Morgetia, meaning black (Moro) Getia, was an ethnical center inhabited by the Morgets (black Gets or Getae), an prehelenic community which remained unchanged until the arrival of Romans.
Robert Leighton, a specialist in Italian prehistory at Edinburgh: "it does not seem possible to distinguish with any accuracy or confidence between Ausonians, Morgetians or Sikels on a purely archaeological basis".
Later, in Latin sources are mentioned the Nigri Latini - Black Latins! They are the ‘Maurovlachs’ or Black Latins, who lived west of Macedonia, in the ranges from Mount Sar to Mount Pindus.
The Morlachs (Mavrovlachi) described as Nigri Latini are mentioned as inhabiting the coast of southern Dalmatia and the mountains of Montenegro, Herzegovina and southern Albania (c.1150).
Morgantina (eastern Sicily) was already inhabited in the prehistory. The oldest ruins which have been found up to now are on the hill of the Cittadella and are dated back to the 13th c. BC.
According to the historical data, during this period the central part of Sicily was occupied by the Morgets, a people coming from the mainland. Morgantina is located off Route 288 near Aidone, in the province of Enna, Morgantina may have been settled by a certain King Morges who arrived with colonists from central Italy around 1300 BC.
The early Morgetian culture was therefore somewhat distinct from the native Siculian civilisation. Excavations on the slopes of the Cittadella settlement at Morgantina have revealed nearly seventy tombs dating from the late eighth to the mid-fifth century B.C.
Often reused for multiple inhumation and cremation burials, these tombs provide significant documentation of the critical period when immigrant Greeks interacted with the substantial indigenous community, introducing foreign objects and practices that modified the local Iron Age funerary rite.
THE MORS
In 1979 the famous Jat historian B.S.Dehiya published a paper entitled "The Mauryas: Their Identity", Vishveshvaranand Indological Journal, Vol. 17 (1979), p.112-133. In this now classic treatise, B.S.Dehiya proved several points, including the following:
- The Mauryas, Muras, or rather Mors, were Jats, and hence Scythian or East Iranic in origin.
- The clan name of these people was Mor (pronounced as English more) and, coincidentally, Mor also meant a peacock in Indian languages. But the name is not Indian at all, it is from Central Asia, and means "head" (p.113).
- The primordial Jat religion was that of the original Iranic race, namely monotheist Sun-worship, which they and their Maga priests carried wherever they migrated (p.119, 128).
- The Jat immigrants are close kin of the ancient Gutians of Sumeria (p.131), and the Goths or Gots (p.125), known in Latin as Getae.
Also there is not any proof that the Mors were the same with the Morgets, this hypotesis can't be ruled out either. When the Ottomans conquered the Balkan peninsula, they found the descendants of the Mors or Morgets (literally meaning black Gets), whom they named Kara-Ulaghi or black Vlachs.
Turks used a similar name for Armenians, while Armenia was called Karabakh which is a compound of the Turkish word for black (kara) and a Persian word for garden (bakh).
Some of the Vlachs were named "Kara-Ulaghi" by Turks and "Kara-Ulak" by Serbs and Bulgarians meaning "Black Vlachs". Their land was named "Kara-Iflâh" by the Turks (kara=black, Iflâh=land, in Turkish).
In today's Romanian, "kara-ula" means guard. Probably, the black Vlachs were used as guards.
There are accounts about the "Black King" or "Negru Voda", in Romanian. He is a legendary figure, identified by the historians with "Black Radu".
The principality of Wallachia was established in 1290, by Radu Negru (Black Radu) or Rudolf the Black.
Câmpulung, on the southern watershed of the Transylvanian Alps (Prahova River Valley) was Wallachia's first capital. Curtea de Arges was the second. By 1310, when Basarab the Great came to the throne of Wallachia as the second prince of the line, a state in being had definitely been established.
Many Aromanians originating from Greek side of Macedonia have their names beginning with "Kara". In Greek, "kara" means "head", just like "mor" in central Asian languages.
It is possible that the names of the persons beginning with "kara" to originate rather from "head" than from "black". Looks like the original meaning of the word "kara" was "head", just like in to the case of the word "mor".
Because the populations using these names for themselves had darker skins, the meaning of both words was changed to "black".
A part of Cincari are nomadic herdsmen known by various names: Karavunci, Karaguni, Karakacani, Kucivlasi.
Vlachs known as Morlachs, or Mavrovlachi, Greek "Mavrovlachos", meaning "black Vlach" (mavro=black, in Greek), inhabited areas in the mountains of Montenegro, meaning "Black Mountain" in Italian, Hercegovina, and northern Albania as well as on the southern coast of Dalmatia, where they founded Ragusa (modern Dubrovnik). In the 14th century some Morlachs moved northward into Croatia.
Here is what the Yugoslav Encyclopedia (Enciklopedija Leksikografskog Zavoda, Zagreb, 1968, book 4) tells about them:
“Morlaki, (Murlaki; from Ital. Morlacco, being shortening of Greek form Mauroblahos - mauros - black, Blahos - Vlah;
Maurovlasi or Morovlasi, in latin sources called Nigri Latini - Black Latins), name used for shepherds of Roman origin or romanized, that kept themselves in Balkan peninsula mountains after Slavic colonization in 6th century, keeping some linguistic and somatic characteristics.
Morlaki (Morovlasi) are called those Romanian shepherds that, running from Turks towards west, settled in mountains from Skadar lake [on border of Montenegro and Albania] to Velebit [in northern Croatian coast].
So, a group of them came to island Krk 1450-80 (villages Dubasnica and Poljica) where some words and roots of Romanian language, interwove with Slavic words (as in the prayer "Our father"), were kept until beginning of 19th century.
Some groups of those Romanians came to Trieste [on Italian-Slovenian border], and very long held themselves in some villages in Istria. The Italian form Morlacco is used already in 15th century, and in 16th century that is the name for (any) local people living in mountains from Kotor [in Montenegro] to Kvarner [around city of Rijeka].
Lots of Morlaks was in Velebit mountains, so that region was by Venetians called Morlachia. The Velebit mountain was called Montagne della Morlacca, and sea way under the mountain, closed by the islands, was Morlakian channel (Canale della Morlacca).”
Prof. John G. Nandris from the University College of London, writes in Ethnoarchaeology and Latinity in the mountains of southern Velebit (in Transhumant pastoralism in Southern Europe -1999):
"The Morlachs were a Mediaeval population, whose name has now vanished but is historically attested from Dalmatia. They were Latin speakers, and we can probably equate them with the Aromani (Vlachs, Cincari) of the Balkan peninsula south of Danube (..)
It was confirmed during the 1985 fieldwork that although the shepherds of Velebit are Croat speakers, they still employ a system of Latin numerals to enumerate sheep.
These are identical to the Romanian or Aromanian numerals. This legacy indicates that the population from whom the present shepherds learned the techniques of pastoralism were certainly Latin speakers."
According to Buschan "Die Volker Europas'', c. 1910, the Maurovlachen (Maurovlachians) were black Vlachians; they were nomadic shepherds, like the Aromunen and Turkish shepherds.
Their name was mentioned in the 10th century in the Byzantine empire; in the 11th century in Bulgaria and in later times in the western part of the Balkan peninsula.
Krajina region was an area first settled by a pastoral, nomadic people known as Vlachs, or Morlachs because they had darker skin than their Slavic neighbours.
From the 16th century, the Austrians invited them to settle the Vojna Krajina (military frontier) where they were free of serfdom in return for defending the border (roughly that of present Bosnia) against the Turks. By this time most of them were Orthodox.
In 1630 Ferdinand II issued the "Statuta Valachorum"; (Law of the Vlachs), which defined the status of the Vlachs.
Allers Illustrerede Konversations-Leksikon' (Copenhagen 1906-10) says that the Morlaks are some of the best sailors in the Austrian navy.
The Croatian census of 1991 revealed 22 persons who declared themselves as "Morlachs"…
source angelfirecybershamans (karmapolice) / CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
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