Why do so many Greeks Look Like Arabs?

Like Turks, not Arabs.

I always though Cat Stevens was gorgeous.

annoying comedian Jason Mantzoukas looks like an Arab.

Hah northern Greeks (like me) are blond haired and blue eyed.

All the people from around the Mediterranean (minus the northern Adriatic) look very much alike. I know a girl from Lebanon who looks exactly like the Greek screen goddess Irene Papas. They must share the same gene pool or something.

The Other always look alike.

Most greeks in Greece are actually of Albanian descent.

Turks ruled them for 400 years. That's why.

What r7 said. The Greeks now like to take credit for Aristotle, etc, but all the descendants of those Greeks died in slavery

[quote] Most greeks in Greece are actually of Albanian descent.

Ιησούς Χριστός, don't tell them that!

It's the hummus.

Turkey is right next door, so.....

R7 and R9 are wrong. Don't spew mistruths and lies if you haven't done your research.

They don't.

But they're both swarthy and love them some filo dough and baklava.

OP and R7 are wrong. Most Greeks and Italians have the same ancestry lineage, and do not have Arab or Albanian background. A percentage of Albanians however do come from Greek ancestry, not the other way around.

Ever hear of Alexander the Great, OP? His army invaded present day Turkey, Iraq and went all the way to India, his armies surely took wives and slaves along the way before they returned to Greece. Alexander the Great despite being either gay or bi took a wife in India.

It's the white-adjacent thing.

R15 thank you. Waiting for the italian white adjacent troll. R4, you know you're light recessive genes are from french german vikings known as The Normans, correct?

Because of these people Turks and Irish share a common ancestor. They took on the cultures they invaded without question. Why they got so far. Nice tip..because of them people in Siciky, Turkey, Irish and Scandinavians and on & on are all related by hook or by crook.

We're all part Norman somewhere in our pasts.

[quote]We're all part Norman somewhere in our pasts.

Even Chairman Mao?

Ha! Adjacent troll showed up as I was writing my comment. Do I know this place or not? 😂

Arabs aren't a race. You're all caucasian. Greeks are mediterranean and closer to people surrounding them, like armenians, turks, and italians.

I wouldn't say I'm the adjacent troll, but I just thought that the thread deserves someone saying that. I have never heard the expression used anywhere else.

Europe was settled by people who moved there from the Middle East. Then another invasion of people happened from the East via the steppes, which added additional mixtures, mostly to northern Europeans . All the people who live around the Mediterranean are relatively closely related and have similar features. Carthage in North Africa was settled by Lebanese people for instance. The Greeks conquered all of the Middle East and left a kingdom in Egypt (The Ptolemaic Kingdom). They also had long settlement in southern Italy and Sicily. Semitic languages are unrelated to Indo-European languages, but languages indicate almost nothing about genes. The further south one goes in the Middle East the more influence of sub-saharan African, so by the time you get to Yemen, there's a lot - but the people of Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Armenia, Greece, Bulgaria - basically very similar genetically. Italy and Spain had more influence of different tribes and migrations, more Germanic influences, (Goths, Normans, etc) so they are slightly less similar.

OP, who is that beaut?

Southern Europeans derive over 50-55% of their ancestry from Neolithic farming populations who migrated to Europe from Anatolia (Turkey). Northern Europeans also descend in part from ancient Anatolian farmers, but that ancestry is more diluted among them (less than 40%).

Modern Middle Easterners come almost entirely from an ancient group of people that researchers of ancient human DNA call Basal Eurasians, from whom Neolithic Anatolian farmers descend. Hence the link between the Middle East and Europe, especially South Europe.

In addition, there likely was a fair amount of admixture in pre-Christian times between the western side of the Middle East (ie, Turkey and the Levant) and certain parts of Southeast Europe, especially Greece and Sicily.

R18 not quite. Italians have some Celtic and Germanic genetics . The region of Lombardy gets its name from The Lombards who are originally from Scandinavia.

Western Anatolian Turks have more Greek,Serbian,Albanian and Circassians genes than do central and eastern Turks who look less European and more Asian.

R23 Spain had an 800 year Muslim occupation which affected the genes of Spain quite a bit. The Spanish might want to look over that period but history cannot forget it.

[quote]Spain had an 800 year Muslim occupation which affected the genes of Spain quite a bit.

Um, no. Spain has some DNA from North Africa, at 2-3% of their total ancestry. It's higher in Portugal, at around 4-7% DNA. In any case, these are hardly big numbers.

In addition, we don't know if these genes came with Muslims. There's some evidence that North African genes have been in Iberia since the Bronze Age, though at lower levels than today.

Arabs invaded Portugal and Spain in 711 and stayed for 700 years. About 10% of Spaniards have Arab genes.

Same thing happened with Greece and the Ottomans. Many Greeks fled to Italy though, they took their books with them which kick started the Renaissance.

Overly hirsute

Mediterranean peoples look similarly, there is a range of the Greeks. I have light brown hair and fair skin, while my two brothers have dark hair and tan like a dream. Our uncle is a red head, so was my grandma, some of my cousins are blond. One of our other uncles always called his daughter and my brothers the “gypsy children” cause they’re a bit darker you see.

I agree with the people here who say they don’t, but they share some common features with people who live all around the perimeter of the Mediterranean, and that makes sense since Ancient Greece had colonies all around the Mediterranean. I am guessing it’s not coincidence that people in from Spain and southern France, North Africa, Italy all the way over to Asia Minor resemble one another in a way that you could call “Mediterranean” or “swarthy,” etc. Choose an identifyer/epithet and it applies because they were interrelated and frankly all they had to do was paddle across a small sea to get to what we now consider to be different nations and continents. You have to think in terms of how they were organized then, not now, and then it’s clear why Mediterranean people share similar traits.

Fuck yes r1 , r8 , they do look like Turks. My Greek ex bf hated it when I pointed that fact out to him. He looked just like the Turkish exchange students who came to my school.

Although, interestingly , we now have a Turkish student who looks extremely Irish/Scottish, with carrot orange hair, freckles, and blushing pink skin. Geh vays.

OP's guy ... Mmmmmmm.

Would you believe there are people who look INDIAN and speak with English accents, and people who look east AFRICAN from Saudi Arabia??! Because, you know, people move around.

R15 Have you seen Sicilians? They vary in looks but that classic Phoenician/Semitic look you see in Sicilians can be seen in Jews and Lebanese.

R32 You really need to do some research.Western Turks look Greek because many of them were originally Greeks and other Europeans who converted to Islam during the time of the Ottoman Empire. The first child was taken/kidnapped from Christian families and made into Janissaries in the Ottoman Army. The Sultans married Christian women. And poorer Christians converted to Islam to avoid paying the heavy taxes against them. The people who became Greeks were very inbred during the Ottoman Empire along with Jews and Armenians.

Vat, vas you dere, R9?!

OP, your pic is what I looked like at 30, wow. I am of Spanish and Mexican descent. There has to be some Spanish in that guy's pic, no?

Why do so many creators of these threads sound like uneducated, racist, American morons?

Ancient Greeks were fair, many were blue-eyed with light hair. Modern Greeks have a lot of Turkish blood.

R40 That is what many Greek families have been told through the ages, similarly as Polish families have been told there is much Turkish blood. The DNA studies do not affirm these beliefs or mythology. Read the link @ R13.

[quote]Why do so many creators of these threads sound like uneducated, racist, American morons?

Because that's exactly what they are.

People who aren't very cosmopolitan label many people as Arabs who are not. The entire Mediterranean culture including North Africa have many ethnicities that are not "Arab".

As Whoopi Goldberg has said to Joy Behar countless times, Sicily is just one quick paddle away from north Africa. Mediterranean people are not easily differentiated by today’s national borders.

And that would be modern day Tunisia, which was both Greek and Roman, and which has Berbers, who are arguably not Arab.

I too had a crush on Cat Stevens.

I would NOT look toward Ms.Goldberg for any authority on DNA or genealogy R44. Her ignorance of her own legacy and heritage is available for all the world to see @PBS.com, for those who missed that episode of [italic] Finding Your Roots [/italic] .

I saw some documentaries 2 years ago about Moorish Spain. They had a long interview with a charming old Spanish grandee in her beautiful palace. She got interested in family history and in her own family's archives in that palace traced it back to discover they were not "European" at all and in fact muslim African aristocrats who had covered to Catholicism. Family secret for hundreds of years.

That sounds like a fascinating personal history R48. I wish you could recall the title. I love stories like that. It reminds me of stories of so many conversos or crypto-Jews in Spain.

I'll try to retrace it this weekend and report back. There needs to be more documentaries about Mediterranean history because average Joe Christians Jews and Muslims could stand to calm down and put things into longer perspective.

Cheers R50. I'm drawn to Spain's culture and history, and have learned Spanish so it really hits a trifecta of interests for me. I especially love the Arabesque and Moorish design in Spain too.

r17 You should learn more about Greek history, particularly the Peloponnesian War and the multiple occupations by Persia. That influences the characteristics of modern Greeks.

R40 Wrong Many Turks have Greek blood but not the other way around. During the time of the Ottoman Empire, Greeks and Armenians stayed in their own community unless their children were kidnapped(like in the case of the architect,Sinan), they were forcibly converted or converted because of high taxes levied against Christians.

R52 It didn't have any effect at all.

Northern Africa, Middle East and the Mediterranean countries were always invading, raping, pillaging and taking slaves. All that fucking made them look alike (probably some Scandinavian Viking semen in there, too).

Personally, I consider myself a Levantine Greek

Could someone answer the truly important question of who is the guy in the OP’s picture

r53 Thank you! About time somebody corrected that. Most of Turkey was originally Greek colonies (hello, Troy, Sidon, Ephesus)

Macedonians are what Greeks used to look like.

r58 There's no genetic basis for that statement, but thanks for playing

Macedonians were relatively untouched genetically during the Ottoman Empire, same with Hungarians and Romanians.

Africa starts at the Pyrenees...old English saying.

DNA doesn't lie. There is not enough "supporting evidence" amongst the SNP's to prove any of this mythological admixture. If the mixing happened in an appreciable amount, the evidence would be there, like the earlier Turkish and Middle-Eastern admixture from the early farmers.

r61 Northern Italians say "Africa starts in Naples."

Norman Mao

Norman Mao? Who’s he?

I HEAR THEY ALL HAVE BIG BEAUTIFUL WEINERS! ARABS TURKS GREEKS AND ITALIANS. CLEAN AND SO POLITE THEY SAY.

They all definitely cornered the field and study of Architecture! The rest of the world merely copied or distilled their designs/creations.

R58 The Republic of Macedonia folk are Albanian and Slavic not Hellenic at all. There are fair haired and light eyed people in Greece especially Northern Greece. The Ionian Islands were ruled by Venice and colonists came from Northern Italy. so you will see that look in The Ionian Islands as well

R63 To start when Italy unified, The Northern Italians took most if not all the money from The Kingdom Of Naples/Two Sicilies. According to Goethe, Naples was far better than Rome. Thanks to Northern Italians, The former Kingdom of Naples/Two Sicilies area known as Southern Italy became more impoverished than it was thanks to Garibaldi who was from Nice! Not to mention that Garibaldi committed genocide in Southern Italy as well. So does Germany/Nazis start at Florence then?!

R60 Once again the so-called Macedonians are of Bulgarian and Albanian stock not Hellenic. The Ancient Macedonians spoke a Greek language.

I thought Northern Italians consider anything south of Rome suspect?

Funny how the Macedonians, Romanians and Hungarians didn't get a lot of Turkish blood during Ottoman rule.

R38, you must have pulled in a lot of tail.

FFS r63 they were only doing what everybody else in the entire world was doing at the time. Conquering, pillaging etc. It was a whole different time. And you didn't address r61.

Whoops I meant r69.

Well, it's all Greek to me!

Look at the history of the place. Mediterranean trade, wars, slavery, invasions, multiple empires, time and time again.

A veritable melting pot of races and genes that makes NYC look like the teddy bears picnic.

R40 is spreading old timey white supremicist rhetoric. That’s what the northern Euros starting spewing at some point. Why would a Mediterranean people be so fair? The sun shines nearly every day in Greece. They wouldn’t be suited to the climate. There is no evidence that the ancients were overwhelmingly fair (of course there were some, as today, for example Alexander the Great and Achilles are referred to as blond or tawny), look at some urns for clues as to what the ancients looked like.

You're in Cairo, not Athens. Turn your GPS off and on again.

R71 They do, and everyone else should as well. Mt Vesuvius had the right idea about southern Italy. It's Italy's armpit.

Naples is the Compton of Italy. Total shithole.

R74 This happened in the 19th century during the unification of Italy NOT 1000 years ago. Go learn some history THEN post something substantial!

R80 You are such a fool. Have you been there? The city is not nice(it is very gritty like parts of NYC) but the people are great. Campania is really a nice part of Italy.

R81 Bad analogy. Naples has a lot of historical buildings that have potential.The region of Campania is really beautiful. It might be the Bronx with palm tress but even that is an exaggeration. American shitholes like Compton, Detroit are absolutely embarrassing eyesores.

[quote]This happened in the 19th century during the unification of Italy NOT 1000 years ago. Go learn some history THEN post something substantial!

lol no, that shit wasn't happening in the 19th century. Nope. Not at all. Again, it was a different world.

Factor in trade routes and their ports while researching the Normans ruling Sicily at one time.

We all really got around, didn't we?

Some really astute comments above.

R60 Hungary is/was loaded with gypsies and jews. That old Austria-Hungary empire was so mixed. The fairly recent find of a burial cache of Mongolian female warriors in Hungary adds to the ongoing history. DNA results of the population are now showing every stripe being in the mix there.

There is a shocking dearth of Greek and Arab dick pics on this thread.

And still no reveal of who the beauty in the OP post picture is.

Once in Athens I ended up screwing a chatty cabbie who picked me up for a ride. He had a beautiful face with light green eyes, jet black hair. He looked at me through the rear view mirror the entire way, and as we arrived at my destination, he asked me how he would see me again. Too cute.

Did he see you again.

Why do so many Lower Primates Look Like The OP?

Cat Stevens is only half Greek.

I saw him once more. He took me to an outdoor bar overlooking the Saronic gulf, which led to climbing down a cliff for skinny dipping and sex.

Afterwards, he told me he was married.

And broke your heart. Size verificatia?

Even so R91, Swedish mixed with Greek is a nice zesty combo, no? Sad he was really never quite the same after the TB. Same thing happens to older victims of mono too. Cat Stevens rocks, and he had the most dreamy bedroom eyes when he was younger.

Oh shit R88 I’m pretty sure that happened to my best friend when she was visiting family in Greece. Island romance but......MARRIED.

Sorry, that sucks

Shutterstock calls this picture of that model Italian.

[quote] Beautiful young Italian man is looking.

Mediterranean goodness. Whatever.

Ethnic groups who live in the same climate zone (for ages and ages of evolution) start to look similar, whether they’re closely related or not. Greece and Turkey are in one climate zone = their people will evolve to look similar, regardless of close blood links.

Duh.

R83 Are you stoned? Italy unified in the 1870s. Go to the history of glory holes thread and post your expansive knowledge about them there!

R91 He is half Greek Cypriot. Their genetics are very interesting. They are close genetically to Turkish Cypriots. Who are descended mostly from Greek Cypriots and Venetians that converted to Islam.

Lainie Kazan from My Big Fat Greek Wedding is actually a Sephardic Jew.

r99 it was referring to territorial warfare, not unification.

R100, George Michael was also only half-Greek Cypriot, but it was obviously the more potent half.