Cyprus-Forum.com

[zan]

The story of European civilization really begins on the island of Crete with a civilization that probably thought of itself as Asian (in fact, Crete is closer to Asia than it is to Europe). Around 1700 BC, a highly sophisticated culture grew up around palace centers on Crete: the Minoans. What they thought, what stories they told, how they narrated their history, are all lost to us. All we have left are their palaces, their incredibly developed visual culture, and their records. Mountains of records. For the Minoans produced a singular civilization in antiquity: one oriented around trade and bureaucracy with little or no evidence of a military state. They built perhaps the single most efficient bureaucracy in antiquity. This unique culture, of course, lasted only a few centuries, and European civilization shifts to Europe itself with the foundation of the military city-states on the mainland of Greece. These were a war-like people oriented around a war-chief; while they seemed to have borrowed elements of Minoan civilization, their's was a culture of battle and conquest.


http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/MINOA/MINOANS.HTM

[zan]

A new Cretan insurrection in 1897 led to Turkey declaring war on Greece and defeating it. However, the Great Powers (Britain, France, Italy and Russia) decided that Turkey could no longer maintain control and intervened. Turkish forces were expelled in 1898, and an independent Cretan Republic, headed by Prince George of Greece, was founded. Taking advantage of domestic turmoil in Turkey in 1908, the Cretan deputies declared union with Greece. But this act was not internationally recognized until 1913 after the Balkan Wars. Under the Treaty of London, Sultan Mehmed V relinquished his formal rights to the island. In December, the Greek flag was raised at the Firkas fortress in Chania, with Venizelos and King Constantine in attendance, and Crete was unified with mainland Greece. The Muslim minority of Crete initially remained in the island but was later relocated to the Turkey under the general population exchange agreed in the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne between Turkey and Greece

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Crete

Remind you of anywhere Birkibrisli

[zan]

Learn Greek really fast

http://www.linkwordlanguages.com/greek.htm

Just thought you might need this Birkibrisli

[zan]

Just in case you claim Minoans were infact Greek

The Palace: It was originally surmised that the Minoan civilization had been an offshoot of the ancient civilization of Greece. When the fabled palace of King Minos at Knossos came to light, however, it proved there was a separate and earlier civilization, and King Minos was no ordinary monarch.

http://www.theplumber.com/crete.html

Hey whatdayano the Greeks didn't invent plumbing after all

[zan]

Dagnabit! Those pesky Osmanlis

[2fan]

My mothers side of the family was from Crete (Great grandfather). Wonder how much our land would be worth right now.

[zan]

Clearly, meeting the housing needs of the initial refugees was a practical government decision, while extending housing benefits to a second generation, which is a little more problematic, is also defensible on practical grounds, because the second generation cannot enjoy family property to which they would be entitled under normal circumstances. But the maintenance of telephone directories--like building a house for a son who had disappeared 13 years before--is an act of defiance of considerable political import, part of a campaign to maintain the inseparable causes of refugee rights and a unified Cyprus.


2Fan. Try some of these clever tactics and you too could be classed as a refugee

http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php? ... =nd02neack

[zan]

Plumbing wasn't invented by the Greeks but it seems they turned WAR into an artform.

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2001/2001-12-16.html

Seriously this is an interestingly good read.

bg_. I think you'll like this the most.

[zan]

Last one for now I promise. Seems that they can't even keep it out of the Churches.

"Franciscan voices concern about violence spurred by Greek patriarch"

http://www.catholicnews.com/data/storie ... 405813.htm

[2fan]

Clearly, meeting the housing needs of the initial refugees was a practical government decision, while extending housing benefits to a second generation, which is a little more problematic, is also defensible on practical grounds, because the second generation cannot enjoy family property to which they would be entitled under normal circumstances. But the maintenance of telephone directories--like building a house for a son who had disappeared 13 years before--is an act of defiance of considerable political import, part of a campaign to maintain the inseparable causes of refugee rights and a unified Cyprus.


2Fan. Try some of these clever tactics and you too could be classed as a refugee

http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php? ... =nd02neack

I've written it off already my friend. Perhaps we can save Cyprus.