African Greeks
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African Greeks, or Greeks in Africa (
Ancient Egypt
Greeks have been present in Egypt since at least the 7th century BC.
First historical colonies
According to
Greeks.In 7th century BC, after the Greek Dark Ages from 1100 to 750 BC, the city of Naucratis was founded in Ancient Egypt. It was located on the Canopic branch of the Nile river, 45 mi (72 km) from the open sea. It was the first and, for much of its early history, the only permanent Greek colony in Egypt; acting as a symbiotic nexus for the interchange of Greek and Egyptian art and culture.
At about the same time, the city of Heracleion, the closest to the sea, became an important port for Greek trade. It had a famous temple of Heracles. The city later sank into the sea, only to be rediscovered recently.
From the time of Psammetichus I onwards, Greek mercenary armies played an important role in some of the Egyptian wars. One such army was led by Mentor of Rhodes. Another such personage was Phanes of Halicarnassus.
Hellenistic times
Rule of Alexander the Great (332–323 BC)
Alexander the Great conquered Egypt at an early stage of his conquests. He respected the pharaonic religions and customs and he was proclaimed Pharaoh of Egypt. He established the city of Alexandria. After his death, in 323 BC, his empire was divided among his generals. Egypt was given to Ptolemy I Soter, whose descendants would give Egypt her final royal dynasty – a glittering one. The dynasty was composed solely by ethnic Greeks and produced dynasts such as the famous Cleopatra. Its capital was Alexandria. Ptolemy added legitimacy to his rule in Egypt by acquiring Alexander's body. He intercepted the embalmed corpse on its way to burial, brought it to Egypt, and placed it in a golden coffin in Alexandria. It would remain one of the famous sights of the town for many years, until probably destroyed in riots in the 3rd century AD.[3]
The Ptolemaic Empire (323–30 BC)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7f/GreekEgyptianIlluminatedSaqaraShroud.jpg/210px-GreekEgyptianIlluminatedSaqaraShroud.jpg)
The initial objective of Ptolemy's reign was to establish firm and broad boundaries to his newly acquired kingdom. That led to almost continuous warfare against other leading members of Alexander's circle. At times he held Cyprus and even parts of mainland Greece. When these conflicts were over, he was firmly in control of Egypt and had strong claims (disputed by the Seleucid dynasty) to Palestine. He called himself king of Egypt from 306 BC. By the time he abdicated in 285 BC, in favour of one of his sons, the Ptolemaic dynasty was secure. Ptolemy and his descendants showed respect to Egypt's most cherished traditions – those of religion – and turned them to their own advantage.
Alexandria became the centre of the Greek and
Roman and Byzantine Egypt
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dc/EgyptianGreekEireneIlluminatedFayumPortrait.jpg/150px-EgyptianGreekEireneIlluminatedFayumPortrait.jpg)
After its conquest by the Roman forces in 30 BC, Egypt became a province of the new Roman Empire and remained an Eastern Roman territory until the Muslim conquest of Egypt in 641. Under Greco-Roman rule, Egypt hosted several Greek settlements, mostly concentrated in Alexandria, but also in a few other cities, where Greek settlers lived alongside some seven to ten million native Egyptians.[5] Faiyum's earliest Greek inhabitants were soldier-veterans and cleruchs (elite military officials) who were settled by the Ptolemaic kings on reclaimed lands.[6][7] Native Egyptians also came to settle in Faiyum from all over the country, notably the Nile Delta, Upper Egypt, Oxyrhynchus and Memphis, to undertake the labor involved in the land reclamation process, as attested by personal names, local cults and recovered papyri.[8]
Christianity probably arrived in Egypt among the
Coptic Greeks
It is estimated that as much as 30 percent of the population of Faiyum was Greek during the
By the Roman period, much of the "Greek" population of Faiyum was made up of either Hellenized Egyptians or people of mixed Egyptian-Greek origins,[14] and by the time of Roman emperor Caracalla in the 2nd century AD, ethnic Egyptians could be distinguished from Egyptian Greeks only by their speech.[15]
Egyptian Greek is the variety of Greek spoken in Egypt from antiquity until the
The following is an example of Egyptian Greek language, used in the
ⲇⲟⲝⲁ ⲡⲁⲧⲣⲓ ⲕⲉ ⲩⲓⲱ: ⲕⲉ ⲁ̀ⲅⲓⲱ ⲡⲛⲉⲩⲙⲁⲧⲓ: ⲕⲉ ⲛⲩⲛ ⲕⲉ ⲁ̀ⲓ̀ ⲕⲉ ⲓⲥ ⲧⲟⲩⲥ ⲉⲱⲛⲁⲥ ⲧⲱⲛ ⲉ̀ⲱ̀ⲛⲱⲛ ⲁ̀ⲙⲏⲛ
Δόξα Πατρὶ κὲ Υἱῷ κὲ Ἁγίῳ Πνεύματι, κὲ νῦν κὲ ἀῒ κὲ ἰς τοὺς ἐῶνας τῶν ἐώνων. Ἀμήν.
Glory to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, both now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
According to Walker, early Ptolemaic Greek colonists married local women and adopted Egyptian religious beliefs, and by Roman times, their descendants were viewed as Egyptians by the Roman rulers, despite their own self-perception of being Greek.[18] The dental morphology[19] of the Roman-period Faiyum mummies was also compared with that of earlier Egyptian populations, and was found to be "much more closely akin" to that of ancient Egyptians than to Greeks or other European populations.[20] Victor J. Katz notes that "research in papyri dating from the early centuries of the common era demonstrates that a significant amount of intermarriage took place between the Greek and Egyptian communities".[21]
Ancient Ethiopia
The name Ethiopia itself is Greek and means "of burned face".[22] It is first attested in the Homeric epics but it is unlikely to have referred to any particular nation, but rather, to people of African descent in general.[23][24]
Beginning in the
Axumites of Ethiopia
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ee/Igreja_de_Nossa_Senhora_do_Ros%C3%A1rio_dos_Pretos_Salvador_Imagem_do_Santo_Elesb%C3%A3o_2019-0524.jpg/220px-Igreja_de_Nossa_Senhora_do_Ros%C3%A1rio_dos_Pretos_Salvador_Imagem_do_Santo_Elesb%C3%A3o_2019-0524.jpg)
After the Romans annexed the Ptolemaic Empire, the Axumite king
As the Islamic conquest of North Africa severed Axum's link with the Greek world in the 7th century, Greek culture and knowledge waned; Muslim presence in the Red Sea also caused Axum to suffer economically and it declined in power. Axum's final three centuries are considered a dark age, in which Ethiopian Greek culture disappeared; the Axumite Empire finally collapsed around 960 AD.[27] Despite its position as one of the foremost empires of late antiquity, Axum fell into obscurity as Ethiopia remained isolated throughout the Middle Ages.[28][29]
Abyssinian Greeks
Later Abyssinian Greeks were attested in the 1700s, largely descending from Greek craftsmen and sailors residing in Abyssinia, who facilitated commerce between Abyssinia and Europe.
Abyssinian Greeks held many of the highest positions in the
Ancient Libya
Libyan Greeks of Cyrenaica
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6d/Ptolemais%2C_Villa_of_the_Four_Seasons.jpg/220px-Ptolemais%2C_Villa_of_the_Four_Seasons.jpg)
The eastern portion of the province, with no major population centers, was called
The region produced barley, wheat, olive oil, wine, figs, apples, wool, sheep, cattle and
Libyan Greek culture
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9c/Zeus_Ammon_%28Antikensammlung_M%C3%BCnchen%29.jpg/220px-Zeus_Ammon_%28Antikensammlung_M%C3%BCnchen%29.jpg)
The most influential of the Libyan Greeks were the Cyreneans. The Cyreneans invited Greek colonists from all over the Greek world to settle in Cyrene.[40][41]
The Cyrenean government was originally an absolute monarchy, but under Demonax, it became a constitutional monarchy with a senate. Demonax divided the Cyreneans into three groups to elect senators: first, the original Theran colonists and ethnic Libyans, second, Peloponnesians and Cretans, and third, Aegean islanders. Under the Cyrenean constitution, the king only had the authority to grant land to citizens, and held the role of chief priest, in charge of religious duties.[40][41]
Libyan Greek religion was directly influenced by Ancient Egyptian religion. The Cyreneans assimilated the Egyptian god Amun with Zeus as "Ammon", embodying Zeus in his style and Amun in his nature, attributing the horns of a ram to his image.[40][41][42]
Ammon had a wife, Ammonia, and a son, Parammon (Thoth-Hermes), considered Ammon's hypostasis (incarnation). Parammon was also the secretary of Osiris, one of the sons of Ammon.[40][41][42][43][44]
Ancient Nubia
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/49/MeroiticGlassVaseGreekLettersSedeinga_NationalMuseumKhartoum_RomanDeckert_27042018.jpg/170px-MeroiticGlassVaseGreekLettersSedeinga_NationalMuseumKhartoum_RomanDeckert_27042018.jpg)
Intercultural exchange between the Hellenic and
Vice versa, ancient Nubia also had an influence on Greek culture from those early times onwards, as it was well known by scholars throughout the Hellenic world, where several of the classical writers mentioned it. It evidently inspired curiosity about the exotic lands South of Egypt and particularly about the sources of the Nile river. Hence, the pioneering historian Herodotus (circa 484 – circa 425 BC) made references to Nubia as a land of "burned faces" (Ethiopians) and the source of the Nile.[47] Though he is assumed to have been personally familiar with the river only as far as Aswan, he did identify a "city of Ethiopians" at Meroë, apparently from reports by Psamtik II and Cambyses II.[48]
A new era of Greek-Nubian relations began in 332 BC, when
Nubian contact with the Greek world remained sporadic until Ptolemy II's Nubian campaign for Meroë in the 270s BC. Ptolemy's interest in Nubia was to secure a source of war elephants from Meroë, and to gain access to Meroitic gold mines.[49] At the same time, Ergamenes (Arkamani II), a king of one of the nine Nubian kingdoms, studied Greek language and customs at the Alexandrian court in the Ptolemaic Empire.[48][50][51]
Eratosthenes (circa 276–194 BC), the Greek geographer and librarian at Alexandria, sketched "with fair accuracy" the course of the Nile as far south as what is now Khartoum, based on the accounts of various travellers.[47] Pliny listed a number of Greeks who had travelled to Meroë and sometimes beyond: Dalion, Aristocreon, Bion, Basilis, and Simonides the Younger, who apparently lived at Meroe for five years.[52]
Relations between Kush and Ptolemaic Egypt thereafter remained tense, but stable.[49] By the time of Ptolemy VIII (170-163 BC), Greek ships regularly sailed on the Red Sea and to Meroitic ports.[48] The Nubian upper class traded with Greek merchants and adopted certain Hellenic styles of life.[53] However, following the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC and an unsuccessful attempt by the Romans to conquer the kingdom,[49] Greek influences withered in Nubia.[48] The account of Strabo, the geographer and historian of Greek descent, in his Geographia is one of the last references to Nubia from that time.[47]
Axumite subjugation of Nubia
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/91/Magi%2C_Faras.jpg/170px-Magi%2C_Faras.jpg)
The
Tribal nomads like the Beja, Afar, and Saho managed to remain autonomous due to their uncentralized nomadic nature. These tribal peoples would sporadically inflict attacks and raids on Axumite communities. The Beja nomads eventually Hellenized and integrated into the Nubian Greek society that had already been present in Lower Nubia for three centuries.[54][55][56]
Nubian Greeks
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/13/Nubian_Greek_King_of_Makuria_Moses_George.jpg/170px-Nubian_Greek_King_of_Makuria_Moses_George.jpg)
Nubian Greek culture followed the pattern of Egyptian Greek and Byzantine Greek civilization, expressed in Nubian Greek art and Nubian Greek literature. The earliest attestations of Nubian Greek literature come from the 5th century; the Nubian Greek language resembles Egyptian and Byzantine Greek; it served as a lingua franca throughout the Nubian Kingdoms, and had a creolized form for trade among the different peoples in Nubia.[57]
Nubian Greek was unique in that it adopted many words from both Coptic Egyptian and Nubian; Nubian Greek's syntax also evolved to establish a fixed word order.[58]
The following is an example of Nubian Greek language:
ⲟⲩⲧⲟⲥ ⲉⲥⲧⲓⲛ ⲁⲇⲁⲩⲉⲗ ⲃⲁⲥⲓⲗⲉⲩ ⲙⲱⲥⲉⲥ ⲅⲉⲱⲣⲅⲓⲟⲩ, ⲃⲁⲥⲓⲗⲉⲩ ⲛⲟⲩⲃⲇⲏⲥ, ⲁⲣⲟⲩⲁ, ⲙⲁⲕⲣⲟ
Οὗτός ἐστιν ἀδαύελ Βασιλεύ Μώσες Γεωργίου, Βασιλεύ Νουβδῆς, Ἀρουά, Μακρό
This is the great King Moses Georgios, the King of Nobatia, Alodia, Makuria[59]
A plethora of frescoes created between 800–1200 AD in Nubian cities such as Faras depicted religious life in the courts of the Nubian Kingdoms; they were made in Byzantine art style.[60]
Nubian Greek titles and government styles in Nubian Kingdoms were based on Byzantine models; even with Islamic encroachments and influence into Nubian territory, the Nubian Greeks saw Constantinople as their spiritual home.[60] Nubian Greek culture disappeared after the Muslim conquest of Nubia around 1450 AD.[60]
References
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- ^ The Historical Library of Diodorus Siculus, Book V,57.
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- ^ "Mumienporträt der Eirene". bawue.museum-digital.de. Retrieved 2023-11-29.
- ^ Adams, Winthrope L in Bugh, Glenn Richard. ed. "The Hellenistic Kingdoms". The Cambridge Companion to the Hellenistic World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2006, p. 39
- ^ Stanwick, Paul Edmund. Portraits of the Ptolemies: Greek Kings as Egyptian Pharaohs. Austin: University of Texas Press. 2003, p. 23
- ^ Adams, op cit.
- ^ Bagnall, R.S. in Susan Walker, ed. Ancient Faces : Mummy Portraits in Roman Egypt (Metropolitan Museum of Art Publications). New York: Routledge, 2000, p. 27
- ^ Brooks Hedstrom, Darlene L. (2019), "Archaeology of Early Christianity in Egypt", in Caraher, William R.; Davis, Thomas W.; Pettegrew, David K. (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Archaeology, Oxford University Press, p. 665
- ^ Choat, Malcolm (2012). "Christianity". In Riggs, Christina (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of Roman Egypt. Oxford University Press. pp. 480.
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- ^ a b Bagnall, op cit.
- ^ Bagnall, pp. 28–29
- ^ qtd. in Alan K. Bowman, Egypt after the Pharaohs, 332 BC – AD 642, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996, p. 126: "genuine Egyptians can easily be recognized among the linen-weavers by their speech."
- ^ Lennart Sundelin; Petra Sijpesteijn (2004). Papyrology and the History of Early Islamic Egypt. Brill. p. 165.
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