Sicily Greeks, Lombards, and Normans worked together to form a society that historians have said created some of the most extraordinary buildings that the world has ever seen. Palermo continued on as the capital under the Normans. Roger's son Roger II of Sicily succeeded his brother Simon of Sicily as Count of Sicily, and was ultimately able to raise the status of the island to a kingdom in 1130, along with his other holdings, which included the Maltese Islands and the Duchies of Apulia and Calabria. He appointed the powerful Greek George of Antioch to be his "emir of emirs" and
History of the Jews in Sicily in Sicily." In the late ancient period the predominantly spoken language of the Jewish (and non-Jewish) population of Sicily has been the Greek language. When Greek was the main language in Jewish inscriptions, as was the case with Jewish inscriptions from Sicily, Greek names, which were locally common, appear in significant numbers in Jewish inscriptions. Still after the Muslim conquest of the island, the use of the Greek language and the ties of the Sicilian Jews to the Byzantine Empire, its economy and its Jewish communities continued to function under the new circumstances. Through these Byzantine(-Jewish) connections, the Synagogue liturgy