June 09, 2004

Trebizond. The recent, wildly successful MoFi meetup at the Met, with its trek through the Byzantine exhibit, left me with one tiny disappointment: they ignored the last remmnant of the Byzantine Empire. After the fall of Constantinople, the city of Trebizond and its empire (map) held out until 1461. The first three chapters of a detailed history are online (1, 2, 3).

(I should mention that "Trebizond" is the traditional English name, comparable to "Peking" for Beijing; the modern Turkish city is Trabzon.) If this brief introduction intrigues you, you'll want to read the delightful novel The Towers of Trebizond, by Rose Macaulay, which begins "

posted by languagehat 20 years ago
  • Brilliant post, languagehat. I love this, thanks! If memory serves me right, that area of the Black Sea was the last holdout of Greco-Roman pagan beliefs in the Roman Empire a thousand years earlier. I'll have to look that up.
  • I'm more interested in the Federations of the White and Black Sheep, if only for the names. Be gentle angelfire is the only site i could find.
  • Fascinating. I only remember traces of this from college. I know what I'll be doing for the next couple of hours. )
  • Excellent. Cheers, languagehat.
  • Many thanks, Mr. Hat. *stashes links away for later perusal*
  • Good good! *scratches hatty backlet*