Marmara Island - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Marmara is a Turkish

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

island

Island

An island or isle is any piece of sub-continental land that is surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, cays or keys. An island in a river or lake may be called an eyot , or holm...

in the Sea of Marmara

Sea of Marmara

The Sea of Marmara , also known as the Sea of Marmora or the Marmara Sea, and in the context of classical antiquity as the Propontis , is the inland sea that connects the Black Sea to the Aegean Sea, thus separating Turkey's Asian and European parts. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Black...

. It is the largest island in the Sea of Marmara that is the center of Marmara district in Balıkesir Province

Balikesir Province

Balıkesir Province is a province in midwestern Turkey, having coastlines on both the Sea of Marmara and the Aegean. Its adjacent provinces are Çanakkale to the west, İzmir to the southwest, Manisa to the south, Kütahya to the southeast, and Bursa to the east. The provincial capital is Balıkesir City...

. Transportation is possible from Istanbul

Istanbul

Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...

by ship and ferry, and by motorboat from Tekirdağ

Tekirdag

Tekirdağ , the ancient Bisanthi , is a city in Eastern Thrace, in the European part of Turkey. Tekirdağ is the capital of Tekirdağ Province, felt by the local people to be a quieter and more pleasant town than the industrial centre of Çorlu, which it administers. The city population as of 2009 was...

and Erdek

Erdek

Erdek is a town and district of Balıkesir Province in the Marmara region of Turkey. The population is 20,693 .Located on the north coast of Gulf of Erdek at the south of the Sea of Marmara, Erdek is known as a friendly holiday destination that is popular among domestic tourists...

History

Historical evidence of the first Hellenic presence on the island of Marmara (ancient Prokonnessos) came with the early colonization of Ionian Greeks in the 3rd Millennium B.C. Stories and legends identify the island as a visiting place of Jason and The Argonauts and with the Hellenic expedition against Troy. In ancient times, the island was called Proconnesus or Prokonnesos (Προκόννησος). In 493 BC

493 BC

Year 493 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Auruncus and Viscellinus...

it was burned by a Phœnician fleet fighting for Darius. In 410 Alcibiades

Alcibiades

Alcibiades, son of Clinias, from the deme of Scambonidae , was a prominent Athenian statesman, orator, and general. He was the last famous member of his mother's aristocratic family, the Alcmaeonidae, which fell from prominence after the Peloponnesian War...

conquered it for Athens.

During the reign of Constantine the Great in the 4th century notable aristocracy from Constantinople first settled on the island. By 569, many Byzantine aristocrats had built palaces on the island that they had accepted as their home. The greatest palace of this period was built by the Emperor Justinian I

Justinian I

Justinian I ; , ; 483– 13 or 14 November 565), commonly known as Justinian the Great, was Byzantine Emperor from 527 to 565. During his reign, Justinian sought to revive the Empire's greatness and reconquer the lost western half of the classical Roman Empire.One of the most important figures of...

. With the Emperor came a large entourage of nobility, palace guards, tradesmen, and servants. Justinian also built a large convent on Marmara that is one of the earliest in recorded history. The Byzantine royal presence on the island was strongly felt through strong ties to the Patriarchate of Constantinople. During most of its history, the island was called "Proikonnesos" (island of the royal dowry), and "Prinkipo", (island of the aristocracy).

From the fall of the Byzantine Empire to the years directly following World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, the island was almost exclusively populated by Greek Orthodox Greekshttp://www2.egeonet.gr/aigaio/forms/fLemmaBodyExtended.aspx?lemmaID=6821. During World War I much of the population was forced off of the island onto the mainland. And, following the war, as a result of the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne

Treaty of Lausanne

The Treaty of Lausanne was a peace treaty signed in Lausanne, Switzerland on 24 July 1923, that settled the Anatolian and East Thracian parts of the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire. The treaty of Lausanne was ratified by the Greek government on 11 February 1924, by the Turkish government on 31...

and the population exchange between Greece and Turkey

Population exchange between Greece and Turkey

The 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey was based upon religious identity, and involved the Greek Orthodox citizens of Turkey and the Muslim citizens of Greece...

, all remaining Greeks native to the island of Marmara emigrated to Greece and other locations around the globe.

In Greece, the island's Greek diaspora settled primarily in New Marmara, the island of Euboea

Euboea

Euboea is the second largest Greek island in area and population, after Crete. The narrow Euripus Strait separates it from Boeotia in mainland Greece. In general outline it is a long and narrow, seahorse-shaped island; it is about long, and varies in breadth from to...

, and in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki

Thessaloniki

Thessaloniki , historically also known as Thessalonica, Salonika or Salonica, is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the region of Central Macedonia as well as the capital of the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace...

. Still others from the island settled in the Americas, primarily in the USA

Greek American

Greek Americans are Americans of Greek descent also described as Hellenic descent. According to the 2007 U.S. Census Bureau estimation, there were 1,380,088 people of Greek ancestry in the United States, while the State Department mentions that around 3,000,000 Americans claim to be of Greek descent...

, in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Oregon and the Seattle/Tacoma, Washington area. As well, still others emigrated to Canada

Greek Canadians

Greek Canadians are Canadian citizens of Greek origin, also known as Hellenic origin. According to the 2006 Canadian census, there were 242,685 Canadians who claimed Greek ethnicity.- Authors :...

, Australia

Greek Australian

Greeks are the seventh-largest ethnic group in Australia, after those declaring their ancestry simply as "Australian". In the 2006 census, 365,147 persons declared having Greek ancestry, either alone or in conjunction with another ethnicity....

and South America.

1935 earthquake

On January 4, 1935 at 16:41:29 local time, an earthquake hit the Marmara Island and its neighboring islands Avşa

Avsa

Avşa Island or Türkeli is a Turkish island in the southern Sea of Marmara. It was the classical and Byzantine Aphousia or Ophiousa and was a place of exile during the Byzantine period....

and Paşalimanı

Pasalimani

Paşalimanı Island , formerly Halone , is a small island in the southern Sea of Marmara in Turkey. The island belongs to the Marmara District of Balıkesir Province in northwestern Turkey. There are five small settlements on the island.-See also:...

, causing five deaths, 30 persons injured and several villages destroyed.

Etymology

Its name derives from the Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

μάρμαρον (marmaron) and that from μάρμαρος (marmaros), "crystalline rock", "shining stone", perhaps from the verb μαρμαίρω (marmairō), "to flash, sparkle, gleam", because it is famous for its white marble

Marble

Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...

. Under the name Proconnesus it is a titular see

Titular see

A titular see in various churches is an episcopal see of a former diocese that no longer functions, sometimes called a "dead diocese". The ordinary or hierarch of such a see may be styled a "titular bishop", "titular metropolitan", or "titular archbishop"....

of the Roman Catholic Church

Roman Catholic Church

The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...

. The see is currently vacant.

The name "Marmara" came from the wealth of great marble deposits that are found on the island. Much of the marble used in the building of the Hagia Sophia

Hagia Sophia

Hagia Sophia is a former Orthodox patriarchal basilica, later a mosque, and now a museum in Istanbul, Turkey...

came from the marble quarries on the island. An example of this marble is to the Herculean Sarcophagus of Genzano

Herculean Sarcophagus of Genzano

The Herculean Sarcophagus of Genzano is a Roman Sarcophagus from Genzano which is in store at the British Museum. It features the Twelve Labours of Hercules. It has been dated to about AD 150-180...

now in the British Museum

British Museum

The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...