Byzantine-Seljuk Wars and the Battle of Manzikert

Byzantine-Seljuk Wars and the Battle of Manzikert The Battle of Manzikert was fought on August 26, 1071, during the Byzantine-Seljuk Wars (1048-1308). Ascending to the throne in 1068, Romanos IV Diogenes worked to restore a decaying military situation on the Byzantine Empires eastern borders. Passing needed reforms, he directed Manuel Comnenus to lead a campaign against the  Ã¢â‚¬â€¹Seljuk Turks with the goal of regaining lost territory. While this initially proved successful, it ended in disaster when Manuel was defeated and captured. Despite this failure, Romanos was able to conclude a peace treaty with Seljuk leader Alp Arslan in 1069. This was largely due to Arslans need for peace on his northern border so that he could campaign against the Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt. Romanos Plan In February 1071, Romanos sent envoys to Arslan with a request to renew the peace treaty of 1069. Agreeing, Arslan began moving his army into Fatimid Syria to besiege  Ã¢â‚¬â€¹Aleppo. Part of an elaborate scheme, Romanos had hoped that the treaty renewal would lead Arslan away from the area allowing him to launch a campaign against the Seljuks in Armenia. Believing that the plan was working, Romanos assembled an army numbering between 40,000-70,000 outside Constantinople in March. This force included veteran Byzantine troops as well as Normans, Franks, Pechenegs, Armenians,  Ã¢â‚¬â€¹Bulgarians, and variety of other mercenaries. The Campaign Begins Moving east, Romanos army continued to grow but was plagued by the questionable loyalties of its officer corps including the co-regent, Andronikos Doukas. A rival of Romanos, Doukas was a key member of the powerful Doukid faction in Constantinople. Arriving at Theodosiopoulis in July, Romanos received reports that Arslan had abandoned the siege of Aleppo and was retreating east towards the Euphrates River. Though some of his commanders wished to halt and await Arslans approach, Romanos pressed on towards Manzikert. Believing that the enemy would approach from the south, Romanos split his army and directed Joseph Tarchaneiotes to take one wing in that direction to block the road from Khilat. Arriving at Manzikert, Romanos overwhelmed the Seljuk garrison and secured the town on August 23. Byzantine intelligence had been correct in reporting that Arslan had abandoned the siege of Aleppo but failed in noting his next destination. Eager to deal with the Byzantine incursion, Arslan moved north into Armenia. In the course of the march, his army shrank as the region offered little plunder. The Armies Clash Reaching Armenia in late August, Arslan began maneuvering towards the Byzantines. Spotting a large Seljuk force advancing from the south, Tarchaneiotes elected to retreat west and failed to inform Romanos of his actions. Unaware that nearly half his army had departed the area, Romanos located Arslans army on August 24 when Byzantine troops under Nicephorus Bryennius clashed with the Seljuks. While these troops successfully fell back, a cavalry force led by Basilakes was crushed. Arriving on the field, Arslan dispatched a peace offer which was quickly rejected by the Byzantines. On August 26, Romanos deployed his army for battle with himself commanding the center, Bryennius leading the left, and Theodore Alyates directing the right. The Byzantine reserves were placed to the rear under the leadership of Andronikos Doukas. Arslan, commanding from a nearby hill, directed his army to form a crescent moon-shaped line. Commencing a slow advance, the Byzantine flanks were struck by arrows from the wings of the Seljuk formation. As the Byzantines advanced, the center of the Seljuk line fell back with the flanks conducting hit and run attacks on Romanos men. Disaster for Romanos Though capturing the Seljuk camp late in the day, Romanos had failed to bring Arslans army to battle. As dusk neared, he ordered a withdrawal back towards their camp. Turning, the Byzantine army fell into confusion as the right wing failed to obey the order to fall back. As gaps in Romanos line began to open, he was betrayed by Doukas who led the reserve off the field rather than forward to cover the armys retreat. Sensing an opportunity, Arslan began a series of heavy assaults on the Byzantine flanks and shattered Alyates wing. As the battle turned into a rout, Nicephorus Bryennius was able to lead his force to safety. Quickly surrounded, Romanos and the Byzantine center were unable to break out. Aided by the Varangian Guard, Romanos continued the fight until falling wounded. Captured, he was taken to Arslan who placed a boot on his throat and forced him to kiss the ground. With the Byzantine army shattered and in retreat, Arslan kept the defeated emperor as his guest for a week before allowing him to return to Constantinople. Aftermath While Seljuk losses at Manzikert are not known, recent scholarship estimates that the Byzantines lost around 8,000 killed. In the wake of the defeat, Arslan negotiated a peace with Romanos before permitting him to depart. This saw the transfer of Antioch, Edessa, Hierapolis, and Manzikert to the Seljuks as well as the initial payment of 1.5 million gold pieces and 360,000 gold pieces annually as a ransom for Romanos. Reaching the capital, Romanos found himself unable to rule and was deposed later that year after being defeated by the Doukas family. Blinded, he was exiled to Proti the following year. The defeat at Manzikert unleashed nearly a decade of internal strife which weakened the Byzantine Empire and saw the Seljuks make gains on the eastern border.

Zircon, Zirconia, Zirconium Minerals

Zircon, Zirconia, Zirconium Minerals Zircon may seem a bit drab next to those infomercials for cheap cubic zirconia jewelry. The zirconium minerals are a serious bunch. Zircon Zircon makes a nice gem but its out of favor these days. Zircon- zirconium silicate or ZrSiO4- is a hard stone, ranking 7 ½ on the Mohs scale, but other stones are harder and its colors arent unique. Tradition has a slim dossier on zircon; one site says that it was reputed to aid sleep, bring prosperity, and promote honor and wisdom, but hey, just having the money to own jewels is good for that. It does have some minor mineralogical distinctions. Its the only gem in the tetragonal crystal class, for what that is worth. And its the densest of the major gemstones, but that means a zircon of a given carat weight is smaller than any other gem of equal weight. Maybe zircon can gain more respect if we look at its value to geologists. Zircon grains occur almost everywhere there are sediments because the mineral is so tough. It rises through the crust in igneous rocks and is eroded into the stream system, washed out to sea, and laid down in the sediment beds where it becomes part of the next cycle of sandstone and shale- totally unaffected! Zircon is the ultimate geological recyclable; it can even endure metamorphism. That makes it a great indicator mineral. If you find it in granite in one place, and in a sandstone somewhere else, you have learned something about the geologic history and geographic setting that brought the zircons from the first to the second place. The other thing about zircon is its impurities, especially uranium. The uranium-lead (U-Pb) system of dating rocks has been refined to great accuracy, and U-Pb zircon dating is now a precise tool for rocks as old as Earth itself, some 4.6 billion years. Zircon is good for this because it holds these elements tightly. Zircon is usually pronounced ZURKn, although you also hear ZUR-KON. Zirconia/Baddeleyite Cubic zirconia or CZ is known as a fake diamond, but I think it should instead be considered a superior zircon. CZ is a manufactured oxide compound, ZrO2, not a silicate, and zirconia is a chemical name, not a mineral name. There is a naturally occurring form of zirconia, called baddeleyite. The difference between baddeleyite and CZ is the way the zirconium and oxygen atoms are packed: the mineral is a monoclinic  crystal and the gem is cubic (isometric), the same crystal structure as diamond. That makes CZ extremely hard- only diamond, sapphire, and chrysoberyl can scratch it. The United States stockpiles over 14,000 tonnes of baddeleyite for its zirconium content. Like zircon, it is useful for dating extremely old rocks, though unlike zircon its use is limited to igneous rocks. Baddeleyite is pronounced ba-DELLY-ite by most geologists, but those who know better pronounce it BAD-ly-ite. Zirconolite Zirconolite, CaZrTi2O7, is neither a silicate nor an oxide but rather a titanate. In 2004 it was reported to be even better for dating old rocks than zircon, yielding data as precise as the SHRIMP (sensitive high-resolution ion microprobe) instrument allows. Zirconolite, though rare, may be widespread in igneous rocks but not recognized because it resembles rutile. The way to identify it for sure is by using specialized electron microscopy techniques on the tiny grains before deploying the SHRIMP on them. But these techniques can derive a date from a grain only 10 microns wide. Zirconolite is pronounced zir-CONE-alite. The Geologists Gem To get an idea of what people can do with zircons, consider what researcher Larry Heaman did, as reported in the April 1997 Geology. Heaman extracted zircon (and baddeleyite) from a set of ancient Canadian dikes, getting less than a milligram from 49 kilograms of rock. From these specks, less than 40 microns long, he derived a U-Pb age for the dike swarm of 2.4458 billion years (plus or minus a couple million), just after the close of the Archean Eon in earliest Proterozoic time. From that evidence he reassembled two big chunks of ancient North America, tucking the Wyoming terrane underneath the Superior terrane, then joined them to Karelia, the terrane underlying Finland and adjacent Russia. He called his results evidence of the worlds earliest episode of flood-basalt volcanism or Large Igneous Province (LIP). Heaman capped himself by speculating that the first LIP could reflect either (1) the waning of a vigorous mantle convection regime that prevailed during the Archean and completely dissipated mantle plumes for more than half of Earths history, or (2) the time of catastrophic collapse of a stable density stratification in the Earths core that led to a sudden increase in heat flux at the core-mantle boundary. This is a lot to get out of a few tiny bits of zircon and baddeleyite. PS: The oldest object on Earth is a grain of zircon thats nearly 4.4 billion years old. Its the only thing we have from deep in the earliest Archean, and it provides evidence that even at that time, Earth had liquid water on it.