The Straw That Learned to Write
There was in Proto-Indo-European a word *ḱolh₂mos, “straw, stalk.” From it descend Latin culmus, German…
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The Hawk That Became an Eagle
We have met the beyliks, the Saltukids among them; but independent as they were, they…
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A Mosque That Names Itself
Two years after the Saltukids had married their way into three neighbouring houses, they began…
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Four Neighbours and a Ransom
Manzikert in 1071 is conventionally filed under catastrophe: the Byzantine army broken, Anatolia opened. For…
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The Shape and the Name
Theodosiopolis changed hands with a regularity that must have exhausted its stonemasons: Byzantines, Arabs, Byzantines…
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Abdallah, the Carpet, and the Cross
Two centuries back, then. In the eighth century the frontier town of Erzurum—Theodosiopolis, as it…
