eat street food than restaurant food as street food is freshly cooked, hot and instantly sold while restaurant food might be sitting in a broken fridge over a weekend.
For me, it was really the water that was problematic, as opposed to the food.
On my first visit, I was careful about the water I drank, but not very careful about other ingestion, and I got TD about halfway through the trip.
On the next visit, I was careful to keep my mouth closed while showering, and only use bottled water to clean my toothbrush, etc. Everyone else on the trip, eating the same food, got sick, but I didn't.
This is of course anecdata, but generally food, especially cooked food, is more likely to be safe.
A friend - female, white, blonde - while in india on a business trip had to deal with inapprorpaite behavior including individuals visibly touching themselves inappropriately...not my jam.
Any well-travelled guy is familiar with women who ask them to pretend to be married to allow them to escape constant, occasionally dangerous male pestering. In Turkey, I even met a woman who carried fake wedding bands for this purpose. We hung out for a few days as a “married” couple so she could get relief from the constant harassment.
I was asked to do that in my hometown with a girl I had never met before. It’s not only tourists, and it’s not only in foreign places.
BTW, that girl had to be 5% handsy with me to sell the lie, and when I met her real boyfriend that same night, he pretended to be royally pissed for five seconds and I was so scared. He laughed it off. Good guy.
Italy was it for me. The train station in Rome was crazy. And just Venice in general. I was probably just in the touristy areas, but it was definitely the most hardcore non-stop street scamming I'd been around.
I was just in Rome last year. The only place I really ran into issues was outside the Coliseum. I just said “huh” and mumbled “I don’t know” to every question until they went away. “Where are you from?” “I don’t know.” I think they just thought I was an idiot, or had very limited English, which is fine by me.
I was told later by a guide that if you say “no, grazie” in a semi-convincing Italian, they’d assume you’re local and leave you alone.
That's weird because in Venice I never had a single problem, didn't feel scammed or anything, ate in very nice restaurants (I do avoid the tourist shops and restaurants though) and the people in general were nice. I almost felt at home, and many shopkeepers even spoke French, maybe better than English (I am French). I don't think anybody in the street accosted me at all, anyway. I'd go back without any hesitation.
Rented a car out of Munich and they forbade me from driving it to Italy. Said thieves are too common to risk driving, even in northern Italy. Train was simple enough though.
As a White western with the obvious means to travel, I feel like they (tours in just about every second and third world country) look at me as if I am an ATM machine and they just need to figure out the PIN that will cause the money to come out.
I don't take it personally. Just pressing forward mumbling "no thank you" seems to work okay.
At one ancient temple in India I did hire a young kid to drive all the other entrepreneurs away cuz it was so bad. I don't remember the insignificant amount I gave him but I'm pretty sure it was enough to feed himself and his family for a few days.
Egypt in Egyptian hands outperforms Roman ruins under European urban development, Native architecture under US expansion, Aboriginal sites under Australian settlement
Egypt is amazing if you have locals to show you around. If you wander up to the pyramids in your shorts with your camera…yeah, you might be swarmed a bit. Weird how economic collapse makes people kinda desperate.
I had one of the most magical meals in a street that had been mostly taken over by one restaurant - all the bread baked in one shop, the meat all butchered there…just amazing.
The people who I saw get scammed were, well, people who would get scammed in a lot of places without a Walmart.
Came for this, thanks. I try everything I can not to read the Daily Heil, whose politics haven't really shifted that much since Harold Harmsworth used it to push his propaganda for Hitler.
Amusing how every single article is exactly the same rehashed press release with no additional content.
There's not even any maps anywhere.
Wonder how aggressively Egypt are on manoeuvres trying to claw back tourism. Would help if they opened up the desert roads so travelling the western deserts was actually viable as a ring route.
Quite incredible how you can search for this information and it's all just the same article with the same pictures. No maps or anything.
>Lost city discovered beneath Egypt's desert
Sounds incredibly misleading, as if some long lost civ is rising from sand dunes, lol. As far as I'm aware, there have just been ruins uncovered (which look like 6 rooms on the pictures) at Dakhla Oasis, and the site is very obvious on Google Maps.
> During this period, from the late fourth to the mid-seventh century AD, Christianity became the dominant religion, towns expanded across the country and Egypt served as one of the empire's richest provinces.
It's easy to forget how different the Middle East looked before the conquest of Islam starting in 600 AD.
Not just Islamic conquest but Arab conquest. Up to this point Arabs lived mainly in, well, Arabia. The indigenous peoples of Egypt, Syria, Iraq, etc..., were all non-Arab. Nowadays those indigenous groups are known as Copts, Syriacs, Chaldeans, etc...
Local populations adopted Arabic. Somewhat like, several centuries earlier, they adopted Greek; and elsewhere and at other times, Latin. The peoples of the regions were not replaced by Greek or Roman colonists.
Legitimate question, in the early days was this a large distinction? Specifically, my understanding was that the earliest raids where this distinction is most accurate, they didn't actually change the local societies much. Mostly were raids for resources and did not stay.
That is, until the Islamic raids started, the indigenous groups took losses, but were not nearly as transformed. Is that not accurate?
Well, the distinction mattered. But because the distinction mattered, the modern labels aren't really accurate.
Arabs were the highest-prestige ethnicity within their empire. But they were numerically insignificant. You have "Arabs" and "Copts" in Egypt today, but most of the "Arabs" are Copts whose ancestors decided they wanted more respect. Same thing is true farther west, where the "Arabs" are Berbers.
We call Arabic speakers “Arabs” but there wasn’t that much genetic replacement.
85% of Egyptians have some Arab DNA. Only 15% don't have Arab DNA.
Even if the amount of DNA only adds up to 20% of their mix (the average), it's still very significant.
Isn't this fuelling the conflict in Darfur? UAE-backed Arabs trying to muscle out the Africans?
And indigenous groups in France (just to use an example) are called Occitans, Bretons, Catalonians, Flemish, Alsatians, Corsicans, etc., etc. This isn't a unique phenomenon.
Flemish, Alsatians and Corsicans are literally Dutch, German and Italian, who are just part of France due to recent history. Occitans and Catalans are near Spain.
Bretons are Celts just like Gauls, whom you missed. You also missed other Celtic groups. And they (Celts) were the majority before invasions, still the majority.
Indigenous doesn't mean minority, it means the original inhabitants.
>It's easy to forget how different the Middle East looked before the conquest of Islam starting in 600 AD.
it naturally looked differently due to different climate. For example there was booming agriculture in Carthage back then - modern Tunisia. The climate warming during the first millennia made Mediterranean Basin less grain-production and animal farming suitable while more suitable for the nomadic Arabs riding out of Arabia. That warming also made life more convenient (in particular conditions became much better for agriculture, the backbone of the civilization) in the previously cold and swampy Mid and North Europe where as a result we see the wave of rise of the civilization.
Coincidentally, we have Caliphates decline and Reconquista happening when the climate started to cool down toward the Little Ice Age. The map of Reconquista looks like a geographical climate regions map https://stuffedeyes.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/what-was-... (compare to https://www.spanish-town-guides.com/photo/spain_climate_map....)
Islam has sure done a number on cultural diversity in the world.
It's such a shame that the various cultural holdouts in the Middle East never get much attention when they're systematically wiped off the map.
The Mandaeans in the marshes near Basra will probably be next to disappear into the sands of time. Not even a whisper in the media.
Oil sure has a way of drowning out 'human rights' in conversation.
Try reading about Kafiristan, where primitive Hinduism (think Rig Veda) survived for 3500 years before being wiped out in the 1890s by a British-appointed Islamic despot.
Always amazed me how the Kalash in Chitral Valley have managed to peacefully get on with things. I guess the terrain helps.
I always like to think how the region would've looked if all these remnants of peoples had thriving nations.
Christianity is no different.
Please educate yourself more on this. Step out of your bubble. Christian nations have created the cultural and technical achievements over the last thousands of years. There is nothing even remotely comparable.
The subject wasn't the creation of technology, it was the propensity of theocracies to beat the native out of natives.
eg: https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2021/sep/06...
Isn't Canada a secular state? I think the grandparents point was to separate plain old xenophobia from religiously motivated erasure of culture.
The Vatican is a theocratic state, Catholic churches, schools, etc are effective theocracies.
There's a long list of questionable behaviour, eg. enslavement for Jesus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1838_Jesuit_slave_sale
There are more people enslaved now than at any point in time in history. Guess the countries.
There are more people now than at any point in time in history.
Meanwhile, in history, religions enslaved people.
Returning to the point you keep dodging, that includes Christians.
I don't believe in the original sin of slavery in Western countries. Slavery has been existed for centuries before and, despite being abolished by Western countries (hint: there were several wars were people lost lives), still exists in China, India, Indonesia, and a large group of Arab countries.
> I don't believe in the original sin of slavery in Western countries.
I have no idea what that sentence is specifically meant to mean, that aside, western countries have had actual slavery and effective slavery both in the past and the present.
eg: Past & actual: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1838_Jesuit_slave_sale
'Present' (Post WWII) & effective: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-27/child-abuse-royal-com...
I don't mean to exclusively beat on Christians or just Catholics here; but I do intend to counter your apparent narrative of good Christians and evil Muslims.
Christians certainly diminished a lot of cultures, just as other religions also did - the initial point that started this above.
Slavery has not been abolished in the West. It has just been put behind walls that the general public do not usually care to see.
Capitalist countries all of them.
The USA has the world's greatest for-profit prison slave system in existence.
There has never been as many slaves in humanity as there are in the US' prisons.
What's that? Oh, they don't count because they're criminals?
Yet these are not the same. One is a backward medieval deathcult, the other creates the finest achievements of humanity. These are not the same.
Be fair now, the Catholic Church hasn't always and consistently been a backward medieval deathcult - there have been periods of non Crusading, non Inquisition, not slaughtering Cathars, not trading in babies, etc.
What a dumb argument. Over the millennia Christian theocracy has been a net benefit to the world. There is a reason why the world wants to live in Christian countries and not in Muslims countries. And its not for the food.
Again, Christians have been just as appalling as any other religion.
They've killed, enslaved, done their best to eliminate cultures, railed against miscegenation, etc.
Not sure why you're working so hard to pretend o/wise.
To be fair in addition to the uncountable horrible things it did or took part in the Catholic church did build the foundations that allowed the concepts of modern scientific thought to develop. No other religion did that.
And they burned quite people for defending the science that went against their beliefs. They only stopped when they thought it would be good for their economic profits. Exactly the same when they stopped protecting slavery, when they thought it would be good as they would get a lot of new followers and all the money and influence that would come with them.And all the fights that gave birth to the other Christian churches always for the same reasons power and money.
Well yes it’s relative. However the Church in the 1400s to 1600s or so was generally very permissive of scientific debate and not strictly dogmatic. See Galileo’s story, the issue is that when they rejected something (based on a reasonably valid scientific process albeit based on flawed evidence available at the time) that was kind of it and continued to challenging the consensus got you into some deep trouble (with a few exceptions).
One interesting thing is that in the 1400s open debate and heterodoxy was generally tolerated or even accepted IF you did it in Latin and only inside the “international scholar network” that existed at the time and didn’t go around preaching your ideas to peasants and such.
I’m certainly not implying that it was in any way good or let alone perfect in absolute terms, just that it.
> same reasons power and money.
That’s highly reductive
> nd they burned quite people for defending the science that went against their beliefs
much less than the alternatives. muslims killed anyone who did not convert in case you did not know
Oh playing the old game of "you more" , we're not debating which belief is more savage than the other, all of them are, we're pointing out that the followers of the supposedly all loving version of a god killed,should we say assassinated, lots of people just because their discoveries did not fit in their stories books.
Its been the most anti-slavery religion and was the main motivation for the abolition of slavery. There is no Christian objection to 'miscegenation' and its a weird concept only taken up in America and a few other places like South Africa during apartheid, and it owes more to race science than Christianity.
Yet Christians had no problems taking, owning an selling slaves on an industrial scale for 100s of years. Their book even includes an ownership guide. And then you want a gold star for stopping what you created? The theocratic mind is laughable.
Like the rest of the world. Since there are many non-Western countries that still have slaves there is no original sin.
> Their book even includes an ownership guide.
You mean the books of the Bible containing rules explicitly rejected by Christians from the start? The rules that Jesus is recorded as saying was a moral compromise? You are also conveniently skipping over the declarations of equality (with regard to slavery, race and sex) in the New Testament.
That's the thing, there's something about just about everything that can be interpreted in either direction. But christians are just humans, we do these things. The problem I have is when christians pretend they are better and always were because their new interpretation of some text. American slavery being a great example of this as the bible was just to both justify and in abolishment. And as usual, its all about what parts we currently like while ignoring the others.
> Its been the most anti-slavery religion and was the main motivation for the abolition of slavery.
Which branch of Christianity though? There was a huge disparity in approaches in new england colonies (ie rhode island thought the indigenous should have rights, Massachusetts couldn't give a shit about anyone other than the elected.)
A lot of the english abolitionists were radicals, well outside the mainstream. The Quakers, Methodists, shakers were all deeply scary to the establishment
> Again, Christians have been just as appalling as any other religion
that is an opinion devoid of good arguments. humans under christianity have fared much better than any other kind of religion
The reason is, those Christian countries tend only to bomb the Muslim ones, creating 34 million refugees from the Wests' illegal wars.
They're not coming to America for the strip malls and endless commutes. They're coming to America because America demolished their civilization.
Both are backward medieval deathcults to atheists.
atheists put in place MAID which is in itself a deathcult
Why are you complaining? Isn't it great that you get to meet your maker earlier?
But one couldbuild societies and institutions that made it fade into the background the other did not
Thousands of years… christian nations… educate yourself… hmm
And without the Muslims maintaining the Greek and Roman texts, that would've taken far longer. Even algebra and algorithm come from Muslim names.
The Roman/Byzantine empire was pretty much destroyed by Muslims, though. Its a but like thanking the Franks/Goths/etc. for preserving Roman cultural identity in Western Europe by preserving some of their texts..
Mostly enslaved yehudi and persian scholars..
I love hearing the guys from The Rest Of History discuss this from their different perspectives!
I wouldn't thank Christianity for the scientific advancements of the West, except maybe for protestant work ethic. Science only started to flourish when Catholic church started to lose power, and religion became a bit more separated from law and politics.
Best religion for progress of humanity is the one that embraces work, tells people to treat each other fairly, and otherwise keeps its hands off from irrelevant details of people's lives - things like what consenting adults do in bed, what they eat or drink, what they can or can't say.
Unfortunately Christians have been historically way too focused on the bad parts while ignoring the good parts, leading to madness like wars between Catholics and Protestants and discrimination of minorities. Think of the current conservative elite in America for example - it's hard to find people who are further away from teachings of Jesus Christ than those greedy, hateful idiots.
More like the last 500 years. Before that the cultural and scientific centers of the world were variously in muslim, hindu, chinese, roman and other civilizations.
I didn't claim otherwise. Thankfully Enlightenment values cleaned things up a little.
In the current day, I just find it very worrying when you line up a map of global conflicts and where Islam is thriving.
Which Enlightenment values? Racism? Sexism? Colonialism?
Translating the arabic texts of science (either copied and expanded from greek, latin and other places, or new research) and claiming that it was widom of the ancients?
What about Ukraine, Venezuela, North Korea, Taiwan, Panama, Greenland, Congo, Mexico, El Salvador, ...
How many of those global conflicts are being fuelled, driven or outright perpetrated by western countries?
To be fair for the most part Christianity didn’t spread top down through violent conquest (obviously with some huge exceptions) at least in the Middle East and surrounding regions. Also it’s historically better at integrating local cultural practices and languages.
Unlike Islam which which usually wiped out local cultural and linguistic identities (during the periods of Arab conquests, that shifted quite a but later on of course)
Well the crusades, northern crusades and most of imperialism.
For the most part it's enough to conquer a place. People below the timing elite would switch religions as it would be beneficial for them, and eventually trickle down to peasants and such.
> Crusades
Many of the regions they invaded were still (or until quite recently) majority Christian. After all initially it was a defensive relief expedition organized by the pope and the Byzantine emperor to free the territories the empire lost in Anatolia very recently. Of course it was massively more successful than anyone anticipated and they just kept on going and then the whole thing got “slightly” out of hand..
But yes, as I said there were some huge exceptions. However early on the way Christianity spread was fundamentally different to Islam. It was usually not through violent conquest but bottom up.
European imperialism was quite mixed as well. Christianity played a huge part in the Spanish conquests of the Americas. Much less so in British India and other similar places.
Very peaceful when you convienently ignore all the violence.
Northern crusades were extremely bloody and defeated people would accept baptism or be executed.
Charlemange was more of the same deal.
Catholic church left pagans to their own devices?
Christian history is littered with these examples, it has not been a peaceful religion since it merged with Roman society. The only real good examples you could have are missionaries and top down conversion as kings and such voluntarily switched religions.
I'm Just looking at the rich indigenous culture and languages of the US and how widespread and celebrated it is.
thats why all the signs in downtown Manhattan are in Munsee....
Did you just hand wave off the crusades?
And when you say “historically better at integrating local cultural practices”, India, China and Australia, would like a word with you. Holy shit you should just delete your account right now
Christianity was very different, and the evidence for that is undeniable and gigantic. The fruits of diversity within christendom is offered in great treasure heaps within science, music, art, philosophy, theology, lifestyles, ways of worship, mysteries of the faith, and culture in general.
Christianity merged with local cultures, removing some aspects and adding some aspects.
Hang on a tick, who made the oil valuable and happily pays for it while turning a blind eye?
It doesn't absolve those who commit the atrocities, even if there are externalities involved. It's not always the White Man's fault - neither in Africa nor the Middle East. We can and should hold the societies in those places to a certain global standard of conduct.
Whose standard of conduct should the cultures you deem inferior be held to, exactly?
That's an easy one - to the same standard we hold Israel. No more, no less.
Hell no, that's ridiculous. Israel is a wholesale violator of human rights at massive scale, along with its criminal 5-eyes cronies, and it is in the midst of an imperialist genocide, murdering children every single day. If a state cannot defend itself against children, it is failed and should be refactored by its citizens, immediately and with haste.
We also strike the USA off the list, which cannot even take care of its peoples' most basic needs.
Switzerland. The answer you're looking for, is Switzerland. /s
>Islam has sure done a number on cultural diversity in the world.
So has Christianity and Capitalism.
And then there's math.
Yes, that's definitely done a few numbers.
Whataboutism
No, "so-has'ism". Not whataboutism.
There is a certain irony in your comment written in English posted on July 11, the 2026th year of Our Lord (though not mine), according to the Gregorian calender (named after Pope Gregory XIII who issued the papal bull that ordained said calendar) at 03:42:12, Universal Standard Time (the local time in London, United Kingdom). And the fact that i am reading this comment in the weekend (the Christian and Jewish days of Sabbath) and replying in similar fashion, (which is mostly historically rooted in the fact that these customs and culture were originally imposed on my country, India by our conquerors, than because it won out in some nebulous contest in the marketplace of ideas)
> It's easy to forget how different the Middle East looked before the conquest of Islam starting in 600 AD.
It’s easy to forget because it’s a fabricated perspective. Islamic/Arabian conquest of MENA isn’t really that different from what Romans or Persians did. That region is literally the source of human civilization (in the Old World at least) and had seen empires come and go ever since the Bronze Age, and along with them all sorts of cultures and religions. What fundamentally changed the dynamics of the region is not the islamic conquest but the shift of the center of the global trade away from Middle East and the Mediterranean to the Western Europe.
It is somewhat different. Romans or Greeks didn’t really violently impose their culture, religion and language to a comparable degree. Without the Islamic invasions Egyptian would likely still be speaking Coptic these days.
That's not exactly true. Spain, Portugal and France, at least, speak languages derived from Latin, while the original languages went extincted. And Christian religion taken by the Romans annihilated all the rest of religions in Europe.
> And Christian religion taken by the Romans
It was not taken by the Romans. It was persecuted by the Romans for nearly 300 years.
In the beginning it prosecuted the Christians but later the Roman empire embraced Christianity and imposed all through the empire. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_as_the_Roman_stat...
i’m no apologist for christian history but you are both dancing around the nuances to make your own respective points. both things can be true but they require a lot of words: the roman republic, and subsequent empire were happy to allow conquered peoples to maintain their own ways of life as long as a few basic (in their estimation) requirements were met (taxes, fealty, etc). it was ripe for corruption to the conquered peoples tended to rebel and they got put down with severe violence
christianity offered a unifying thematic message and de facto polity under which constantine believed he could more effectively maintain power and peace. this system was ripe for corruption but now the people are generally kept in line by the conflation of church and state.
islam arises primarily as a repudiation of polytheism and what is perceived as loose monotheism and nonviolently sweeps through the area quickly.
regional leaders quickly learn the same lesson that constantine learned and use islam to prevent rebellion and exert control, with the added lesson learned that it’s best to just ensure everyone follows the same code from the start so that you don’t have to do a lot of political cleanup in the transition to a new belief system.
fractured “european” leaders realize how much power they’ve lost and decide that they should unify under the christian brand to go take back their power.
and the cycle goes on and on
Yeah, also it was the way it happened, we should not judge those times with our vision of things, different times, different values. All religions are a form of control over the peasants, Islam grew and evolved in an area with a set of political and social characteristics and Christianity the same but different ones and that's why you find the differences and the same reason that Islam and Christianity split in several branches. And you can see east Europe went Orthodox, South Europe went Catholic and North went Protestant, add to that the fights for the power.
> islam arises primarily as a repudiation of polytheism and what is perceived as loose monotheism
I doubt that “repudiation” of said things was the main driver.
I’m pretty sure by 600ad Rome was pretty solidly Christian (or at elite levels, perhaps secular), what other gods did exist were folk/syncretistic practices, which also existed in Islam (sufis, Zoroastrian stuff, gnostic stuff etc) and which still existed today in Christianity (in the Philippines, the Caribbean, Africa, etc)
Well yes it highly varied. However Romans were generally more motivated by plunder and subsequent economic exploitation. To an extent they didn’t really suppress local cultural practices or imposed forced assimilation in cases where it didn’t conflict with that and even often allowed alternative power structures to exist. Assimilation largely happened over time and was mostly voluntary. To be fair gradual voluntary conversion to Islam to enhance your social/economic status was the main mechanism in the Muslim empires as well. However in Rome the transition wasn’t as binary and “multiculturalism” was much more tolerated. Also Romans were way more open to integrating and assimilating foreign cultures and practices (which is why the Roman Empire eventually turned into a “Greek Empire”) what being a “Roman” meant was way more malleable and flexible than being a Muslim.
Weren't all the conquered obliged to worship the emperor along with their own gods?
No. Jews didn’t, f.e.
And if the British hadn't conquered and exploited my country, modern India wouldn't have been an impoverished country that is now a developing nation whose identity and culture has been forever changed due to European imperialism. The Islamophobia (and the general lack of respect for most non-western cultures) in this discussion is based on real ignorance:
1. There are indeed many things to admire about the west. However, for all the cultural and scientific advancement made by the west, westerners choose to ignore that the backbone of the current western "empire" was also built on the knowledge and wealth you looted from other non-western empires. The reason that you are now the most "developed" nation is because you now follow the same political pattern as all the "superpower" empires of their time - you hoard the wealth and knowledge now, and deny it to others. (Please read about the The fate of the Library of Alexandria - https://www.britannica.com/topic/Library-of-Alexandria/The-f... to understand, for one, how much knowledge was created, collated and valued in the eastern cultures - even by the "barbarian" muslim empires.)
(I know there have been books written in the west trying to justify that slavery and imperialism isn't why the west are wealthy. I partially agree with some points in them but disagree that the wealth that you stole was inconsequential. If the west truly believes that the wealth stolen from us wasn't what made your economies rich, but only your own culture and ingenuity, why don't you repatriate that amount that was diverted to your economy and actually test that theory? Mughal India, for example was one of the richest economies that accounted for 24% of the world GDP - https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5724162 - before the British conquered and transferred most of that wealth to enrich itself).
2. Many of you pretend (or rather seek comfort in the idea) that State violence of ancient non-western empires is something cultural to only non-western cultures. That western / Christian nations are more "peaceful" by nature. A study of the history of crusades, and western imperialism, should immediately dismiss that notion. (Shamefully, even today, many western nations sponsor and support the ethnic cleansing and genocide of native populations by your allies in Africa and the middle-east).
3. Some of you resort to selectively applying modern cultural perceptions to criticise historical societies. That is not how history is studied - one strives to understand history based on the cultural contexts of their period.
E.g. Prophet Muhammad didn't marry a 9 or 10 year old Ayesha because he liked to diddle young girls. During his time, puberty was treated as someone entering adulthood. While marriages may be arranged between pre-pubescent kids, it was only after they had reach puberty that they were allowed to consummate the marriage. Marriage to Ayesha was also political - Muhammad was actually forced to marry someone from every tribal leader's family as that was the diplomatic equivalent of establishing a political alliance during his time! (That is why he is an exception to the rule that a muslim can only have up to 4 wives). Note that even before Muhammad, Mary, mother of Christ, was considered eligible to be married to Joseph (an old man, past his middle-age) when she turned 12. She was still a teenager when she became pregnant ( https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/12317/is-th... ) - is Christ's father / God a paedophile too? By today's modern standard, you would say yes, that's ephebophilia.
The nomenclature of "Child marriage" or even "teen marriage" is a modern cultural phenomenon because of the advancement we have made in understanding our own biology (i.e. reproductive systems) and our changing moral and cultural norms on the ideas of sexuality. Despite this, note that most of the world still can't agree on a universal age of consent or marriage. For example, Japan only recently raised the minimum age of consent for sex from 13 to 16 ( https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/83755/why-was-t..., while in some parts of the US, an adult can still marry a teenager with the consent of their parents ( https://www.unchainedatlast.org/child-marriage-in-the-u-s/ )! My own grandparents were only 13 and 9 when they were married in the 1920's, a really common practice in India until the late 20th century, till it was made illegal and is nearly abolished now.
4. Some of you resort to judging other cultures by the worst members of their community. How would the west like it if only the Nazis were considered as their true representatives, and were solely judged based on their ideology?
There is a certain irony in your comment written in English posted on July 11, the 2026th year of Our Lord (though not mine), according to the Gregorian calender (named after Pope Gregory XIII who issued the papal bull that ordained said calendar) at 08:34:41, Universal Standard Time (the local time in London, United Kingdom). And the fact that i am reading this comment in the weekend (the Christian and Jewish days of Sabbath) and replying in similar fashion, (which is mostly historically rooted in the fact that these customs and culture were originally imposed on my country, India by our conquerors, than because it won out in some nebulous contest in the marketplace of ideas)
Ah yea, Christianity, famous for spreading around the Middle East via the sword.
None of the previous empire changes led to the population replacement. Islamic expansion (colonisation, conquest) brought Arabs and their way of life everywhere.
You can see the cultural differences though. One culture has the ability to pool finances and invest its way out of crisis. The other invests it all into exponential humans and conflict. Ideal for spreading in squalid, burned down conditions, non-ideal, when more then spreading is in your definiton of what humanity should strife for.
> pool finances and invest its way out of crisis. The other invests it all into exponential humans and conflict
As an American, I am left wondering which side is us.
You're gonna have to be more specific. which religion, and what time are you insinuating for spreading in "spreading in squalid, burned down conditions"
You had one group of people who believed in God that were completely wiped out by another who also believed in the same God.
Two, don't forget the jews.
Allahu akbar = (Our) God is greater
It's true that Islam is a Christian heresy but to be fair, Islam tries to be it's own State Religion only for the Arabs. So in that sense it's not the same God since they don't believe in the Trinity.
Incorrect translation, Allahu Akbar means “the god is the greatest”
Allah is not a name that came with Islam but existed before, it just means deity. the Al prefix is the definite singular form. It just says one thing: god is a singleton and nothing is above it.
No, the correct translation is "God is greater". And it was used as a war chant against Christians.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DKCx0JHzPs2/
When Indian army regiments, with predominantly Sikh soldiers, fight any army, they rally themselves for battle with cries of "Wahe Guru ki Khalsa, Wahe Guru ki Fatah" (which roughly translates to "[We] the pure are of the almighty, and the triumph in making is also of the almighty). Pakistani army, predominantly Muslim soldiers, do use the rallying cry of "Allahu Akbar". It's debatable whether these chants are meant more for themselves, than directed at their "enemies".
Fun fact - not every Christian sect believes in the trinity.
Another fun fact, the Jewish God and the Christian God are the same… it’s just that the Jewish God didn’t have a son who was also himself that killed himself only to resurrect himself negating the sacrifice
Completely wiped out? Christian copts were the majority for more than a century after Egypt became under Islamic rule, the shift took centuries of immigration and fertility rate changes. Many churches still stands in Egypt where they were before Islamic rule.
The copts themselves welcomed Islamic conquest as Muslims gave them more rights than previous rulers.
https://www.britannica.com/place/Egypt/From-the-Islamic-conq...
You are attempt to disguise your hate as history is a failure.
I’m not OP but to say Your article is incomplete and washed. It makes no mention of the jizya, Janissary, of slavery, persecution, or rape. Read a history book written by a copt like Sword & Scimitar and then look at the references. He references the Muslim sources themselves. Determine the truth from that. The west keeps washing the truth
The older I get, the closer in time these ancient civilizations become. It's really not that many lifetimes away.
It's stunning the progress humans have made since then.
What progress are you referring to? The shiny blinky things that scroll across our screens while the poor stay poor, war rages everywhere and the internet is overwhelmed with fake AI generated content.
The more I look back into history, the more I realise that besides the sparkling blinky-blinky gadgets, we have made no progress at all - on a species level. We’re still living in caves, we’re still believe in God myths that make no sense and let ourselves be blindly led by folks who claim legitimacy because they won voter approval based on the lies they told.
No, for me progress is a fiction invented in hollywood or silicon valley. Real progress would be understanding our place in the universe, understanding that we are one of many species with which we share this planet, that we don’t have the right to strip clear the planet for our sole benefit. And that shiny bits of metal or bits of paper with numbers and faces on them aren’t important and most certainly won’t help us achieve true progress.
We put humans on the moon and we've seen the first galaxies ever born
Can there be peace and progress.. where a hockeystick meets a horizontal line? Why demand the impossible?
A Byzantine lost city around the year 400 CE.
Not singling you out, all the articles do it, but: Strange to call this Byzantine. The coins found are from the reign of Constantius II, who at times ruled the whole empire alone (as did his successor Julian). The idea that the East, even when administered separately, was some foreign/"Byzantine"/not-really-Roman "other" was invented much later.
Yes, invented much later, but the expression of a different power structure that those types of Romans felt was not present. But to our modern eyes it was. Hell, the mere fact the centre of power was in Constantinople and not Rome is proof enough that they were distinct.
Proof to your modern eyes. Not to the eyes of those who also called Constantinople "New Rome", and who called themselves Romans even 1000 years later.
Many Western polities have sought the title of the Roman Empire and the legitimacy it endows. Constantine split the empire, and Constantius II did not rule over Rome (or many other parts of the empire). Is it even reasonable to assert it was still the Roman Empire after the fracture?
Is it legitimate for the Eastern Roman Empire to claim the legacy? I think so, and I think they have among the best arguments for it. Conversely it is also legitimate to note the major differences between the two and the fact that discontinuities do exist.
"Constantine split the empire" is just incorrect. There were co-emperors with regional responsibilities both before and after him. They were co-emperors of one empire. If you want a firm split, 395 (death of Theodosius) is the more common date AFAIK.
I'm not denying that gradually, over well more than a thousand years, the empire (only surviving in the East) changed character in many ways. I am denying that a unique Eastern character sprang up (and immediately applied to Egypt) the moment that Constantinople was founded.
Also worth noting that Roman tradition was for two Consuls at a time.
You're correct, I'm mistaken that Constantine split the empire. That being said I think there are some semantics as far as "co-emperors with regional responsibilities" being in a single polity or separate polities.
I do agree with you that there was no instantaneous Eastern character that sprang up out of nowhere.
They actually called themselves Ῥωμαῖοι, not Romani, and not every description needs to be emic. There's nothing wrong with the label "Byzantine" except to Byzaboos.
So I shouldn't call them Romans, since that is an English translation of what they called themselves, and thus foreign to them.
But you can call them Byzantines, an English term invented in the 19th century, because... you say so? Thank you, I have been enlightened.
Tell me, do you call people from China Chinese? Japan Japanese? Germany German? If so, you're a hypocrite.
You're also arguing against a strawman. I never said they weren't Roman. I only said there's nothing wrong with Byzantine.
Maybe if you weren't so smugly self-righteous, you'd have better reading comprehension.
Separately, your facts are wrong, because it was centuries before that the word Byzantine was first used to describe this era of the latter eastern Roman empire. Oops, might want to read a book instead of looking at memes.
> Byzaboos
Hey that's fresh. Do they have Hittitomori too?
I'd love to see that! I can't take credit for the term. There are some people who are extreme fans of the Byzantine empire and defend it at every turn. I can kind of get recent history, but being a fanatic about an ancient polity strikes this trained historian as utterly bizarre.
But Wikipedia[0] says Ῥωμαῖοι transliterates to Romaioi, i.e. "Romans".
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_Empire#Nomenclature
You've missed the point.
Because I was too brief while at work before, let me be fuller now: if you were to go back a thousand years and ask about the national characteristic of the emperor of Constantinople, they'd look at you crazy because you spoke English. But your question is laden with several assumptions that are completely foreign to their minds. First, Byzantine is an adjective from Byzantium, the original name of Constantinople. First and foremost, when its used in Classical and Late Antique historiography, it's describing an empire, culture, polity, etc. that centers on Constantinople, rather than other cities of the empire. It is not an ethnic marker. The people at the time would have called themselves Greek, Romans, or Syrians. Second, whether "Romaioi" or "Hellenes" is preferred waxes and wanes depending on what's en vogue at the time. Contrary to the meme, the citizens of Athens did not uniformly call themselves "Romans" (Romaioi) from the 320s onward. Some were, some weren't. What language did they speak? What ethnos, genos were they of? What does Romaioi even really mean? That will yield better answers, but again, it differs based on fashion. Lastly, the very idea of a defined "empire" would be very confusing for the ancients. What is that word? It looks like imperium, but that means domain of rule. It's not limited to those at the helm, who might call themselves imperatores, but also Augusti. It's not like a kingdom encompassing other kingdoms. It's just a modern term given to an ancient reality, with no difference at all to names like Byzantine or even Roman.
See e.g. Lintott on the problems of this terminology:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/greece-and-rome/arti...
This whole "debate" is a charade provided by people who once complained they had to take a humanities class and thereafter were clueless about what real modern historians and philologists were discussing about this period.
"Capital of the Western World for a Cool Thousand Years" (TM)
Russia calls itself a continuation of Rome.
Is the United States become a different entity when it moved its capital between Philadelphia and Washington DC?
It would be like if the US moved the capital to DC, replaced Christianity with Islam, switched English to French, no longer contained NY, Boston, Pennsylvania, and foreign powers stopped calling it the United States.
Its more complicated than you are making it seem. I dont even have a strong opinion on the conclusion but it’s certainly not how you’ve framed it.
It really isn't more complicated. These are mostly the excuses that 19th century Western European scholars used to deny the Eastern Romans their Romanness, because they wanted to place themselves as the inheritors of Rome.
First, The Roman Empire was always bilingual. Greek always held sway over the eastern half and Latin over the western half. Once the west is gone, of course you'll switch to primarily using the language that most use. The Irish didn't stop being Irish because they primarily speak English now, for example.
Second, the only states that refused to recognize the Eastern Roman Empire as the Roman Empire were the states that were descended from the German invaders and that was because they wanted to claim the Roman mantle for themselves. All of Islam called the East Romans, Rum. As did all of the rest of the world when they had contact with them.
Third, the switch to Christianity had already happened by the time of the split in 395.
Fourth, Rome hadn't been the seat of power for many Emperors since before the Third Century Crisis.
Fifth, states lose and gain territory all the time.
Read The New Roman Empire by Anthony Kaldellis. If you want to read more about this.
>the only states that refused to recognize the Eastern Roman Empire as the Roman Empire were the states that were descended from the German invaders and that was because they wanted to claim the Roman mantle for themselves.
Ironically these guys called themselves Holy Roman Empire, it's neither Holy, nor Roman nor an Empire. They're hallucinating hundred of years before AI/LLM.
> All of Islam called the East Romans, Rum
Fun fact there's entire Chapter on Rome in the Quran namely Surah Ar-Rum [1]. In the New Testament Bible there's a section or book called Epistle to the Romans, or the letter of Paul to Roman originally written in Koine Greek [2]. But there's letter of Paul not the word of God or Jesus hence called espistle.
There's also an authentic direct letter from the Prophet Muhammad to the Roman Emperor at the time of Hercules inviting him and his subjects to Islam [3]. Please note that Muhammad cannot read or write hence the letter was written for him as dictated by him [4].
[1] Ar-Rum:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ar-Rum
[2] Epistle to the Romans:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistle_to_the_Romans
[3] The Holy Prophet’s letter to Heraclius:
https://www.alhakam.org/holy-prophets-letter-to-heraclius
[4] Diplomatic career of Muhammad:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomatic_career_of_Muhammad
Philadelphia and DC is basically the same place though. Similar to how Babylon, Ctesiphon, etc liked moving around in lower Mesopotamia in the same geography
I always liked to think of empires as being defined by the people of a specific geography, bound by cultural and ideological tenets, making a development which allowed them to extract wealth from elsewhere.
The Northwestern US coast is the seat of the US empire, and is effectively defined by leveraging inward European culture, tech , and populations, to conquer a continent worth of free resources under manifest destiny, which has then scaled to the world.
If the capital moved to New York, the US empire would still be the same; based on the same history, culture, and geographical roots.
If it moved to California or Texas, however, I would consider it a new power entirely. The reasons underpinning the change would inherently make it an empire fuelled by a different history, geography, context in the world, etc, no matter how often people would claim to be a continuation of America.
Well, probably Greek-speaking rather than Latin-speaking, right? And with that, would there also be some cultural differences?
One of the articles mentioned inscriptions in Coptic, Latin, and Greek. The elites would have spoken both Greek and Latin, I think? Greek was commonly known and used. Caesar, a Very Latin Roman, as he was being murdered in Rome, is conjectured to have spoken Greek to Brutus, another Very Latin Roman.
The notion that people are mostly monolingual, and that language is very closely tied to a cultural identity, is a modern projection (and far from universally true nowadays as well).
Broadly Latin was the main language in the western Roman Empire but educated people would also have spoken Greek, and in the eastern Mediterranean it was reversed (almost everything was done in Greek but Latin was used for official purposes and by educated people).
Coptic is the interesting one though because it's actually the latest version of ancient Egyptian
Sounds like we watched the same Lex interview on Rome...
But he never said Byzantium wasnt Roman?
I get that there is controversy about if Byzantium was Roman. But the person you’re replying to doesn’t seem to be making any claims about that.
There are a lot of people who only learned about history through memes or online talking points, but this is one of those things that is passed around that way.
Again, I'm not criticizing that person specifically. They repeated a word that appears in all the articles.
There are two points I was trying to make:
1. At the relevant time, there were no separate Eastern and Western empires, so this city was just Roman, without qualification.
2. Even later, it could just be called Eastern Roman. Calling it Byzantine instead may be a conscious choice to make the Roman-ness disappear. More likely it's just deeply implanted, based on an education that was based on making the Roman-ness disappear. Again, I'm speaking about the general use of the term in all the articles, not by the OP.
Anyway. Even the person in this thread arguing most vehemently for the use of the term Byzantine says it applies to the "latter eastern Roman empire". So it shouldn't be used for this city, since it's neither form the Eastern empire (which, again, did not exist yet) and especially not from its latter period.
anyone else immediately reminded of this lovecraft tale? https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/nc.aspx
actually it looks like he wrote several stories on this theme: https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/up.aspx
what did H.P. know that we did not??
He was inspired by Iram of the Pillars, which is mentioned in the Quran (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iram_of_the_Pillars). There's an interesting overview of its role in his work here: https://lovecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Irem.
Why are there cities in the desert? Was the climate different? Was there water?
I suppose it's like gradient descent, often times you get stuck in local minima and there is no inertial force to overcome the next peak.
The whole african continent and middle east were much greener back then.
So yes.
I wish I could go back in time and visit to see what it was like.
The Ancient Architects video on YouTube has a quite good summary of the history of this site.
this is amazing. I am ancient egypt nerd but sucks that egypt is in egypt. I got scammed last time i went there and ppl were rude and agrresive.
can you tell a bit more about how you got scammed? I was in Cairo twice for business and our hosts organized nice trips through the historic sites and new museum. I intend to go there with my family one day
Sonny from the "Best Ever Food Review Show" had a similar experience to op. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LzuZrkEY18
https://youtube.com/shorts/iCInGp4cxhc
i guess you might be ok if you are cocooned in a safe travel group. I travel more independently, freely and let things come to me. Going on planned group iternary isnt much of an interest for me at the moment.
I absolutely hate tours and being penned in. However, if I see expats or locals in a tour group, it tells me there's some value there I'm missing. Served me well in India and parts of South America, for example.
for sure. thats how i'd travel in egypt with kids.
One common way: you go for a camel ride. The camelier offers a very cheap price. He takes you far out somewhere. You get off for a bit. If you want to get back on to go back, he will overcharge you. Otherwise you walk back and that is worse.
You're not allowed to notice things.
Best way not to get scammed is to hire a tour guide. Best care. Best everything. They will tell you what to watch for. If you love Egyptology like others do, you are going to be in the targeted category for advertisement, souvenirs, and scams.
I haven't been to Egypt and I've heard nothing but bad things from multiple sources. This is the only place in the world where I can say this about. It's really disappointing, as I'd love to see some of the history there.
The bad things are all true. Scamming people is their default. You can’t trust anyone you haven’t paid.
Eh. I concede that there are a ton of scammers in the tourist areas.
However, I think a lot of people used to the manners of the West really struggle with Egypt’s (admittedly, exhausting) haggling culture.
> haggling culture.
There's haggling where you actually enjoy the process (i.e. Turkey, visiting the bazaars, you get to haggle, then you get invited for some cay w/ the vendor, talk a bit, that's really enjoyable) and then there's outright scamming. Friend of mine went to Egypt, really wanted to ride a camel. Agreed on a price, rode the camel, and at the end they wouldn't bring the wooden thingy so that he could dismount, and they were asking for more money. That's not enjoyable at all.
Yeah, that’s just scamming. Unfortunately, that’s pretty common with the camel vendors.
Since camel rides are almost exclusively bought by tourists, it attracts scammers that see the “customers” as easy marks.
The government won’t do anything about it until it starts negatively affecting the money coming into the country via tourism.
>This is the only place in the world where I can say this about.
Really dude? About India? South America in general, especially Brazil?
I traveled a lot and I love everywhere, everyone and everything buy there are some places that scam 24/7.
I spent 6 weeks in India, mostly for work, but also ventured out quite a bit. I didn't really have any major issues and would go back. That said, I wasn't in any of the major tourist areas. My cousin has also started going there for work more recently and has enjoyed it a lot. I was little more nervous for her as a woman going by herself.
But to your point, when I think about it, I do hear a lot of negative things from others. A lot of people tried to talk me out of going there, but none of them had actually been there. The negative stuff I've heard about Egypt has all been from people who have been there.
I've been to India many times (visiting family) as someone born and raised in America, and most people on the internet have bizarre views on India. I'm someone who is generally 'down' on travel to India because it's just a lot to ingest and I prefer easier places, but I personally would never worry about the sorts of things people online claim. It's not particularly dangerous in terms of violence. Food is amazing obviously. Hotels are out of this world if you're willing to pay the totally normal rates and not stay in hovels -- in fact hospitality is miles ahead of most western countries. Chaotic, loud, dirty at times, sure. You have to be used to seeing visible, sometimes shocking, poverty. And of course, if you don't know the local language and are not traveling with someone who is, it can be even more overwhelming. But I mean people are nice, and in some places, it's really nice and there are even some places I've been where I could see the appeal of living there.
I think India tends to defy common categorization. It's a developing country, but also quite advanced in many ways. Certain things work better. Trains are great. Metros are now really nice. Payment is great. They mostly do their own thing and it seems to be working for them.
To be totally honest, a lot of the India negging is from accounts associated with 'rival' countries. This has become more obvious as places like X have started showing the origins of many accounts. And before people start bringing up caste or whatever to explain my neutral-to-positive disposition towards the country, my 'community' in India is technically an 'otherwise backwards class', so it's not like I'm basing this based off of my family's non-existent wealth. By far, I'd rather stay in actual accommodations in India rather than with family because the accommodations are legit nice, and staying with family can be really hit or miss.
The problem with India is hygiene, not so much safety. The food might be great but you're practically guaranteed to get Delhi-Belly. I visited for work years ago, didn't eat any street food and was still taken out of action for 3 days. Rubbish is strewn everywhere, any standing water stinks. I don't think visiting again is worth the risk.
Every Indian I've ever met has been lovely though (except for the ones who try to scam call my mother)
But like you said, if it works for them who am I to disagree.
Can confirm... Was flying back home and during a layover in Mumbai I grabbed some food from the food court. It was only after having sat down and eaten most of my food when I noticed that there were pigeons roosting directly above where my meal was purchased from, with their poop stains dribbling down the raised walls directly above the food. That was a particularly rough set of flights back home, but I lucked out and had a fairly empty flight for one leg of it that offered a full row of empty seats for me to lay down in and disassociate from the pain on.
(for anyone who is unaware, the airports - the ones I passed through, at least - in India are fairly open air, so birds were a common sight within them)
I think it was Anthony Bourdain who said pretty accurately that it's far safer to eat street food than restaurant food as street food is freshly cooked, hot and instantly sold while restaurant food might be sitting in a broken fridge over a weekend.
I know at least 3 people who got sick from the spicy chicken at KFC in India. It seems like everyone who eats it gets sick.
For me, it was really the water that was problematic, as opposed to the food.
On my first visit, I was careful about the water I drank, but not very careful about other ingestion, and I got TD about halfway through the trip.
On the next visit, I was careful to keep my mouth closed while showering, and only use bottled water to clean my toothbrush, etc. Everyone else on the trip, eating the same food, got sick, but I didn't.
This is of course anecdata, but generally food, especially cooked food, is more likely to be safe.
A friend - female, white, blonde - while in india on a business trip had to deal with inapprorpaite behavior including individuals visibly touching themselves inappropriately...not my jam.
Any well-travelled guy is familiar with women who ask them to pretend to be married to allow them to escape constant, occasionally dangerous male pestering. In Turkey, I even met a woman who carried fake wedding bands for this purpose. We hung out for a few days as a “married” couple so she could get relief from the constant harassment.
I was asked to do that in my hometown with a girl I had never met before. It’s not only tourists, and it’s not only in foreign places.
BTW, that girl had to be 5% handsy with me to sell the lie, and when I met her real boyfriend that same night, he pretended to be royally pissed for five seconds and I was so scared. He laughed it off. Good guy.
I've learnt to be paranoid: marriage can be a scam.
Marriage is a two way street. Well aligned partners - often complimentary opposites - work well.
I’ve been to two cities in Brazil and had no issues whatsoever. I’m sure it happens, but no one tried to rob us or scam us.
Italy was it for me. The train station in Rome was crazy. And just Venice in general. I was probably just in the touristy areas, but it was definitely the most hardcore non-stop street scamming I'd been around.
I was just in Rome last year. The only place I really ran into issues was outside the Coliseum. I just said “huh” and mumbled “I don’t know” to every question until they went away. “Where are you from?” “I don’t know.” I think they just thought I was an idiot, or had very limited English, which is fine by me.
I was told later by a guide that if you say “no, grazie” in a semi-convincing Italian, they’d assume you’re local and leave you alone.
> Venice in general
That's weird because in Venice I never had a single problem, didn't feel scammed or anything, ate in very nice restaurants (I do avoid the tourist shops and restaurants though) and the people in general were nice. I almost felt at home, and many shopkeepers even spoke French, maybe better than English (I am French). I don't think anybody in the street accosted me at all, anyway. I'd go back without any hesitation.
Rented a car out of Munich and they forbade me from driving it to Italy. Said thieves are too common to risk driving, even in northern Italy. Train was simple enough though.
Rental cars are magnets. Never understood why rental companies always put the damn sticker in the car.
Never had a problem in Italy with a +20y old junker car even with swiss plates.
As a White western with the obvious means to travel, I feel like they (tours in just about every second and third world country) look at me as if I am an ATM machine and they just need to figure out the PIN that will cause the money to come out.
I don't take it personally. Just pressing forward mumbling "no thank you" seems to work okay.
At one ancient temple in India I did hire a young kid to drive all the other entrepreneurs away cuz it was so bad. I don't remember the insignificant amount I gave him but I'm pretty sure it was enough to feed himself and his family for a few days.
Yeah. Unfortunately, that’s true of almost any place that is overcrowded to that extent. Their stagnant economy doesn’t help.
What was the scam?
Egypt in Egyptian hands outperforms Roman ruins under European urban development, Native architecture under US expansion, Aboriginal sites under Australian settlement
:^)
Egypt is amazing if you have locals to show you around. If you wander up to the pyramids in your shorts with your camera…yeah, you might be swarmed a bit. Weird how economic collapse makes people kinda desperate. I had one of the most magical meals in a street that had been mostly taken over by one restaurant - all the bread baked in one shop, the meat all butchered there…just amazing. The people who I saw get scammed were, well, people who would get scammed in a lot of places without a Walmart.
... Do we have a better source than Daily Mail?
Here: https://archaeologymag.com/2026/07/byzantine-city-with-writt...
and https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/04/archaeologists...
thank you.
Came for this, thanks. I try everything I can not to read the Daily Heil, whose politics haven't really shifted that much since Harold Harmsworth used it to push his propaganda for Hitler.
Amusing how every single article is exactly the same rehashed press release with no additional content.
There's not even any maps anywhere.
Wonder how aggressively Egypt are on manoeuvres trying to claw back tourism. Would help if they opened up the desert roads so travelling the western deserts was actually viable as a ring route.
Quite incredible how you can search for this information and it's all just the same article with the same pictures. No maps or anything.
>Lost city discovered beneath Egypt's desert Sounds incredibly misleading, as if some long lost civ is rising from sand dunes, lol. As far as I'm aware, there have just been ruins uncovered (which look like 6 rooms on the pictures) at Dakhla Oasis, and the site is very obvious on Google Maps.
Are they speaking about Kellis? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kellis https://maps.app.goo.gl/65daKj9K8qJ35x1c9