History and Etymology
The Black Sea deluge theory dates the genesis of the Sea of Azov to 5600 BC, and there are traces of Neolithic settlement in the area it now covers. In antiquity, it was known as Lake Mæotis, the Maeotian Lake or the Maeotian Sea (Greek ἡ Μαιῶτις λίμνη and Latin Palus Maeotis), after the tribe of Maeotae which inhabited the Maeotian marshes east of the sea. In the antique epoch local inhabitants called the sea Temerinds. In medieval times, Russians named it the Sea of Surozh, after the Crimean city of Surozh (now Sudak).
The current name is popularly said to come from a Polovtsian prince named Azum or Asuf, who was killed defending a town in this region in 1067. Alternatively, it may originate from Turkish "asak" which means "low".
Read more about this topic: Sea Of Azov
Famous quotes containing the words history and, history and/or etymology:
“All objects, all phases of culture are alive. They have voices. They speak of their history and interrelatedness. And they are all talking at once!”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)
“A great proportion of the inhabitants of the Cape are always thus abroad about their teaming on some ocean highway or other, and the history of one of their ordinary trips would cast the Argonautic expedition into the shade.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.”
—Giambattista Vico (1688–1744)