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[Ren Ren]

Originally Posted by gp

.. looking at the geography map of the region:

gp, thank you very much for these maps!

Dear colleagues, you can all see how complex and time-varying the political and ethnic map is in the Eastern and Southern Black Sea region! This is a real paradise for ethnographers and linguists, it is a lot of difficulties for historians, and it is a real curse for experts in ethnic conflicts. There is probably only one other equally complex region in the world - Southwest China with adjacent areas of Vietnam, Laos, Burma and Tibet. In a related topic, Ariel asked why Russian scientists have done so little to link museum objects and their ethnic origin? In Russia, historians of weapons prefer to use descriptive names in the literature with reference to geographical origin. The ethnic name, if specified, is used as an optional one. In particular, the knife, persistently referred to as "surmene", is called the "circumpontian knife" (циркумпонтийский нож). This term is derived from the Greek word "Pont" (short for "Pont Euxin" - the Black Sea) and the Latin "circum" - around. Lazistan does not have a monopoly on the design of this knife - a similar type was found along the entire coast of the Black Sea, possibly with the exception of its Western part (the territory of modern Bulgaria and Romania). The peoples who lived there spoke languages ​​belonging to at least four different language groups. Therefore, it is highly doubtful that the name "surmene" (and equally "baba kamas" ) was borrowed by all of them.