Cyprus-Forum.com

[GreekIslandGirl]

So (1) when did this mass conversion take place, (2) why did it take place given that such a bizarre thing has never happened to any other country in the world, (3) and what evidence do you have of it, (4) and finally what are you going to do about 100% Cypriot people like me who deny your shitty allegations?

No "conversion" necessary. I was born here among Greeks. Greek speakers going back several connected generations. With Greek practicing churches built several centuries ago. With Greek writing in records going back thousands of years.

- Agreed some are not Greek. You can feel a "conversion" to whatever you like since you are from abroad. But the majority are the natives who are Greek.

If there were no conversions then what happened to the Cypriots who were around from at least 8,000BC?

Did the earth open up and swallow them?

Explain yourself!

One day we might find out what happened to every single little tribe which inhabited every single corner of the globe. (Chances are those tribes were one original which split and inhabited most areas of this Med. region. Then traded and mixed over the years.) But for now, we know the longest surviving and most impacted culture on this island is that of the Greeks.

only by conquest: see http://www.albany.edu/Jennings_thesis.doc

Overall, the Aegean penetration of Cyprus can best be characterized as a series of movements by Aegean freebooters to a known region where they established themselves a warrior aristocracy. Over time, their language and facets of their culture (including certain of their mortuary practices, their tradition of epic poetry and their self-identification as Greeks) were adopted by the native population, to the point where in the Classical period, with a few exceptions (Amathus, Kition, and perhaps the populace at Idalion), the identity of the island was primarily Greek.
[/quote}
It was conquest event where non greek elements were only finally destroyed in about 320BC by the Ptolomaic invasions

The island was inhabited by Greek-identifying tribes for now > 3,500 years. These tribes continually improved on their practices and it was often out with the old and in with the new. This happened in mainland Greece and all the other Greek islands. None of them remained static. That's why we have so many distinctions in the divisions of Classical Greece (Homeris, pre-Socratic etc)

[GreekIslandGirl]

As I said, if there were little tribes in Cyprus, they branched off from a bigger tribe which 10,000 years ago would have been relatively few people and highly related. So the little tribe in Cyprus, 10,000 years ago, was the same in origin to the little tribes in Greece, Anatolia, Crete, etc etc Their circular huts were every similar for example ...

Little tribes of Cyprus?

And what if I was to tell you that Cyprus’ population was GREATER than that of Greece... two, or three thousand years ago Oracle?

If you look, I also said "little tribes in Greece ....". The optimum village number was estimated at a few hundred and various villages communicated into bigger units and so on. The basic unit was about 200 for most human tribes (all round the world).

[Get Real!]

The island was inhabited by Greek-identifying tribes for now > 3,500 years.

According to a factoid... (<- someone comes up with an idea to fill in the blanks and everyone else says yeah whatever!)

[Hermes]

It was conquest event where non greek elements were only finally destroyed in about 320BC by the Ptolomaic invasions

That was the 19th Century Germanic view of foreign invasion and subjugation. The current view is that it was more likely that the Aegean newcomers didn't come as subjugators - nor did they arrive in large numbers - but they existed alongside the native Cypriots who didn't feel threatened by them. Eventually trading activity between Cyprus and the Aegean became widespread and that ethnic/cultural identity in Ancient Cyprus became quite fluid leading to the Hellenisation of Cyprus not through conquest but through a gradual process of trade and cultural exchange.

[GreekIslandGirl]

It was conquest event where non greek elements were only finally destroyed in about 320BC by the Ptolomaic invasions

That was the 19th Century Germanic view of foreign invasion and subjugation. The current view is that it was more likely that the Aegean newcomers didn't come as subjugators - nor did they arrive in large numbers - but they existed alongside the native Cypriots who didn't feel threatened by them. Eventually trading activity between Cyprus and the Aegean became widespread and that ethnic/cultural identity in Ancient Cyprus became quite fluid leading to the Hellenisation of Cyprus not through conquest but through a gradual process of trade and cultural exchange.

But STUD is aware of this as he knows from examples such as the merchant ship "The Kyrenia" which sailed back and forth (some 80 years before sinking, c. 400BC ) between the mainland and Cyprus with trading goods. Many such ships did the same.

[wyoming cowboy]

George Seferis, Greek Nobel Prize(1963), Literature

«......The land has no metal rings That they may pull it up and carry it away [...] And these bodies Made of a soil they do not know, Have souls. They gather implements that they might change them. They cannot; they can merely undo them If souls can be undone». ("Salamis of Cyprus".)

[Hermes]

On what basis do Greeks have such an inflated sense of their relative importance in the scheme of things? What have they given to the world?

The contribution of the Ancient Greeks to modern western culture is incalculable. The Greeks are in many fundamental ways the key cultural ancestors of the West, particularly in areas such as science, politics, philosophy, art, literature and architecture. What we tend to forget is that their culture was also very different in fundamental ways. For example, many people fail to understand that there was no such thing as an 'Ancient Greece', but lots of different Greek communities and cities - about 1,000 at any one time. Each one of these had its own cultural identity. Greek communities spread from Spain and the south of France to the Black Sea, north Africa, Cyprus and the coast of Asia Minor, linked by language and the concept of the polis, from which we derive 'politics'.

If you are really interested in the enormous legacy of these diverse Greek communities, including the most significant one of Ancient Athens, then there are hundreds of thousands of books and articles you can read. Hundreds of courses you can attend. Looking for answers on such a complex topic from an Internet forum is the worst place to start. All we can do is give you an idea and then you can go off and do the hard part yourself. That is educate yourself so you don't feel the need to ask such an extremely stupid question in future...

[Hermes]

"But I have never gone away from them. How can an educated person stay away from the Greeks? I have always been far more interested in them than in science." - Albert Einstein

[Get Real!]

"But I have never gone away from them. How can an educated person stay away from the Greeks? I have always been far more interested in them than in science." - Albert Einstein

Ever heard of bogus Einstein quotes? There are hundreds and this is one of them!

Unless a quote is accompanied by a source that gives the date and context of the quote it’s bogus.

[Hermes]

Ever heard of bogus Einstein quotes? There are hundreds and this is one of them!

Unless a quote is accompanied by a source that gives the date and context of the quote it’s bogus.

You really should know better, GR. The quote is authentic and comes from a 1948 interview in the New Yorker. Here is the full context:

Dr. Einstein told Niccolo Tucci, who interviewed him for the New Yorker (November 22, 1948). Learning that the physicist spent an hour each evening reading aloud in Sophocles, Thucydides, and Aeschylus, Tucci remarked, "So you too, Herr Professor, have gone back to the Greeks?" Einstein replied:

"But I have never gone away from them. How can an educated person stay away from the Greeks? I have always been far more interested in them than in science."

http://xatl.blogspot.co.uk/2007/09/eins ... ledge.html