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The term antelope refers to numerous extant or recently extinct species of the ruminant artiodactyl family Bovidae that are indigenous to most of Africa , India , the Middle East , Central Asia , and a small area of Eastern Europe . Antelopes do not form a monophyletic group, as some antelopes are more closely related to other bovid groups, like bovines , goats , and sheep , than to other antelopes.

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137-410: Santorini ( Greek : Σαντορίνη , romanized :  Santoríni , pronounced [sa(n)doˈrini] ), officially Thira (Greek: Θήρα , romanized:  Thíra , pronounced [ˈθira] ) or Thera , is a Greek island in the southern Aegean Sea , about 200 km (120 mi) southeast from its mainland. It is the largest island of a small, circular archipelago formed by

274-640: A Catholic bishopric . From the 15th century on, the suzerainty of the Republic of Venice over the island was recognized in a series of treaties by the Ottoman Empire , but this did not stop Ottoman raids, until it was captured by the Ottoman admiral Piyale Pasha in 1576, as part of a process of annexation of most remaining Latin possessions in the Aegean. It became part of the semi-autonomous domain of

411-577: A Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the world's oldest recorded living language . Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now-extinct Anatolian languages . The Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods: In the modern era, the Greek language entered

548-491: A lion until it is closer than 200 m (650 ft)—lions hunt as a pride or by surprise, usually by stalking; one that can be seen clearly is unlikely to attack. However, sprint-dependent cheetahs will cause gazelles to flee at a range of over 800 metres ( 1 ⁄ 2 mile). If escape is not an option, antelope are capable of fighting back. Oryxes in particular have been known to stand sideways like many unrelated bovids to appear larger than they are, and may charge at

685-577: A basis for coinages: anthropology , photography , telephony , isomer , biomechanics , cinematography , etc. Together with Latin words , they form the foundation of international scientific and technical vocabulary ; for example, all words ending in -logy ('discourse'). There are many English words of Greek origin . Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European language family. The ancient language most closely related to it may be ancient Macedonian , which, by most accounts,

822-487: A complex community. A loom-workshop suggests organized textile weaving for export. This Bronze Age civilization thrived between 3000 and 2000 BC, reaching its peak in the period between 2000 and 1630 BC. Many of the houses in Akrotiri are major structures, some of them three storeys high. Its streets, squares, and walls were preserved in the layers of ejecta, sometimes as tall as eight metres, indicating this

959-419: A confident calligraphic line, a man holding fish strung by their gills, a flotilla of pleasure boats that are accompanied by leaping dolphins , and a scene of women sitting in the shade of light canopies. Fragmentary wall-paintings found at one site are Minoan frescoes that depict " Saffron -gatherers" offering crocus -stamens to a seated woman, perhaps a goddess important to the Akrotiri culture. The themes of

1096-592: A contribution of 90,000 grosis on Santorini to fund the fight for independence, while in 1836 they also had to contribute in 1826 to the obligatory loan of 190,000 grosis imposed on the Cyclades. In decree 573 issued by the National Assembly 17 May 1823, Santorini was recognized as one of 15 provinces in the Greek controlled Aegean (nine in the Cyclades and six in the Sporades). The island became part of

1233-508: A faster, more convenient cursive writing style with the use of ink and quill . The Greek alphabet consists of 24 letters, each with an uppercase ( majuscule ) and lowercase ( minuscule ) form. The letter sigma has an additional lowercase form (ς) used in the final position of a word: In addition to the letters, the Greek alphabet features a number of diacritical signs : three different accent marks ( acute , grave , and circumflex ), originally denoting different shapes of pitch accent on

1370-575: A fear response to perceived predators, such as humans, making them very difficult to herd or handle. Although antelope have diets and rapid growth rates highly suitable for domestication, this tendency to panic and their non hierarchical social structure explains why farm-raised antelope are uncommon. Ancient Egyptians kept herds of gazelles and addax for meat, and occasionally pets. It is unknown whether they were truly domesticated, but it seems unlikely, as no domesticated gazelles exist today. However, humans have had success taming certain species, such as

1507-463: A fixed point for the chronology of the second millennium BC in the Aegean, because evidence of the eruption occurs throughout the region and the site itself contains material culture from outside. The eruption occurred during the "Late Minoan IA" period of Minoan chronology at Crete and the "Late Cycladic I" period in the surrounding islands. Archaeological evidence, based on an established chronology of Bronze Age Mediterranean cultures, dated

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1644-535: A forest environment with patchy resources, and a male is unable to monopolize more than one female due to this sparse distribution. Larger forest species often form very small herds of two to four females and one male. Some species, such as lechwes , pursue a lek breeding system, where the males gather on a lekking ground and compete for a small territory, while the females appraise males and choose one with which to mate. Large grazing antelope, such as impala or wildebeest , form large herds made up of many females and

1781-590: A lesser extent, in the Western Mediterranean in and around colonies such as Massalia , Monoikos , and Mainake . It was also used as the official language of government and religion in the Christian Nubian kingdoms , for most of their history. Greek, in its modern form, is the official language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population. It is also the official language of Cyprus (nominally alongside Turkish ) and

1918-400: A limited but productive system of compounding and a rich inflectional system. Although its morphological categories have been fairly stable over time, morphological changes are present throughout, particularly in the nominal and verbal systems. The major change in the nominal morphology since the classical stage was the disuse of the dative case (its functions being largely taken over by

2055-459: A mixed syllable structure, permitting complex syllabic onsets but very restricted codas. It has only oral vowels and a fairly stable set of consonantal contrasts . The main phonological changes occurred during the Hellenistic and Roman period (see Koine Greek phonology for details): In all its stages, the morphology of Greek shows an extensive set of productive derivational affixes ,

2192-449: A predator as a last resort. About 25 species are rated by the IUCN as endangered , such as the dama gazelle and mountain nyala . A number of subspecies are also endangered, including the giant sable antelope and the mhorr gazelle . The main causes for concern for these species are habitat loss, competition with cattle for grazing, and trophy hunting. The chiru or Tibetan antelope

2329-475: A ritual, celebratory nature, because of their large size, careful construction and – in some cases – execution by craftsmen other than the authors. According to Herodotus , following a drought of seven years, Thera sent out colonists who founded a number of cities in northern Africa, including Cyrene . In the fifth century BC, Dorian Thera did not join the Delian League with Athens ; and during

2466-487: A sea captain from Kefalonia who had Santorini connections to establish a network of supporters in the Cyclades. As his authority, Matzarakis had a letter from Ypsilantis (dated 29 December 1820) addressed to the notables of Santorini and the Orthodox metropolitan bishop Zacharias Kyriakos (served 1814–1842). At the time, the population of Santorini was divided between those who supported independence, and (particularly among

2603-622: A single breeding male, which excludes all other males, often by combat. Antelope pursue a number of defense strategies, often dictated by their morphology. Large antelope that gather in large herds, such as wildebeest, rely on numbers and running speed for protection. In some species, adults will encircle the offspring, protecting them from predators when threatened. Many forest antelope rely on cryptic coloring and good hearing to avoid predators. Forest antelope often have very large ears and dark or striped colorations. Small antelope, especially duikers , evade predation by jumping into dense bush where

2740-460: A state of diglossia : the coexistence of vernacular and archaizing written forms of the language. What came to be known as the Greek language question was a polarization between two competing varieties of Modern Greek: Dimotiki , the vernacular form of Modern Greek proper, and Katharevousa , meaning 'purified', a compromise between Dimotiki and Ancient Greek developed in the early 19th century that

2877-438: A thick, persistent sheath of horny material , both of which distinguish them from antlers. Antelope horns are efficient weapons, and tend to be better developed in those species where males fight over females (large herd antelope) than in solitary or lekking species. With male-male competition for mates, horns are clashed in combat. Males more commonly use their horns against each other than against another species. The boss of

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3014-510: A wide range of habitats. Most live in the African savannahs . However, many species are more secluded, such as the forest antelope, as well as the extreme cold-living saiga , the desert-adapted Arabian oryx , the rocky koppie -living klipspringer , and semiaquatic sitatunga . Species living in forests, woodland, or bush tend to be sedentary, but many of the plains species undertake long migrations. These enable grass-eating species to follow

3151-582: Is 90.623 km (34.990 sq mi). Santorini is part of the Thira regional unit . The island was the site of one of the largest volcanic eruptions in recorded history : the Minoan eruption (sometimes called the Thera eruption), which occurred about 3,600 years ago at the height of the Minoan civilization . The eruption left a large caldera surrounded by volcanic ash deposits hundreds of metres deep. It

3288-769: Is derived from the Old French antelop , itself derived from Medieval Latin ant(h)alopus , which in turn comes from the Byzantine Greek word ἀνθόλοψ, anthólops , first attested in Eustathius of Antioch ( c.  336 ), according to whom it was a fabulous animal "haunting the banks of the Euphrates, very savage, hard to catch and having long, saw-like horns capable of cutting down trees". It perhaps derives from Greek ἀνθος, anthos (flower) and ώψ, ops (eye), perhaps meaning "beautiful eye" or alluding to

3425-616: Is found on the continent—the Barbary red deer of Northern Africa. By comparison, numerous deer species are usually found in regions of the world with fewer or no antelope species present, such as throughout Southeast Asia , Europe and all of the Americas . This is likely due to competition over shared resources, as deer and antelope fill a virtually identical ecological niche in their respective habitats. Countries like India, however, have large populations of endemic deer and antelope, with

3562-425: Is hunted for its pelt, which is used in making shahtoosh wool, used in shawls. Since the fur can only be removed from dead animals, and each animal yields very little of the downy fur, several antelope must be killed to make a single shawl. This unsustainable demand has led to enormous declines in the chiru population. The saiga is hunted for its horns, which are considered an aphrodisiac by some cultures. Only

3699-532: Is primarily composed of metamorphosed limestone and schist , which date from the Alpine Orogeny. These non-volcanic rocks are exposed at Mikros Profititis Ilias , Mesa Vouno, the Gavrillos ridge, Pyrgos , Monolithos , and the inner side of the caldera wall between Cape Plaka and Athinios. The metamorphic grade is a blueschist facies , which results from tectonic deformation by the subduction of

3836-612: Is prized for supposed medicinal and magical powers in many places. The horn of the male saiga, in Eastern practice, is ground as an aphrodisiac, for which it has been hunted nearly to extinction. In the Congo , it is thought to confine spirits. The antelope's ability to run swiftly has also led to their association with the wind , such as in the Rig Veda , as the steeds of the Maruts and

3973-417: Is some variation of a brown colour (or several shades of brown), often with white or pale underbodies. Exceptions include the zebra-marked zebra duiker , the grey, black, and white Jentink's duiker , and the black lechwe . Most of the "spiral-horned" antelope have pale, vertical stripes on their backs. Many desert and semidesert species are particularly pale, some almost silvery or whitish (e.g. Arabian oryx);

4110-839: Is sometimes called aljamiado , as when Romance languages are written in the Arabic alphabet. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Greek: Transcription of the example text into Latin alphabet : Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English: Proto-Greek Mycenaean Ancient Koine Medieval Modern Antelopes A better definition, also known as

4247-459: Is still a matter of debate, with several alternative systems proposed. Antelope are not a cladistic or taxonomically defined group. The term is used to describe all members of the family Bovidae that do not fall under the category of sheep , cattle , or goats . Usually, all species of the Antilopinae , Hippotraginae , Reduncinae , Cephalophinae , many Bovinae , the grey rhebok , and

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4384-763: Is still used internationally for the writing of Ancient Greek . In Greek, the question mark is written as the English semicolon, while the functions of the colon and semicolon are performed by a raised point (•), known as the ano teleia ( άνω τελεία ). In Greek the comma also functions as a silent letter in a handful of Greek words, principally distinguishing ό,τι ( ó,ti , 'whatever') from ότι ( óti , 'that'). Ancient Greek texts often used scriptio continua ('continuous writing'), which means that ancient authors and scribes would write word after word with no spaces or punctuation between words to differentiate or mark boundaries. Boustrophedon , or bi-directional text,

4521-460: Is the Minoan eruption , detailed below. Eruptive products range from basalt all the way to rhyolite , and the rhyolitic products are associated with the most explosive eruptions. Greek language Greek ( Modern Greek : Ελληνικά , romanized :  Elliniká , [eliniˈka] ; Ancient Greek : Ἑλληνική , romanized :  Hellēnikḗ ) is an Indo-European language, constituting an independent Hellenic branch within

4658-533: Is the most active volcanic centre in the South Aegean Volcanic Arc , though what remains today is chiefly a water-filled caldera. The volcanic arc is approximately 500 km (300 mi) long and 20 to 40 km (12 to 25 mi) wide. The region first became volcanically active around 3–4 million years ago, though volcanism on Thera began around 2 million years ago with the extrusion of dacitic lavas from vents around Akrotiri . Santorini

4795-480: Is thinned continental crust . The subduction compels the formation of the Hellenic arc , which includes Santorini and other volcanic centres, such as Methana , Milos , and Kos . The island is the result of repeated sequences of shield volcano construction followed by caldera collapse. The inner coast around the caldera is a sheer precipice of more than 300 m (980 ft) drop at its highest, and exhibits

4932-632: Is to modern spoken English ". Greek is spoken today by at least 13 million people, principally in Greece and Cyprus along with a sizable Greek-speaking minority in Albania near the Greek-Albanian border. A significant percentage of Albania's population has knowledge of the Greek language due in part to the Albanian wave of immigration to Greece in the 1980s and '90s and the Greek community in

5069-766: The African Plate beneath the Eurasian Plate . Subduction occurred between the Oligocene and the Miocene , and the metamorphic grade represents the southernmost extent of the Cycladic blueschist belt. Volcanism on Santorini is due to the Hellenic subduction zone southwest of Crete. The oceanic crust of the northern margin of the African Plate is being subducted under Greece and the Aegean Sea, which

5206-584: The Americas , though the nominate saiga subspecies occurred in North America during the Pleistocene. North America is currently home to the native pronghorn , which taxonomists do not consider a member of the antelope group, but which is often locally referred to as such (e.g., "American antelope"). In Europe , several extinct species occur in the fossil record, and the saiga was found widely during

5343-562: The British Overseas Territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (alongside English ). Because of the membership of Greece and Cyprus in the European Union, Greek is one of the organization's 24 official languages . Greek is recognized as a minority language in Albania, and used co-officially in some of its municipalities, in the districts of Gjirokastër and Sarandë . It is also an official minority language in

5480-657: The European canon . Greek is also the language in which many of the foundational texts in science and philosophy were originally composed. The New Testament of the Christian Bible was also originally written in Greek. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world , the Greek texts and Greek societies of antiquity constitute the objects of study of the discipline of Classics . During antiquity , Greek

5617-640: The Fourth Crusade , it was occupied by the Duchy of Naxos which held it up to circa 1280 when it was reconquered by Licario (the claims of earlier historians that the island had been held by Jacopo I Barozzi and his son as a fief have been refuted in the second half of the twentieth century); it was again reconquered from the Byzantines circa 1301 by Iacopo II Barozzi , a member of the Cretan branch of

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5754-516: The Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ), but little definitive evidence has been found. In addition, Albanian has also been considered somewhat related to Greek and Armenian, and it has been proposed that they all form a higher-order subgroup along with other extinct languages of the ancient Balkans; this higher-order subgroup is usually termed Palaeo-Balkan , and Greek has a central position in it. Linear B , attested as early as

5891-641: The Peloponnesian War , Thera sided with Dorian Sparta, against Athens. The Athenians took the island during the war, but lost it again after the Battle of Aegospotami . During the Hellenistic period, the island was a major naval base for Ptolemaic Egypt . As with other Greek territories, Thera then was ruled by the Romans . When the Roman Empire was divided, the island passed to the eastern side of

6028-853: The Pleistocene but did not persist into the later Holocene , except in Russian Kalmykia and Astrakhan Oblast . Many species of antelope have been imported to other parts of the world, especially the United States, for exotic game hunting. With some species possessing spectacular leaping and evasive skills, individuals may escape. Texas in particular has many game ranches, as well as habitats and climates that are very hospitable to African and Asian plains antelope species. Accordingly, wild populations of blackbuck antelope, gemsbok , and nilgai may be found in Texas. Antelope live in

6165-512: The Santorini caldera . It is the southernmost member of the Cyclades group of islands, with an area of approximately 73 km (28 sq mi) and a 2021 census population of 15,480. The municipality of Santorini includes the inhabited islands of Santorini and Therasia , as well as the uninhabited islands of Nea Kameni , Palaia Kameni , Aspronisi and Christiana . The total land area

6302-780: The United Kingdom , and throughout the European Union , especially in Germany . Historically, significant Greek-speaking communities and regions were found throughout the Eastern Mediterranean , in what are today Southern Italy , Turkey , Cyprus , Syria , Lebanon , Israel , Palestine , Egypt , and Libya ; in the area of the Black Sea , in what are today Turkey, Bulgaria , Romania , Ukraine , Russia , Georgia , Armenia , and Azerbaijan ; and, to

6439-399: The beisa and southern oryxes have gray and black pelages with vivid black-and-white faces. Common features of various gazelles are white rumps, which flash a warning to others when they run from danger, and dark stripes midbody (the latter feature is also shared by the springbok and beira). The springbok also has a pouch of white, brushlike hairs running along its back, which opens up when

6576-428: The elands . These antelope sometimes jump over each other's backs when alarmed, but this incongruous talent seems to be exploited only by wild members of the species; tame elands do not take advantage of it and can be enclosed within a very low fence. Their meat, milk, and hides are all of excellent quality, and experimental eland husbandry has been going on for some years in both Ukraine and Zimbabwe. In both locations,

6713-468: The genitive ). The verbal system has lost the infinitive , the synthetically -formed future, and perfect tenses and the optative mood . Many have been replaced by periphrastic ( analytical ) forms. Pronouns show distinctions in person (1st, 2nd, and 3rd), number (singular, dual , and plural in the ancient language; singular and plural alone in later stages), and gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter), and decline for case (from six cases in

6850-503: The impala are called antelope. More species of antelope are native to Africa than to any other continent, almost exclusively in savannahs , with 25-40 species co-occurring over much of East Africa. Because savannah habitat in Africa has expanded and contracted five times over the last three million years, and the fossil record indicates this is when most extant species evolved, it is believed that isolation in refugia during contractions

6987-417: The syntax of Greek have remained constant: verbs agree with their subject only, the use of the surviving cases is largely intact (nominative for subjects and predicates, accusative for objects of most verbs and many prepositions, genitive for possessors), articles precede nouns, adpositions are largely prepositional, relative clauses follow the noun they modify and relative pronouns are clause-initial. However,

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7124-680: The "true antelopes", includes only the genera Gazella , Nanger , Eudorcas , and Antilope . One North American mammal, the pronghorn or "pronghorn antelope", is colloquially referred to as the "American antelope", despite the fact that it belongs to a completely different family ( Antilocapridae ) than the true Old-World antelopes; pronghorn are the sole extant member of an extinct prehistoric lineage that once included many unique species. Although antelope are sometimes referred to, and easily misidentified as, "deer" ( cervids ), true deer are only distantly related to antelope. While antelope are found in abundance in Africa, only one deer species

7261-566: The 20th century on), especially from French and English, are typically not inflected; other modern borrowings are derived from Albanian , South Slavic ( Macedonian / Bulgarian ) and Eastern Romance languages ( Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian ). Greek words have been widely borrowed into other languages, including English. Example words include: mathematics , physics , astronomy , democracy , philosophy , athletics , theatre, rhetoric , baptism , evangelist , etc. Moreover, Greek words and word elements continue to be productive as

7398-489: The Akrotiri frescoes show no relationship to the typical content of the Classical Greek décor of 510 BC to 323 BC that depict the Greek pantheon deities. The town also had a highly developed drainage system. Pipes with running water and water closets found at Akrotiri are the oldest such utilities discovered. The pipes run in twin systems, indicating that Therans used both hot and cold water supplies. The origin of

7535-633: The Catholics and non-Orthodox) those who were ambivalent or distrustful of a revolt being directed by Hydra and Spetses or were fearful of the Sultan's revenge. While the island didn't come out in direct support of the revolt, they did send 100 barrels of wine to the Greek fleet as well in April 1821, 71 sailors, a priest and the presbyter Nikolaos Dekazas, to serve on the Spetsiote fleet. Because of

7672-636: The Empire which today is known as the Byzantine Empire . According to George Cedrenus , the volcano erupted again in the summer of 727, the tenth year of the reign of Leo III the Isaurian . He writes: "In the same year, in the summer, a vapour like an oven's fire boiled up for days out of the middle of the islands of Thera and Therasia from the depths of the sea, and the whole place burned like fire, little by little thickening and turning to stone, and

7809-568: The Greek Argonaut Euphemus , son of Poseidon , in the form of a clod of dirt. After carrying the dirt next to his heart for several days, Euphemus dreamt that he nursed the dirt with milk from his breast, and that the dirt turned into a beautiful woman with whom he had sex. The woman then told him that she was a daughter of Triton named Calliste , and that when he threw the dirt into the sea it would grow into an island for his descendants to live on. The poem goes on to claim that

7946-544: The Greek alphabet since approximately the 9th century BC. It was created by modifying the Phoenician alphabet , with the innovation of adopting certain letters to represent the vowels. The variant of the alphabet in use today is essentially the late Ionic variant, introduced for writing classical Attic in 403 BC. In classical Greek, as in classical Latin, only upper-case letters existed. The lower-case Greek letters were developed much later by medieval scribes to permit

8083-549: The Greek language was the Cypriot syllabary (also a descendant of Linear A via the intermediate Cypro-Minoan syllabary ), which is closely related to Linear B but uses somewhat different syllabic conventions to represent phoneme sequences. The Cypriot syllabary is attested in Cyprus from the 11th century BC until its gradual abandonment in the late Classical period, in favor of the standard Greek alphabet. Greek has been written in

8220-596: The Greeks took over Crete . At Knossos , in a LMIIIA context (14th century BC), seven Linear B texts while calling upon "all the deities" make sure to grant primacy to an elsewhere-unattested entity called qe-ra-si-ja and, once, qe-ra-si-jo . If the endings -ia[s] and -ios represent an ethnic suffix, then this means "The One From Qeras[os]". If the initial consonant were aspirated, then *Qhera- would have become "Thera-" in later Greek. "Therasia" and its ethnikon "Therasios" are both attested in later Greek; and, since -sos

8357-593: The Indo-European language family. It is native to Greece , Cyprus , Italy (in Calabria and Salento ), southern Albania , and other regions of the Balkans , Caucasus , the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor , and the Eastern Mediterranean . It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system is the Greek alphabet , which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek

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8494-559: The National Assembly and following his death was succeeded in that position in November 1824 by Pantoleon Augerino. Once they heard of massacres of the Greek population of Chios in April 1822, many islanders became fearful of Ottoman reprisals, with two villages stating they were prepared to surrender, though sixteen monks from the Monastery of Profitis Ilias, led by their abbot Gerasimos Mavrommatis declared in writing their support for

8631-417: The Ottomans in order to prove their loyalty. He was rescued by his Ionian guards. Matters became so heated that Antonios Barbarigos (- 1824) who had been serving in the First National Assembly at Epidaurus since 20 January 1820 was seriously wounded in the head by a knife attack on Santorini in October 1822 during a dispute between the factions. In early 1823, the Second National Assembly at Astros , imposed

8768-418: The Ottomans in order to support the struggle for independence. The hostility against the taxes caused many of the tax collectors to resign. Things were also not helped by the governor's authoritarian character, arbitrariness and arrests of prominent islanders losing him the support of Zacharias Kyriakos, who had initially supported Matzarakis. In retaliation Matzarakis accused him of being a "Turkophile" and had

8905-428: The Spartans who colonized and gave his name to the island, was revived in the nineteenth century as the official name of the island and its main city, but the colloquial Santorini is still in popular use. Excavations starting in 1967 at the Akrotiri site under Spyridon Marinatos have made Thera the best-known Minoan site outside Crete , homeland of the culture. The island was not known as Thera at this time. Only

9042-425: The Sultan's Jewish favourite, Joseph Nasi . Santorini retained its privileged position in the 17th century, but suffered in turn from Venetian raids during the frequent Ottoman–Venetian wars of the period, even though there were no Muslims on the island. Santorini was captured briefly by the Russians under Alexey Orlov during the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774 , but returned to Ottoman control after. In 1807,

9179-400: The Venetian Barozzi family, whose descendant held it until it was annexed in c.  1335 by Niccolo Sanudo after various legal and military conflicts. In 1318–1331 and 1345–1360 it was raided by the Turkish principalities of Menteshe and Aydın , but did not suffer much damage. Because of the Venetians the island became home to a sizable Catholic community and is still the seat of

9316-472: The White Beach. The water at the darker coloured beaches is significantly warmer because the lava acts as a heat absorber. The area of Santorini incorporates a group of islands created by volcanoes, spanning across Thera, Thirasia, Aspronisi, Palea, and Nea Kameni. Santorini has erupted many times, with varying degrees of explosivity. There have been at least twelve large explosive eruptions, of which at least four were caldera -forming. The most famous eruption

9453-404: The acute during the late 20th century, and it has only been retained in typography . After the writing reform of 1982, most diacritics are no longer used. Since then, Greek has been written mostly in the simplified monotonic orthography (or monotonic system), which employs only the acute accent and the diaeresis. The traditional system, now called the polytonic orthography (or polytonic system),

9590-451: The air seemed to be a fiery torch." This terrifying explosion was interpreted as a divine omen against the worship of religious icons and gave the Emperor Leo III the Isaurian the justification he needed to begin implementing his Iconoclasm policy. The name "Santorini" first appears c.  1153–1154 in the work of the Muslim geographer al-Idrisi , as "Santurin", from the island's patron saint, Saint Irene of Thessalonica . After

9727-421: The animal has proved wholly amenable to domestication. Similarly, European visitors to Arabia reported "tame gazelles are very common in the Asiatic countries of which the species is a native; and the poetry of these countries abounds in allusions both to the beauty and the gentleness of the gazelle." Other antelope that have been tamed successfully include the gemsbok , the kudu , and the springbok . Nor are

9864-503: The animal senses danger, causing the dorsal hairs to stand on end. Many antelope are sexually dimorphic. In most species, both sexes have horns, but those of males tend to be larger. Males tend to be larger than the females, but exceptions in which the females tend to be heavier than the males include the bush duiker , dwarf antelope , Cape grysbok , and oribi , all rather small species. A number of species have hornless females (e.g., sitatunga , red lechwe , and suni ). In some species,

10001-421: The animal that antelope do not typically display. Most species are difficult to contain in any density, due to the territoriality of the males, or in the case of oryxes (which have a relatively hierarchical social structure), an aggressive disposition; they can easily kill a human. Because many have extremely good jumping abilities, providing adequate fencing is a challenge. Also, antelope will consistently display

10138-453: The animals' long eyelashes. This, however, may be a folk etymology in Greek based on some earlier root. The word talopus and calopus , from Latin, came to be used in heraldry . In 1607, it was first used for living, cervine animals . There are 91 antelope species, most of which are native to Africa, occur in about 30 genera. The classification of tribes or subfamilies within Bovoidea

10275-514: The archbishop imprisoned and then exiled him. The abbots of the monasteries, the priests and the prelates, complained to Demetrios Ypsilantis , president of the National Assembly . Matzarakis soon had to hire bodyguards as the island descended into open revolt against him. Fearful for his life Matzarakis later fled the island, and was dismissed from his governorship by Demetrios Ypsilantis. Mazarakis however later represented Santorini in

10412-479: The arrival of Proto-Greeks, some documented in Mycenaean texts ; they include a large number of Greek toponyms . The form and meaning of many words have changed. Loanwords (words of foreign origin) have entered the language, mainly from Latin, Venetian , and Turkish . During the older periods of Greek, loanwords into Greek acquired Greek inflections, thus leaving only a foreign root word. Modern borrowings (from

10549-546: The backdrop of the landscape. The Cyclades are part of a metamorphic complex that is known as the Cycladic Massif . The complex formed during the Miocene and was folded and metamorphosed during the Alpine orogeny around 60 million years ago. Thera is built upon a small non-volcanic basement that represents the former non-volcanic island, which was approximately 9 by 6 km (5.6 by 3.7 mi). The basement rock

10686-540: The characteristics described above necessarily barriers to domestication; for further information, see animal domestication . A wide variety of antelope hybrids have been recorded in zoos, game parks, and wildlife ranches, due to either a lack of more appropriate mates in enclosures shared with other species or a misidentification of species. The ease of hybridization shows how closely related some antelope species are. With few exceptions, most hybrid antelope occur only in captivity. Most hybrids occur between species within

10823-561: The construction of either a hotel or a hospital, to which local authorities replied that they would prefer a hotel. As a result, in 1952, the Nomikos' commissioned the architect Venetsanos to undertake the design and paid for the construction of the Hotel Atlantis, which was at the time the most glamorous hotel in the Cyclades. In 1954, Santorini had approximately 12,000 inhabitants and very few visitors. The only modes of transport on

10960-796: The country. Prior to the Greco-Turkish War and the resulting population exchange in 1923 a very large population of Greek-speakers also existed in Turkey , though very few remain today. A small Greek-speaking community is also found in Bulgaria near the Greek-Bulgarian border. Greek is also spoken worldwide by the sizable Greek diaspora which has notable communities in the United States , Australia , Canada , South Africa , Chile , Brazil , Argentina , Russia , Ukraine ,

11097-441: The dative led to a rise of prepositional indirect objects (and the use of the genitive to directly mark these as well). Ancient Greek tended to be verb-final, but neutral word order in the modern language is VSO or SVO. Modern Greek inherits most of its vocabulary from Ancient Greek, which in turn is an Indo-European language, but also includes a number of borrowings from the languages of the populations that inhabited Greece before

11234-421: The different species generally keeping to their own "niches" with minimal overlap. Unlike deer, in which the males sport elaborate head antlers that are shed and regrown annually, antelope horns are bone and grow steadily, never falling off. If a horn is broken, it will either remain broken or take years to partially regenerate, depending on the species. The English word "antelope" first appeared in 1417 and

11371-448: The duikers and dwarf antelope tend to be simple "spikes", but differ in the angle to the head from backward curved and backward pointing (e.g. yellow-backed duiker ) to straight and upright (e.g. steenbok ). Other groups have twisted (e.g. common eland ), spiral (e.g. greater kudu ), "recurved" (e.g. the reedbucks ), lyrate (e.g. impala ), or long, curved (e.g. the oryxes ) horns. Horns are not shed and their bony cores are covered with

11508-528: The earliest forms attested to four in the modern language). Nouns, articles, and adjectives show all the distinctions except for a person. Both attributive and predicative adjectives agree with the noun. The inflectional categories of the Greek verb have likewise remained largely the same over the course of the language's history but with significant changes in the number of distinctions within each category and their morphological expression. Greek verbs have synthetic inflectional forms for: Many aspects of

11645-634: The earthquake, the Greek Prime Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis declared Santorini a state of "large-scale local disaster" and visited the island to inspect the situation on 14 July. Many countries had offered to send relief efforts, though Greece refused to accept the offer of the United Kingdom to send warships to help from Cyprus where they were involved in the Cyprus Emergency . As there

11782-519: The end of its snout. This bizarre and inaccurate form was invented by European heralds in the Middle Ages, who knew little of foreign animals and made up the rest. The antelope was mistakenly imagined to be a monstrous beast of prey; the 16th century poet Edmund Spenser referred to it as being "as fierce and fell as a wolf ." Antelope can all also occur in their natural form, in which case they are termed "natural antelope" to distinguish them from

11919-465: The eruption to around 1500 BC. These dates, however, conflict with radiocarbon dating which indicated that the eruption occurred between 1645–1600 BC, and tree ring data which yielded a date of 1628 BC. For those, and other reasons, the previous culturally based chronology has generally been questioned. Santorini remained unoccupied throughout the rest of the Bronze Age, during which time

12056-412: The extent that one can speak of a new language emerging. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language. It is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, " Homeric Greek is probably closer to Demotic than 12-century Middle English

12193-437: The first occurring at 03:24, 13 minutes after the main shock, which had a 7.2 magnitude. This aftershock which originated close to the island of Anafi is believed to have been responsible for most of the damage and casualties on Santorini. The earthquake was accompanied by a tsunami which while much higher at other islands is estimated to have reached 3 metres at Perissa and 2 metres at Vlichada on Santorini. Immediately following

12330-581: The fledgling Greek state under the London Protocol of 3 February 1830, rebelled against the government of Ioannis Kapodistrias in 1831, and became definitively part of the independent Kingdom of Greece in 1832, with the Treaty of Constantinople . Santorini joined an insurrection that had broken out in Nafplio on 1 February 1862 against the rule of King Otto of Greece. However, the royal authorities

12467-465: The horns is typically arranged in such a way that two antelope striking at each other's horns cannot crack each other's skulls, making a fight via horn more ritualized than dangerous. Many species have ridges in their horns for at least two-thirds the length of their horns, but these ridges are not a direct indicator of age. Antelope are often classified by their reproductive behavior. Small antelope, such as dik-diks , tend to be monogamous. They live in

12604-525: The hot water they circulated in the town probably was geothermic , given the volcano 's proximity. The well preserved ruins of the ancient town are often compared to the spectacular ruins at Pompeii in Italy. The canopy covering the ruins collapsed in an accident in September 2005, killing one tourist and injuring seven more. The site was closed for almost seven years while a new canopy was built. The site

12741-670: The island in search of better opportunities with most settling in Athens. The expansion of tourism in recent years has resulted in the growth of the economy and population. Santorini was ranked the world's top island by many magazines and travel sites, including the Travel+Leisure Magazine , the BBC , as well as the US News . An estimated 2 million tourists visit annually. Santorini has been emphasising sustainable development and

12878-451: The island was named Thera after Euphemus' descendant Theras , son of Autesion , the leader of a group of refugee settlers from Lemnos . The Dorians have left a number of inscriptions incised in stone, in the vicinity of the temple of Apollo , attesting to pederastic relations between the authors and their lovers ( eromenoi ). These inscriptions, found by Friedrich Hiller von Gaertringen , have been thought by some archaeologists to be of

13015-416: The island were a jeep, a small bus and the island's traditional donkeys and mules. At 3:11am on 9 July 1956, an earthquake with a magnitude (depending on the particular study) of 7.5, 7.6, 7.7 or 7.8 struck 30 km south of the island of Amorgos. It was the largest earthquake of the 20th century in Greece and had a devastating impact on Santorini. It was followed by aftershocks, the most significant being

13152-484: The islanders were forced by the Sublime Porte to send 50 sailors to Mykonos to serve in the Ottoman navy. In 1810, Santorini with 32 ships possessed the seventh largest of the Greek fleet after Kefallinia (118), Hydra (120), Psara (60), Ithaca (38) Spetsai (60) and Skopelos (35). During the last years of Ottoman rule, the majority of residents were farmers and seafarers who exported their abundant produce, while

13289-471: The lack of majority support for direct participation in the revolt, it was necessary for Matzarakis to enlist the aid of Kefalonians living in Santorini to, on 5 May 1821 (the feast day of the patron saint of the island), raise the flag of the revolution and then expel the Ottoman officials from the island. The Provisional Administration of Greece organized the Aegean islands into six provinces, one of which

13426-449: The language show both conservative and innovative tendencies across the entire attestation of the language from the ancient to the modern period. The division into conventional periods is, as with all such periodizations, relatively arbitrary, especially because, in all periods, Ancient Greek has enjoyed high prestige, and the literate borrowed heavily from it. Across its history, the syllabic structure of Greek has varied little: Greek shows

13563-480: The largest buildings that survived unscathed was the newly built Hotel Atlantis, which allowed it to be used as a temporary hospital and to house public services. The greatest damage was experienced on the Western side along the edge of the caldera, especially at Oia, with parts of the ground collapsing into the sea. The damage from the earthquake reduced most of the population to extreme poverty and caused many to leave

13700-467: The late 15th century BC, was the first script used to write Greek. It is basically a syllabary , which was finally deciphered by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick in the 1950s (its precursor, Linear A , has not been deciphered and most likely encodes a non-Greek language). The language of the Linear B texts, Mycenaean Greek , is the earliest known form of Greek. Another similar system used to write

13837-690: The level of education was improving on the island, with the Monastery of Profitis Ilias being one of the most important monastic centres in the Cyclades. In 1821, the island was home to 13,235 inhabitants, which within a year had risen to 15,428. As part of its plans to foment a revolt against the Ottoman Empire and gain Greek Independence, Alexandros Ypsilantis , the head of the Filiki Eteria in early 1821, dispatched Dimitrios Themelis from Patmos and Evangelis Matzarakis (–1824),

13974-486: The males and females have differently coloured pelages (e.g. blackbuck and nyala ). Antelope are ruminants , so they have well-developed molar teeth , which grind cud (food balls stored in the stomach) into a pulp for further digestion. They have no upper incisors, but rather a hard upper gum pad, against which their lower incisors bite to tear grass stems and leaves. Like many other herbivores , antelope rely on keen senses to avoid predators. Their eyes are placed on

14111-542: The males have horns, and have been so heavily hunted that some herds contain up to 800 females to one male. The species has shown a steep decline and is critically endangered. It is difficult to determine how long antelope live in the wild. With the preference of predators towards old and infirm individuals, which can no longer sustain peak speeds, few wild prey-animals live as long as their biological potential. In captivity, wildebeest have lived beyond 20 years old, and impalas have reached their late teens. The antelope's horn

14248-452: The many other countries of the Greek diaspora . Greek roots have been widely used for centuries and continue to be widely used to coin new words in other languages; Greek and Latin are the predominant sources of international scientific vocabulary . Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, or possibly earlier. The earliest written evidence is

14385-465: The morphological changes also have their counterparts in the syntax, and there are also significant differences between the syntax of the ancient and that of the modern form of the language . Ancient Greek made great use of participial constructions and of constructions involving the infinitive, and the modern variety lacks the infinitive entirely (employing a raft of new periphrastic constructions instead) and uses participles more restrictively. The loss of

14522-636: The ninth century BC, Dorians founded the main Hellenic city on Mesa Vouno, 396 m (1,299 ft) above sea level . This group later claimed that they had named the city and the island after their leader, Theras . Today, that city is referred to as Ancient Thera . In his Argonautica , written in Hellenistic Egypt in the third century BC, Apollonius Rhodius includes an origin and sovereignty myth of Thera being given by Triton in Libya to

14659-476: The predator cannot pursue. Springboks use a behavior known as stotting to confuse predators. Open grassland species have nowhere to hide from predators, so they tend to be fast runners. They are agile and have good endurance —these are advantages when pursued by sprint-dependent predators such as cheetahs , which are the fastest of land animals, but tire quickly. Reaction distances vary with predator species and behaviour. For example, gazelles may not flee from

14796-416: The promotion of special forms of tourism, the organization of major events such as conferences and sport activities. The island's pumice quarries have been closed since 1986, in order to preserve the caldera. In 2007, the cruise ship MS Sea Diamond ran aground and sank inside the caldera . As of 2019, Santorini is popular with Asian couples who come to the island to have pre-wedding photos taken against

14933-431: The rains and thereby their food supply. The gnus and gazelles of East Africa perform some of the most impressive mass migratory circuits of all mammals. Antelope vary greatly in size. For example, a male common eland can measure 178 cm (5 ft 10 in) at the shoulder and weigh almost 950 kg (2,100 lb), whereas an adult royal antelope may stand only 24 cm ( 9 + 1 ⁄ 2  in) at

15070-591: The regions of Apulia and Calabria in Italy. In the framework of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages , Greek is protected and promoted officially as a regional and minority language in Armenia, Hungary , Romania, and Ukraine. It is recognized as a minority language and protected in Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne . The phonology , morphology , syntax , and vocabulary of

15207-563: The revolt. Four commissioners for the Aegean islands (among them, Benjamin of Lesvos and Konstantinos Metaxas) appointed by the Provisional Administration of Greece arrived in July 1822 to investigate the issues on Santorini. The commissioners were uncompromising in their support for Matzarakis. With news from Chios fresh in their minds the island's notables eventually arrested Metaxas, with the intention of handing him over to

15344-403: The same genus. All reported examples occur within the same subfamily. As with most mammal hybrids, the less closely related the parents, the more likely the offspring will be sterile. Antelope are a common symbol in heraldry , though they occur in a highly distorted form from nature. The heraldic antelope has the body of a stag and the tail of a lion , with serrated horns, and a small tusk at

15481-415: The shadows rapidly. Gazelle and springbok are known for their speed and leaping abilities. Even larger antelope, such as nilgai, elands , and kudus , are capable of jumping 2.4 m (7 ft 10 in) or greater, although their running speed is restricted by their greater mass. Antelope have a wide variety of coverings, though most have a dense coat of short fur. In most species, the coat (pelage)

15618-552: The shoulder and weigh a mere 1.5 kg ( 3 + 1 ⁄ 4  lb). Not surprisingly for animals with long, slender yet powerful legs, many antelope have long strides and can run fast. Some (e.g. klipspringer) are also adapted to inhabiting rock koppies and crags. Both dibatags and gerenuks habitually stand on their two hind legs to reach acacia and other tree foliage. Different antelope have different body types, which can affect movement. Duikers are short, bush-dwelling antelope that can pick through dense foliage and dive into

15755-806: The sides of their heads, giving them a broad radius of vision with minimal binocular vision. Their horizontally elongated pupils also help in this respect. Acute senses of smell and hearing give antelope the ability to perceive danger at night out in the open (when predators are often on the prowl). These same senses play an important role in contact between individuals of the same species; markings on their heads, ears, legs, and rumps are used in such communication. Many species "flash" such markings, as well as their tails; vocal communications include loud barks, whistles, "moos", and trumpeting; many species also use scent marking to define their territories or simply to maintain contact with their relatives and neighbors. The size and shape of antelope horns varies greatly. Those of

15892-464: The southern tip of a large town has been uncovered, yet it has revealed complexes of multi-level buildings, streets, and squares with remains of walls standing as high as eight metres, all entombed in the solidified ash of the famous eruption of Thera. The site was not a palace-complex as found in Crete nor was it a conglomeration of merchant warehousing. Its excellent masonry and fine wall-paintings reveal

16029-413: The steps from Fira down to the port, offering them a beautiful farewell spectacle. Once such visitor was the actress Olivia de Havilland who visited the island in September 1955 at the invitation of Petros Nomikos. In the early 1950s, the shipping magnate Evangelos P. Nomikos and his wife Loula decided to support their birthplace and so asked residents to choose whether they wanted the couple to pay for

16166-437: The stressed vowel; the so-called breathing marks ( rough and smooth breathing ), originally used to signal presence or absence of word-initial /h/; and the diaeresis , used to mark the full syllabic value of a vowel that would otherwise be read as part of a diphthong. These marks were introduced during the course of the Hellenistic period. Actual usage of the grave in handwriting saw a rapid decline in favor of uniform usage of

16303-528: The various layers of solidified lava on top of each other, and the main towns perched on the crest. The ground then slopes outwards and downwards towards the outer perimeter, and the outer beaches are smooth and shallow. Beach sand colour depends on which geological layer is exposed; there are beaches with sand or pebbles made of solidified lava of various colours: such as the Red Beach, the Black Beach and

16440-413: The wind god Vayu . There is, however, no scientific evidence that the horns of any antelope have any change on a human's physiology or characteristics. In Mali, antelope were believed to have brought the skills of agriculture to mankind. Humans have also used the term "Antelope" to refer to a tradition usually found in the sport of track and field. Domestication of animals requires certain traits in

16577-516: Was Santorini and appointed Matzarakis its governor in April 1822. While he was able to raise a large amount of money (double that collected on Naxos), he was soon found to lack the diplomatic skills needed to convince the islanders who had enjoyed considerable autonomy to now accept direction from a central authority and contribute tax revenue to it. He claimed to his superiors that the islanders needed "political re-education" as they did not understand why they had to pay higher taxes than those levied under

16714-574: Was a distinct dialect of Greek itself. Aside from the Macedonian question, current consensus regards Phrygian as the closest relative of Greek, since they share a number of phonological, morphological and lexical isoglosses , with some being exclusive between them. Scholars have proposed a Graeco-Phrygian subgroup out of which Greek and Phrygian originated. Among living languages, some Indo-Europeanists suggest that Greek may be most closely related to Armenian (see Graeco-Armenian ) or

16851-655: Was a major driver of this diversification. Other species occur in Asia: the Arabian Peninsula is home to the Arabian oryx and Dorcas gazelle . South Asia is home to the nilgai , chinkara , blackbuck , Tibetan antelope , and four-horned antelope , while Russia and Central Asia have the Tibetan antelope and saiga . No antelope species is native to Australasia or Antarctica , nor do any extant species occur in

16988-498: Was a major town. In many houses stone staircases are still intact, and they contain huge ceramic storage jars ( pithoi ), mills, and pottery. Noted archaeological remains found in Akrotiri are wall paintings or frescoes that have kept their original colour well, as they were preserved under many metres of volcanic ash. Judging from the fine artwork, its citizens were sophisticated and relatively wealthy people. Among more complete frescoes found in one house are two antelopes painted with

17125-645: Was able to quickly restore control and the revolt had been suppressed by 20 March of that year. However, the unrest arose again later in the year which lead to the 23 October 1862 Revolution and the overthrow of King Otto. During the Second World War , Santorini was occupied in 1941 by Italian forces and then by the Germans following the Italian armistice in 1943. In 1944, the German garrison on Santorini

17262-557: Was also used in Ancient Greek. Greek has occasionally been written in the Latin script , especially in areas under Venetian rule or by Greek Catholics . The term Frankolevantinika / Φραγκολεβαντίνικα applies when the Latin script is used to write Greek in the cultural ambit of Catholicism (because Frankos / Φράγκος is an older Greek term for West-European dating to when most of (Roman Catholic Christian) West Europe

17399-490: Was by far the most widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world . It eventually became the official language of the Byzantine Empire and developed into Medieval Greek . In its modern form , Greek is the official language of Greece and Cyprus and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union . It is spoken by at least 13.5 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey , and

17536-501: Was established 1947 to process, export and promote the islands agriculture products, in particular its wine. In 1952, they constructed near the village of Monolithos what is today the island's only remaining tomato processing factory. The island's tourism in the early 1950s generally took the form of small numbers of wealthy tourists on yacht cruises though the Aegean. The island's children would present arriving passengers with flowers and bid them happy sailing by lighting small lanterns along

17673-582: Was itself a genitive suffix in the Aegean Sprachbund , *Qeras[os] could also shrink to *Qera. If qe-ra-si-ja was an ethnikon first, then in following the entity the Cretans also feared whence it came. Probably after what is called the Bronze Age collapse , Phoenicians founded a site on Thera. Herodotus reports that they called the island Callista and lived on it for eight generations. In

17810-471: Was named by the Latin Empire in the thirteenth century, and is a reference to Saint Irene , from the name of the old church in the village of Perissa – the name Santorini is a contraction of the name Santa Irini. Before then, it was known as Kallístē ( Καλλίστη , "the most beautiful one" ), Strongýlē ( Στρογγύλη , "the circular one" ), or Thēra. The ancient name Thera , for Theras , the leader of

17947-458: Was no airport the Greek military made air drops of food, tents and supplies, while camps for the homeless were established on the outskirts of Fira. On Santorini, the earthquakes killed 53 people and injured another 100. On Santorini 35% of the houses collapsed and 45% suffered major or minor damage. In total, 529 houses were destroyed, 1,482 were severely damaged and 1,750 lightly damaged. Almost all public buildings were completely destroyed. One of

18084-459: Was raided by a group of British Special Boat Service Commandos, killing most of its men. Five locals were later shot in reprisal, including the mayor. In general, the island's economy continued to decline following World War II with a number of factories closing as a lot of industrial activity relocated after to Athens. In an attempt to improve the local economy, the Union of Santorini Cooperatives

18221-477: Was re-opened in April 2012. The oldest signs of human settlement are Late Neolithic (4th millennium BC or earlier), but c. 2000–1650 BC Akrotiri developed into one of the Aegean's major Bronze Age ports, with recovered objects that came not just from Crete , but also from Anatolia , Cyprus , Syria , and Egypt , as well as from the Dodecanese and the Greek mainland. The Minoan eruption provides

18358-430: Was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary . The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin , Cyrillic , Coptic , Gothic , and many other writing systems. The Greek language holds a very important place in the history of the Western world. Beginning with the epics of Homer , ancient Greek literature includes many works of lasting importance in

18495-580: Was under the control of the Frankish Empire ). Frankochiotika / Φραγκοχιώτικα (meaning 'Catholic Chiot') alludes to the significant presence of Catholic missionaries based on the island of Chios . Additionally, the term Greeklish is often used when the Greek language is written in a Latin script in online communications. The Latin script is nowadays used by the Greek-speaking communities of Southern Italy . The Yevanic dialect

18632-637: Was used for literary and official purposes in the newly formed Greek state. In 1976, Dimotiki was declared the official language of Greece, after having incorporated features of Katharevousa and thus giving birth to Standard Modern Greek , used today for all official purposes and in education . The historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language are often emphasized. Although Greek has undergone morphological and phonological changes comparable to those seen in other languages, never since classical antiquity has its cultural, literary, and orthographic tradition been interrupted to

18769-673: Was written by Romaniote and Constantinopolitan Karaite Jews using the Hebrew Alphabet . In a tradition, that in modern time, has come to be known as Greek Aljamiado , some Greek Muslims from Crete wrote their Cretan Greek in the Arabic alphabet . The same happened among Epirote Muslims in Ioannina . This also happened among Arabic-speaking Byzantine rite Christians in the Levant ( Lebanon , Palestine, and Syria ). This usage

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