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".
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“Classes struggle, some classes triumph, others are eliminated. Such is history; such is the history of civilization for thousands of years.”
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“Semantically, taste is rich and confusing, its etymology as odd and interesting as that of “style.” But while style—deriving from the stylus or pointed rod which Roman scribes used to make marks on wax tablets—suggests activity, taste is more passive.... Etymologically, the word we use derives from the Old French, meaning touch or feel, a sense that is preserved in the current Italian word for a keyboard, tastiera.”
—Stephen Bayley, British historian, art critic. “Taste: The Story of an Idea,” Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things, Random House (1991)