The Balkan Chronicle

For Britain, France, Germany, even Russia and the United States, the World War I years of 1914 to 1918 are powerful dates around which we can organize our thinking. World War I stands as a watershed event that fundamentally changed these nations' historic progress.

Such a view of World War I is less attractive and useful for thinking about Balkan affairs. Halting a discussion of Greek or Serbian nationalism in 1914 or 1918 leaves the story unfinished. It makes more sense to trace Serbian nationalist thought from the 1840s all the way up to 1929, perhaps even to the history

Abû al-Walîd Muhammad Ibn Rushd, better known in the West as Averroës, but also in medieval times as Avén Ruiz and Averrhoes, was born in 1126 A.D. in Cordova, once the illustrious capital of Moorish Spain. The descendant of a distinguished Cordovan family of scholars, he was the third generation of his lineage to hold the office of qâdî (judge). One of the foremost figures of Arab civilization, he became known as the 'Prince of Science' - the master of jurisprudence, mathematics, medicine and, above all, philosophy.

The city of Byzantium (Constantinople, modern Istanbul) was dedicated to Diana, goddess of the hunt, and the crescent was the symbol of Diana. In 330 CE, Constantine rededicated the city to the virgin Mary, whose star symbol was added to the previous crescent. When the Turks took possession of Constantinople, they found lots of crescent flags and adopted it as a symbol of good omen.

"The star and crescent" was first hoisted on behalf of the Muslims by Mahomet II after the capture of Constantinople in 1453 CE.

Istanbul, 13 July - Archeological treasures including a Greek amphitheatre have been unearthed in the ancient city of Laodicea, which is being excavated in western Turkey. Local businesses have been working with regional leaders in the western province of Denizli on the project, the first of its kind in Turkey.

"Something has taken place here that is unseen in the rest of the country," Celal Simsek, head of the excavation team, told the Anatolia news agency.

It has been the marvel of visitors to Greece for two centuries now, as to how highly developed the Greek people´s sense of identity actually is.

This sense of identity has been forged from the common consciousness of three thousand years of civilisation. The forging largely took place in the nineteenth century, when a renascent Greece sought to formulate a national ideology that would justify its existence.

The Bezeklik monastery near Turpan used to house 3,000-year-old mural portraits of Buddhist monks. The murals were cut out with saws from niches by European archaeologists at the start of the 20th century.

Art theft! The term conjures up images of hooded men dressed in black, scaling the walls of a famous gallery or museum at night, using special techniques to disarm or bypass sophisticated alarms in order to carry off a national treasure.
But in the world of international art and culture, there are those who maintain that the very presence of some of those works of art in the museums of the world is, in fact, art theft.