Pontic eagle
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The Pontic eagle is the primary ethnic symbol of the Pontic Greeks, also called Pontian Greeks. The bird has spread wings and looks to the side. The eagle appears on proposed Pontic Greek ethnic flags, and many Pontic organizations use it as part of their logo.
An eagle with spread wings, looking over its left shoulder, has been a symbol in the Pontus since at least 200 BCE. Pontic historian Sam Topalidis posits that the double-headed eagle emerged as a symbol in ancient Mesopotamia and came to ancient Anatolia with Assyrian merchants. It was later used as by the Hittites, Armenians, and Persians.[1] Hittites also used the single-headed eagle in their iconography.[2]
Coins depicting eagles found in Olbia, an ancient Greek colony in what is now Ukraine, have been dated to c. 350-330 BCE.[3] Greek burial mounds on the Taman Peninsula in modern Russia also contain depictions of eagles. These date to the 400s BCE.[4]
Coins minted in Sinope, one of the earliest Pontic Greek settlements, depict eagles as early as 330 BCE.[2] The eagle with its head turned and wings spread appears on the coins of Sinope between 300 and 200 BCE.[2] The eagle was also an ancient Roman symbol (aquila) and, later, a Byzantine symbol. The double-headed eagle appears in Byzantine art in the 900s or 1000s.[1] Historian George Finlay saw a portrait of Manuel I Komnenos in the Hagia Sophia, Trabzon; Finlay said "his robes are adorned...with two rows of single-headed eagles on circular medallions." The portrait is now lost. Finlay also saw the St. Gregory of Nyssa Church in Trebizond, now destroyed, and took note of the art on the walls. Paintings in the church depicted an emperor and empress; the empress' robes had double-headed eagles, while the emperor's robes had single-headed eagles.[2]
The eagle was later used as an imperial symbol in the Empire of Trebizond, a medieval kingdom of the Pontos region. Single-headed eagles appeared in city architecture in Trebizond in the 1200s. Emperors and empresses of the Empire of Trebizond were depicted with single- or double-headed eagles on their clothes. For example, Theodora Kantakouzene, the empress during the reign of Alexios III, was depicted with double-headed eagles on her robes.[2]
