History of the Republic of Venice of the Sea" ceremony was established in this period. Orseolo died in 1008. Venice's control over the Adriatic was strengthened by an expedition by Pietro's son Ottone in 1017, by which time Venice had assumed a key role in balancing power between the Byzantine and Holy Roman Empires. During the long Investiture Controversy, an 11th-century dispute between Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor and Pope Gregory VII over who would control appointments of church officials, Venice remained neutral, and this caused some attrition of support from the Popes. Doge Domenico Selvo intervened in the war between the Normans of Apulia and
Gulf of Suez Rift the area now occupied by the rift was a shallow sea depositing carbonates. This period was mainly quiet tectonically but the northern part of the gulf region was affected by periodic far-field effects of the Alpine orogeny. A series of WSW-ENE trending extensional basins were inverted, creating isolated uplifted and folded areas known as 'Syrian arc' structures. These structures were mainly active during the Late Santonian but there is evidence of further movements on the same structures at the end of the Cretaceous and during the Paleogene. Rifting began along the whole of the Red Sea -Gulf of Suez rift